Chicago Lifestyle Podcast & Video Blog
I had an opportunity to “bond” with spy movie expert Tom Pizzato at the press opening for the new 007 Science: Inventing the World of James running through April 2025. The museum has partnered with Eon Productions who own the rights to all things Bond …
Chicago was a major influence during the silent film era producing movies with huge stars like Charlie Chaplin, Edna Mayo, and Max Linder, and the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods were the very epicenters. Essanay Studios was located at 1333-45 W. Argyle Street (just east of Clark Street) …
This film hits all the right notes. Physically debilitated due to a childhood injury inflicted by his mentally impaired father, an aspiring pianist is virtually paralyzed on one side of his body and unable to use his right hand.
In spite of his challenges, Norman Malone, followed his passion to teach music in a Chicago High School and in retirement fulfills a lifelong dream to master Ravel’s “Concerto for left hand” then play it in front of an audience with a full orchestra for the first time at age 79.
[Originally reviewed as part of the 2021 Chicago International Film Festival].
“For the Left Hand,” an inspiring documentary is available for rent or purchase at Amazon.
Music Theater Works’ 45th Season Begins with the Frank Loesser Classic, GUYS and DOLLS directed by Sasha Gerritson, Choreographed by Clayton Cross and Music Directed by Linda Madonia This season kicks off with what many believe is the “perfect musical” with every song in its …
March is National Reading Month and National Women’s History Month. Let’s investigate some Chicago Women who have left a mark on our local history and on the world stage. ChicagoBroadcastingNetwork.com encourages you to investigate the lives and works of many notable Chicago women especially a …
On a macro level the primary themes of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler are morality and propriety. On an individual level we find manipulation and despair.
Hedda Gabler is the self-absorbed, only daughter of a military officer who has an overblown grandiose sense of her own importance, and a lack of empathy for others. She feels trapped in a world of bourgeois values full of expectations she cannot control. It is her perception that the men around her seem to enjoy much more freedom to pursue their own public and private interests with less scrutiny and fewer consequences.
Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” directed by Monica Payne is presented by Artistic Home at The Den Theater 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago through March 30, 2025. Tickets are available at thedentheatre.com or by phone at 773-697-3830. More information at www.theartistichome.org
Cast:
Hedda Gabler – Brookelyn Hebert
Ejlert Lovborg – Dan Evashevsi
Jorge Tesman – Todd Wojcik
Thea Elvsted – Ariana Lopez
Judge Brack – John Mossman
Aunt Julie – Lynne Baker
Berte – Laura Coleman
Thanks to new subscribers Dan Roe; Brian Kille, BK Creative, thebkcreative.com and D.M. Pirrone author of Chicago based historical mysteries.
Edvard Grieg “Cradle Song” played by Julie Lovison, The Lake Shore Music Studio – Chicago.
A sparsely furnished motel room dominates the stage. Along the perimeter an empty swimming pool, an imposing neon MOTEL sign, a massive telephone pole and bits of scrub grass suggest this is essentially the bottom of the barrel in the middle of nowhere somewhere at …
What do you know about Richard Hunt and his Monument to Ida B. Wells? How about Madison Hemings the son of Thomas Jefferson? Do you know much about the practice of “redlining” and how it kept people segregated and denied Black Americans the ability to …
In this hilarious musical riff on Romeo and Juliet by Mark Saltzman directed by Bernard Rice at the Skokie Theatre, Romeo has awakened from a 400-year slumber to find his beloved Juliet long turned to dust.
Instead, he finds a teenaged American tourist Bernadette Penza whose mother Camille has brought the family to Italy to get in touch with her Veronese roots. Camille is a descendent of Juliet’s family and Bernadette the very image of Romeo’s lost love.
In a desperate attempt to be reunited with her, Romeo follows the family back to Brooklyn finding himself embroiled in a mob family feud.
Romeo and Bernadette presented by MadKap Productions is at the Skokie Theatre, 7924 Lincoln Ave., Skokie through Mar 2, 2025. Runtime is a little over two hours with one intermission. Tickets can be purchased online at SkokieTheatre.org or by calling 847-677-7761.
CAST
Usher / Enzo Aliria …………………………………Devon Desmond
Brooklyn Guy / Dino Del Canto…………………. Elijah McTiernan
Brooklyn Girl / Donna Dubacek………………………… Jamie Todd
Romeo ……………………………………………………….Tyler Lord
Bernadette Penza ……………………………..Megan Mariko Boggs
Sal Penza ……………………………………………… Alex Iacobucci
Camille Penza ……………………………Gretchen Wood Kimmeth
Lips …………………………………………………Dominique Ruffalo
Tito Titone…………………………………………….Denis Vorobyev
Multiple Character Man ……………………………… Luis Del Valle
Don Del Canto ………………………………………Devon Desmond
Links:
Paul Minnihan painting services www.minnihanpainting.com
Iris Waichler author of the award winning book, Role Reversal – How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents available wherever you like to buy books. Marketing and video services available at RenoWeb.net
Julie Lovison, Director of The Lake Shore Music Studio plays Mattineta by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
What are you willing to sacrifice to be the light in someone else’s life? This story by Chicago-based playwright Reina Hardy is partly about getting in touch with our better nature, rejecting a poor self-image, overcoming your own self-doubts and negative inner dialog and indeed …
Holidays have a unique way of punctuating our lives. Through this activity we assess alliances, trade information, and mark the passage of time. In The Long Christmas Dinner written by Thorton Wilder, presented by TUTA Theatre in Chicago we join an affluent Midwestern family, sometime …
Mike Royko was an outspoken Chicago journalist, who in the 1960s through 1990s railed against the political machine and championed the cause of the underdog with the same zeal he displayed toward his beloved Chicago Cubbies.
Mitchell Bisschop’s roughly two-hour performance as Royko serves as a reminiscence for those of a certain age, and as an entertaining summary of our recent history for those of a younger generation who might not have first-hand familiarity with events related to the quickly fading recent past.
This is some observations of the person as well as a podcast theater review of the one-man show ROYKO: The Toughest Man in Chicago playing at the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park.
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