Gift of Sandra Schlachtmeyer / Smithsonian Nickel-in-the-slot phones existed in other cities, notably San Francisco, but they were especially prevalent in Chicago. In 1920, almost three-quarters of ...

Journalism told live, on stage, for one night only. This year’s theme is Villains: Stories about what we fear, what we ...

A Spielbergian, feature-length Twilight Zone episode reaffirming the importance of the nuclear family is pretty close to the last thing anyone could have expected from It Follows (2014) and Under the ...

Saigon Jazz Revival reawakens cross-cultural energy by reimagining the jazz of pre-1975 Vietnam through a contemporary lens.

Reed’s productions tend to reflect and benefit the communities in which they take place, and the Sound & Gravity website includes information on where to park your bike and referrals to five ...

Gary Sams could hardly breathe. He had begun experiencing early symptoms of rapidly progressing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive and fatal neurological disease, in April 2024. By ...

Kathy Vega Hardy introduced thousands of Denverites to lumpia, chicken adobo, and bistek Tagalog. She did that from a four burner food cart on the city’s outdoor 16 th Street Mall, after a two week ...

The wisest aspect of Tony—the latest film from Matt Johnson, director of this year’s explosively hilarious Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie—is eliding any attempt at wholly encompassing the late, ...

Director Jane Schoenbrun of I Saw the TV Glow (2024) fame returns equally media-obsessed with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. In it, Hannah Einbinder’s Kris (she/they, 29, poly, likes movies a ...

Stories of Work From the WPA, edited by Anne Trubek, offers a peek into work experiences during the Depression.

What to watch in theaters and at home. Top film, TV, and streaming picks from the Chicago Reader.

Ryn Hardiman in The Complex Whole So Formed at the Neo-Futurist Theater Credit: Justin Lynk Life is different for “a girl with an asterisk.” Someone who doesn’t exist solely in the sphere of one ...