Just how did Chicago wind up with 50 wards and 50 aldermen? Geoffrey Baer does the math in this edition of Ask Geoffrey. And: five fast facts about Chicago mayors past.

This feverishly verbal play, now receiving its world premiere at Lookingglass Theatre, poses some epic, cosmic questions while capturing the more familiar aspects of family relationships and identity crises. But it supplies no answers. 

An icy dip in the lake, film festivals, Mardi Gras pastries and a shopping cart race usher in the weekend. Here are 10 things to do in and around Chicago.

A recently discovered collection of old political buttons may tell us something about the voters of an earlier era.

Memories of jumping rope as a child lures a Chicago woman back to the sport as an adult – and inspires her to start teaching double Dutch to a new generation through her organization Black Girls Jump.

Poet Eric Elshtain is one of the museum’s newest additions, and he represents the institution’s latest effort at using art to change the way visitors interact with nature.

The CSO’s current program features two radically different pieces: American composer William Schuman’s haunting “Symphony No. 9” and Mozart’s glorious “Requiem in D Minor.”

“Twilight Bowl” is a telling depiction of a crucial transitional period in the lives of a cross-section of young women who are at once lost and found in the American heartland.

WTTW captures a family reunion between two cousins. Both from central Illinois, one now calls Chicago home and identifies as “trans-feminine.” The other, an evangelical Christian, stayed downstate and has no experience with the LGBTQ community.

The 91st Academy Awards ceremony takes place Sunday night. We check in with two Chicago film critics ahead of the big night. 

In just a few years, Ron Wilson reintroduced Bowen High School’s wrestling program and turned it into a city and regional powerhouse. Now, Wilson, a special education teacher turned firefighter, continues to lead the Boilermakers. 

Gary Sinise spoke with Chicago Tonight about his new book, “Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service,” his work advocating for veterans and the history of Steppenwolf Theatre. 

Stephanie Alison Walker’s new play serves as a chilling reminder of a particularly horrific period in Argentina’s history when, from 1976 to 1983, that nation was under the thumb of a brutal military dictatorship.

Blooming orchids, an outdoor beer fest and a massive bike ride usher in the weekend. Here are 10 things to do in and around Chicago. 

The beauty of this production goes beyond the absolute glory of Giuseppe Verdi’s impassioned, vocally demanding score. And while the voices are uniformly superb, so is the almost conversational style of acting.

“The emails that were in there were unacceptable and had no place. My father has no direct role or economic interest in the team. That doesn’t represent what this organization is,” Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts said.