Arts & Entertainment
We revisit Jay Shefsky's profile of Chicago's sled hockey team -- that's the hard-hitting, fast-paced sport played by amputees and others with lower limb disabilities. Read an article and watch a web extra video.
Chicago Sun-Times Theater Critic Hedy Weiss joins us to review shows currently on Chicago area stages, including Other People’s Money by Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit, The Mountaintop at Court Theatre, and In the Heights at The Paramount Theatre. For our online audience, Weiss will also review A Raisin in the Sun at TimeLine Theatre. Learn more about the plays, and watch Hedy's web extra video review.
We revisit a story about a pair of artists who met, married and lived at Jane Addams’ Hull House during the Depression era. Their works are currently on view at the Koehnline Museum on the campus of Oakton Community College in Des Plaines. Read an interview and view a slideshow.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses, churches and museums, but the great Prairie architect also designed a book or two. The most significant was called The House Beautiful. Only 90 copies of The House Beautiful were printed, and fewer than 30 are accounted for. Read the Artbeat blog.
What are some of the finest story songs by Chicago songwriters? Read the Artbeat blog.
Veteran sportswriter Ron Rapoport releases his new book this week, From Black Sox to Three-Peats: A Century of Chicago’s Best Sportswriting from the Tribune, Sun-Times, & Other Newspapers. Read an excerpt.
Did Eric Clapton perform in a Skokie parking lot in 1969?
1969 was a pivotal point in Eric Clapton's career. Cream had broken up the previous year, and the 24-year-old Clapton was now part of the super-group Blind Faith, which would dissolve within months. But not before Clapton did a surprise show in Skokie, Illinois.
A fired-up Chicago Bears team takes down the Minnesota Vikings. James "Big Cat" Williams gives us his perspective on yet another fourth quarter comeback. Watch a web extra video.
Mark your calendars for October 17 to witness a painting that is as gruesome as it is great.
Welcome to Artbeat, Chicago Tonight’s blog on arts & culture. It’s a privilege to be the curator and share my enthusiasms, but this is a two-way street: help me out, and I’ll return the favor.
Oktoberfest, model sailboats, and a Day of the Dead exhibit; Chicago Tonight knows what's going on this weekend.
Newer suburban theaters may attract more critical attention, but if slow-and-steady wins the race, The Theatre of Western Springs (TWS), established in 1929, slaughters the competition. This year, they celebrate their 85th season and 500th production with a solid staging of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut's mordant tale of a World War 2 veteran "unstuck in time."
We get a backstage tour of the newest theater in town – the architecturally significant Theatre School of DePaul University. Read an interview and view a photo gallery.
More than 7 billion people inhabit the earth today, consuming huge amounts of natural resources and altering the face of our planet. When we exceed the current global population, then what? Author Stephen Emmott joins us to discuss his new book, 10 Billion. View graphics of global natural resource consumption.
You might remember her as the devilish Vera on Downton Abbey. But Irish singer, songwriter, and actress Maria Doyle Kennedy also has a heavenly singing voice. We revisit a conversation and performance with Kennedy.