Billing itself as a farm-to-fable tale, “Shucked” reminds audiences that it’s OK to have a great time at the theater. It has hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt songs to go along with the bushels of cornball humor.

If you’ve never been to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, now is an opportune time to go on a cultural expedition. The museum’s third floor gallery is currently filled with “beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now.”

If you’ve made it to 2025, make a resolution to take a leap and dive deep into the cultural pool of Chicago. Here are a few ideas to start the year with a splash.

WTTW News interviewed Steve Albini on Aug. 30, 2001, for the “Artbeat Chicago” series. He was 39 years old and already a legend. As a recording engineer, he had recorded Nirvana, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the Breeders, the Pixies and PJ Harvey. As a musician, he made his mark with the bands Big Black and Shellac.

On Aug. 30, 2001, Steve Albini was 39 years old and already a legend. As a recording engineer, he had recorded Nirvana, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the Breeders, the Pixies and PJ Harvey. As a musician, he made his mark with the bands Big Black and Shellac.

Each week, WTTW News arts correspondent Marc Vitali highlights the city’s can’t-miss cultural events. May your holidays be joyful and artful!

The holidays are hectic, so why not go eclectic? Here’s a wide-ranging shortlist of good bets for seasonal art, culture and discovery.

After you’ve experienced Joffrey Ballet’s Chicago-style “The Nutcracker” and the Goodman Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol” multiple times… what to do? Here are five solid ideas — some reverent and timely, some not so much.

In “Art and Faith of the Crèche,” creed and creativity go together like Christmas and cookies, but you don’t have to be a believer to appreciate the beauty of the nativity sets on display at Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA).

This weekend brings an ensemble of enticing musical choices, and it’s not just holiday songs and show tunes. OK, much of it is, but the hardest part will be deciding what to see — and hear.

Brighten your Black Friday – and Saturday and Sunday – by taking part in a communal experience in the arts. Here are five picks. 

“Letters Beyond Form: Chicago Types” is a modestly scaled but ambitious exhibition currently occupying the Design Museum of Chicago on Randolph Street across from the Chicago Cultural Center.

“The idea was to provide this experience of being like a scuba diver — you come in and you’re at the bottom of the lake looking up,” artist David Franklin said. “Then you rise up through the fish into that Grand Hall, which is so fantastic. It had to hold up to that standard.”

Mariam Paré is part of a small community of people who paint with their mouths or feet. Paré was an aspiring art student when a 1996 shooting left her quadriplegic. “I wasn’t ready to change everything that I wanted to be,” Paré said.

If plays were read as commonly as books, “Rhinoceros” would have been banned long ago in those countries that ban books. Imagine such places! First staged in 1959, it was written by the Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco and has become a classic of the theater of the absurd.

“Chicago in Color,” is a modestly-scaled gem with many facets of lively color. There are views of familiar places seen through fresh eyes, but the book’s strength lies in the smallest of details: minimalist compositions of nature or infrastructure linked by a colorful photographic palette.