Newcity

I get the sense that Last Fantastic Nasty are still in that “figuring who we are” phase, where you’ve realized you can get attention by shocking people, but you start thinking long and hard about whether or not you want to. And they do have the musical chops to do well: the songs are metallic and complicated and compelling, even if the lyrics feel like the last gasp of toxic masculinity in the #MeToo era.

No amount of frosting can sweeten the bitter aftertaste of this Midwest premiere at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble.

Marriott Theatre whips fresh wind into Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic.

This wrenching, rarely-performed drama from William Inge gets a stirring revival at Eclipse Theatre Company.

Working within the history and discursive space of portraiture, Sepuya visualizes queer intimacies, uses photographic equipment as signifiers and the space and function of the studio to ask questions about who we are and what makes it so.

Aque infuses sterile and utilitarian objects with quiet, intimate labors of love that meditate on romantic and unresolved relationships forced to operate in obfuscation.

This music/theater hybrid from A Red Orchid takes some creative risks but reinforces some tired stereotypes in the process.

Aries: Sometimes the original idea or the early model or the first try is better.

An exhibition in Milwaukee places a series of paintings by the beloved American artist Winslow Homer in the company of work by his English contemporaries.

This wild world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company sees no separation between tail and dog when it comes to wagging.

While the United States considers a trade war with China and a return to negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, paintings by sixteen artists from the region demonstrate the diversity of Southeast Asia's artistic expressions.

This magical production from Adventure Stage Chicago follows its twin protagonists on a journey of self-discovery through their personal and cultural histories.

You think to yourself, “Who do I love? I want to bring them here.”

A hundred years of advertisements are stripped of their slogans to reveal the racial and sexist biases underneath.

This immersive and site-specific work from Nothing Without a Company explores the persuasive, cultish appeal of corporate branding.

Wine times among friends in fine Gallic comic appellation.

How to demonstrate the torrid depths of that marvelous, menacing slipstream through image and sound, through music and modern mayhem?

Remounted little more than a year later, Ike Holter's play has lost none of its bite with this production at 16th Street Theater.

The suspense-free structure does not click.

This could be the last chance to catch indie contender Meghan Remy at a midsize club like the Bottle, as her growing buzz and sound will inevitably bring her to larger venues.

Three women painters paint as they have always done, and yet we still call it a show of "women painters."

“There will be a heavenly castle; there is a holy grail; there did fall golden apples.”

Aries: Did Thomas Jefferson procure the French recipe for macaroni and cheese while living in France?

"No noise, but silence and eternal sleep." “Titus Andronicus,” William Shakespeare.

"When the numbers change, so does the woman."

An impressive show of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by a Native artist who treated subjects from Native American mythologies as well as themes of abstraction and more recognizably western iconography.

Trolls, psychedelics and witty performance make light of the internet's anonymous legions.

The man born Eric Goulden continued to follow his singular musical muse, releasing albums of new material every few years. Early 2018 welcomed the latest Wreckless Eric album, “Construction Time & Demolition.” And while forty-plus years after his debut single, Eric hasn't left his punk roots behind, his latest album remains true to the Class of 1977 DIY ethos

The chair tells the history of modern design and the exhibition examines its evolution in America.

Delirious precision, devious nightmare.

Aries: On the early stages of a new project, be scrupulous and adroit so that you will sail on to the next stages.

Poems published in journals today have double work to do. Because the gatekeepers are changing and the landscape is changing and the idea that social status and pedigree holding space for mediocrity is no longer accepted. So yeah, good luck on reading that incredibly tight and creatively dead piece of art—we'll see whose soul it saves.

"The communal experience of watching works of art about real people makes a huge difference in how we experience a film.”

Spring is coming soon and a sailing winemaker dinner, oyster how-to and rum festival will help kick it into gear.

A graphic novelist kicks it off with some great events in April.

Fashion, flowers and the influence of Mexico on the Chicago design scene.

This ferociously gifted twenty-three-year-old British singer-songwriter-rapper King Krule has pulled, from the postmillennial media onslaught, a gorgeous sonic arsenal.

The landscape of a career.

The anti-"Matrix."

Stanley Tucci again defines an artist's process.