The Time Out Chicago blog

Steppenwolf Theatre Company's new season: Baker, Galati, Guirgis, Letts and Norris

Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced five titles for its 2015–16 subscription season, the company's 40th and the last to be chosen by outgoing artistic director Martha Lavey. Among the slate are the highly anticipated Chicago premiere of Annie Baker's Pulitzer Prize winner The Flick, a world premiere by ensemble member Tracy Letts and the Steppenwolf directing debut of ensemble member Bruce Norris, on his own Domesticated. The season opens with Frank Galati's new adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden (September 17–November 15 in the Downstairs Theatre), directed by Terry Kinney. Galati's adaptation of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath famously transferred from Steppenwolf to Broadway in 1990, winning that year's Tony Award for best play. Next in the Downstairs is Norris's Chicago premiere of Domesticated (December 3–February 7), his 2013 dark comedy (aren't they all?) about a disgraced politician and his wronged wife. In the play's premiere at New York's Lincoln Center Theater, the leads were played by Jeff Goldblum and Steppenwolf ensemble member Laurie Metcalf, and the production staged by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro, who takes the reins as Steppenwolf's new artistic director this summer. The Flick (February 4–May 8), Baker's much-talked-about, intentionally languid three-hour portrait of employees at a movie theater, will be staged in the Upstairs Theatre by Dexter Bullard, who memorably directed Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation at Victory Gardens Theat

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Vince Vaughn poses for all your stock photo needs

Chicago-area native Vince Vaughn has been busy as of late. Last weekend, he participated in the Chicago Polar Plunge. This week, he's gearing up for the Friday release of his new movie, Unfinished Business. He carved out some time, however, to pose for some sleek stock photos along with co-stars Tom Wilkinson and the luckiest man on earth Dave Franco. Unfinished Business distributor Twentieth Century Fox paired up with Getty Image's iStock to create these clever promotional pictures.  They're releasing four stills a week for the next three weeks. The first four can be downloaded here. The photos are for "editorial use only," of course.  The pictures poke fun at the inherently cheesy nature of stock photos that are used for anything from brochures to business websites. The business-centric nature ties in with the plot of the movie in which Vaughn plays a small business owner who travels to Europe to close a very important business deal. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that everything does not go as planned.

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Jessie Mueller named Sarah Siddons Society honoree

Chicago's own Jessie Mueller, who won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical last year for playing the title role in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, has been named actress of the year by the Sarah Siddons Society. Mueller will receive the award—given regularly since 1952, inspired by the fictional Sarah Siddons Award in the film All About Eve—at an April 27 event at Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Also appearing will be Tony Award winners and previous Sarah Siddons honorees Heather Headley and Deanna Dunagan, as well as Mueller's entire acting family: her parents, Roger Mueller and Jill Shellabarger, and her siblings Abby, Matthew and Andrew. All four Mueller siblings are expected to perform, as is Headley. Proceeds from the event benefit the Sarah Siddons Society's scholarship fund for theater students at Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, Northwestern University and Roosevelt University. Tickets ($95, students $25) are on sale at beautiful.brownpapertickets.com.

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Pivot Arts Festival announces third annual slate

Pivot Arts will return to the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods this spring with its third annual festival of theater, dance, children's performances and more programming across multiple venues. This year's Pivot Arts Festival, set to run May 28–June 7, currently has confirmed performances and other events by BAATHHAUS, Lizi Breit, Bri-Ko, Pamela Chermansky, Edgewater Workbench, Dean Evans, Ayako Kato, Daniel Kerr-Hobert, Lucky Plush Productions, Jessie Marasa, Neo-Futurists, RE Dance, Tsukasa Taiko and Vanessa Valliere. Also on tap are kids' performances by CircEsteem, Lifeline Theatre, Merry Music Makers, Swift School and Storytown Improv. Confirmed venues for the fest, with tickets ranging from free to $20, include Francesca's Bryn Mawr, Lickity Split Custard and Sweet Shop, Loyola University’s Mundelein Center for the Arts, Granville Avenue, Loyola University’s St. Ignatius Community Plaza and the Uptown Underground. A complete lineup and schedule will be announced shortly, with tickets on sale April 7.

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Farmer's Almanac predicts 'hotter than normal' Chicago summer

There may be hope yet for a sunny conclusion to our winter of discontent. According to Farmer's Almanac, an annual weather periodical published every year since 1818, if we can make it to April, Chicago will be in store for a summer that is "hotter than normal." This is welcome news coming out of a month that tied for the coldest February since 1875. Unfortunately, if the Almanac is to be believed, we first have to survive a March that will be five degrees below average. Although, for what it's worth, the Almanac predicted a "slightly milder than normal" winter in 2014, which of course was a little off the mark. In any case, you've made it this far, Chicago. Before you know it, the only dibs you'll need to worry about are the ice cream kind.

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What to expect when the NFL draft comes to Chicago

For the first time in 50 years, the NFL will host its draft outside of New York. From April 30–May 1, each of the league's 32 teams will head to Chicago to select their next class of concussion patients.  ESPN's Darren Rovell spoke with Peter O'Reilly, the NFL's senior vice president of events, and reported on the plans for the weekend. Here's what he discovered: The Auditorium Theatre will be the primary host: ESPN and NFL Network will both have sets inside the theater, and about 3,000 seats will be made available for fans. Outside, there will be another 3,000 seats in an area called "Selection Square." There is not yet an established plan for how those tickets will be distributed, but they will be free.  Grant Park will turn into a meathead bonanza: Chicago's front lawn will become "Draft-Town" over the weekend, with a "small chalet" for each of the league's 32 teams. Here, attendees will be able to run a 40-yard dash and get autographs from players. ESPN and NFL Network will also have sets in the park, which is sure to lure hundreds of sign-bearing fans desperately trying to be on TV for a few seconds. After doing their required interviews with each network inside the theater, each draftee will come outside for an interview for the crowd in the park. Buckingham Fountain will be lit up in the colors of the team on the clock: It's going to blasphemous to see Chicago's most famous fountain glowing with Packers colors, but it's good to know Buckingham's lights can glow wi

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El stop walking tour: 18th Street Pink Line

Chicago's melting pot gives way to a spectrum of diverse neighborhoods. Even better, CTA riders can benefit from two 25-cent transfers for up to two hours after their initial swipe. To help you spend your quarter and your time wisely, we suggest taking a walking tour from a station. We start in Pilsen, exploring 18th Street in an hour (or so). Take the Pink Line to the 18th Street station, which is about a 15-minute ride from the Loop, and head east.  Take Me Out (8 minutes for carryout) This place stands out for actually having Korean "hotties" instead of Mexican fare. These lollipop style wings—or boneless if you prefer—are covered in amazing sauces. Delicious, especially with the purple taro root rice. Get it to go. 1502 W 18th St. Pilsen Vintage & Thrift (8 minutes for browsing) Just across the street from Knee Deep Vintage, another excellent vintage and thrift store, this shop offers newer designer finds. Each shop offers reasonable prices and a wide selection of housewares, jewelry and more. Take a quick look at the merchandise and continue east. 1430 W 18th St. Birrieria Reyes de Octolan (20 minutes for a sit-down meal) Try it, you'll like it. Get the goat stew (or birria), which comes with homemade salsas, chilis, onions, tomatoes, cheese, cilantro, lime and hot sauce. A pound of meat is easily shared among 3 people. Don't forget the horchata. 1322 W 18th St.Modern Cooperative (8 minutes browsing) Head east for another four blocks for one of Pilsen's best gems. Th

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The slang we used in 2005

As Time Out Chicago marks its tenth anniversary, I thought paging through our earliest issues might give me a sense of the kind of slang we were tossing around a decade ago. And yet nothing lept off the page; what if, I wondered, there were words that were new to us then have become so common as to be unremarkable? With that in mind, I consulted dictionaries, pop charts and Hollywood box-office rankings to recall how we talked in 2005. In one serious sign of the times, blog and podcast both came into their own with the general public around the time we launched as a print magazine (whoops!). Merriam-Webster named blog the word of the year at the end of 2004, while podcast took top honors from the New Oxford American Dictionary for 2005. To have time to read all those blogs and listen to all those podcasts, we all started looking for productivity-boosting life hacks. Sudoku entered the English lexicon and took over our commutes in 2005. The enduring idea of red states and blue states was still fresh, a meme born of the 2004 presidential election. The Colbert Report’s 2005 debut was, in its way, also a product of George W. Bush’s winning a second term, and introduced the doctrine of truthiness to the world. Metrosexual was coined a decade earlier but was at the height of its ubiquity in the mid-aughts, with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in its second season. Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan had made mean girls happen, even if fetch didn’t. Gwen Stefani made hollaback girl a thing

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Broadway in Chicago announces 2015–16 season

Broadway in Chicago today announced its full 2015–16 subscription season, to include the previously announced tour launch of Tony winner A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, a pre-Broadway tryout of the musical Gotta Dance, and new tours of Cabaret, If/Then and Matilda the Musical. Gotta Dance, the precious-sounding based-on-a-true-story of the NBA's first senior-citizen hip-hop dance crew, features a book by Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone) and Chad Beguelin (Aladdin), music by the late EGOT winner Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line) and Tony nominee Matthew Sklar (The Wedding Singer), and lyrics by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde), with direction and choreography by Kinky Boots helmer Jerry Mitchell. It's set to play the Bank of America Theatre December 13–January 17. Gentleman's Guide will play the Bank of America Theatre September 29–October 11. The same venue will be host to the return of Cabaret, hitting the road again with Roundabout Theatre Company's recent remount of Sam Mendes's 1998 production. If/Then, last season's new Broadway tuner from the Next to Normal team of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, will play the Cadillac Palace Theatre February 23–March 6. Matilda the Musical, the kid-friendly British import based on Roald Dahl's characters, will run March 22–April 10 at the Oriental Theatre. The subscription slate, which goes on sale Sunday, March 8, kicks off with a return engagement of the stage adaptation of Dirty Dancing, August 18–30 at the Cadillac Palace. Next

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What you were listening to, watching and gossiping about in 2005

Kanye was already dominating the Web, 50 Cent took us to the candy shop and Tom Cruise lost it. Though it certainly will be forever immortalized as the year of Time Out Chicago's launch, there were plenty of other great things going on in 2005. To celebrate our 10th anniversary today, we're taking a look back at the best of everything in 2005.   RECOMMENDED: More on Time Out Chicago's 10-year anniversary On TVComedy was reborn in 2005 with the near decade–long legend that was The Colbert Report launching alongside The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and How I Met Your Mother.  Though only one is still with us, their legacy lives on inside us ...that's what she said. In musicIn Destiny's Child's farewell year, Mariah Carey took center stage with her best-selling album, The Emancipation of Mimi, slaying pop powerhouses like Gwen Stefani, Ciara, Kelly Clarkson and the Black Eyed Peas for the top spot.     Sufjan Stevens touring his 2005 album, IllinoisJoe Lencioni/Wikimedia commons       Chicago was wrapped in the ever-loving embrace of Sufjan Steven's tender little voice that hurts so good, debuting his top-rated album of the year, Illinois.   In the moviesThe six-year-long slog that was the Star Wars prequel trilogy ended, and though we're not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, it left us all cautious for the sequels slated for release later this year.   Also in '05, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion th

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