OAKBROOK TERRACE, IL—The band was inconsistent. So was some of the tap dancing, and a couple actors’ French accents sounded, well, more like German. If that sounds harsh, it’s because I wanted to get those things out of the way; they’re the only negative things I can say about “An American in Paris,” playing through March 29 at the Drury…

HIGHLAND PARK, IL—My last trip to the Ravinia Festival was on opening week in early June. It was unseasonably cold and blustery; wind whipped picnic blankets and napkins about. I regretted not bringing a parka. Summer weather was slow to start, and the outdoor oasis’ box office inevitably took a hit during a season that started with a cold and rainy June…

EVANSTON, IL — Downtown Evanston’s Cinemark cinema has not retrofitted its theaters with supersized Lazyboy-style recliners and in-theater “dining experiences” — honestly, it’s just a movie theater, ideal for the Bolshoi in Cinema series, which brings performances by the legendary Russian ballet company to your neighborhood movie house. As I walked into the theater, I was hopeful, actually, that I’d…

EVANSTON, IL — The weather was cold with spitting rain and a swirling wind that no umbrella could fight. But as I crossed the parking lot on campus at Northwestern University’s Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts, a woman walking next to me gleefully reminded me to look at the lake. Even on this terrible day, Evanston’s rocky shore and…

WINNETKA, Ill. — These days, going to high school can be a complicated and tumultuous experience. Far beyond the age-old ups and downs of adolescence, the issues that occupy students today stretch the notion of growing pains in ways that can break down rather than build up the spirit and one’s faith in humanity. In times like these, it is…

EVANSTON, Ill. — Northwestern University’s dance department has presented Danceworks, its annual showcase of contemporary choreography, since the 1980s. A few years ago when Joel Valentín-Martinez took over artistic directorship of the concert, he designed the Danceworks programming as a vehicle to create more choreographic opportunities for faculty whose primary interest was dancemaking, and to create more opportunities for Northwestern students…

It’s not a particularly desirable commute from the city, and public transit doesn’t really go there, but maybe that’s the point. The newly renovated McAninch Arts Center (MAC) is located at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, and boasts a pretty beefy line-up of artists for its 2014 season. Ok, renovation is an understatement. The college put $69 Million into…

Once a thriving small city in the middle of all that corn, Rockford, IL has been hit hard with an economic downturn that has been infamously compared to Detroit and Flint, MI. Add to this a total lack of public transportation from the Chicago metro area, and Rockford is a place that most Chicagoans only pass through on road trips…