Vintage baiduhai: Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and the rise of newspaper comics
In 1924, a man named Harold Gray walked into the offices of Joseph Medill Patterson, the co-editor of the baiduhai and the co-editor, publisher and founder of the New...
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Diary of Our City: Tribune celebrates 175 years of Chicago stories
A newspaper is not, of course, a living thing. It is, by its humblest definition, ink on paper, and that is the way it has been for a very long...
From canoes to skyscrapers: A newspaper is born, and Chicago is catapulted to the world’s stage
Imagine yourself walking the muddy streets of Chicago in June of 1847. If you had 3 cents in your pocket to spare you might have spent it to buy the...
Dennis DeYoung’s ‘Hunchback’ comes back to musical life in Milwaukee’s Skylight Theater
The long and winding and wildly successful if slightly bumpy road that has been the life of Dennis DeYoung found him one recent morning on the fourth floor of the...
Champ Clark has a new noir novel and a play about Marlon Brando’s son — and his own life is quite a story
The life of Champ Clark, though far from finished and about to have a creative moment this summer, would make a terrific book. We were recently talking about his second...
Author, disability activist and actor Susan Nussbaum dies, after a career of pushing boundaries
In person, on stage or on the page, Susan Nussbaum was a delight, a ferociously talented actor, writer and passionate disability activist. She could be, when appropriate, deadly serious, but...
Steve Ross, director of Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester Fisher Center for Apes, dies
A few years ago, Steve Ross was sitting in his office at Lincoln Park Zoo. He was talking to a reporter, explaining with his distinctive brand of passionate accessibility the...
Chicago music promoter Jam Productions partners with Los Angeles-based company
Chicago concert promoter Jam Productions has partnered with a Los Angeles-based investment group. Jam, which operates venues such as the Vic Theatre, the Riviera Theatre and Park West in Chicago,...
Take a walk through The Alley, a brand new nightclub behind Carnivale with music and good vibes
The clock moving into late evening, conversation at the table was peppered with the past, with the names of nightclubs long gone — Gold Star Sardine Bar, Pepper's Lounge, Earl...
Stephen Wade, that ‘Banjo Dancing’ man, is coming home to Chicago and reflects on life and music
Over the years, I have written about Stephen Wade whenever he returned to Chicago. But when talking to him a few days ago from the home he has shared for...