Steve Knopper

"Go climb the Hancock Center!" sounds more like a kiss-off than a contest. But it's actually a competition for charity, in which thousands of people scale 94 floors, or 1,000...

Few artists can combine the flash of Liberace with the warmth of a Hawaiian luau, but then again few artists are Matt Yee. This unique singer and recording artist wraps...

Hal Roach learned to play piano on a piece of cardboard, because his father was a Mississippi church choir director and wouldn't let him learn non-spiritual music. When the Ku...

Few art festivals stretch to encompass both the jazz of Louis Armstrong's and Bix Beiderbecke's and prose about '80s skinheads. But diversity is one great strength of Columbia College, the...

In a move to improve your Friday section, we are starting a new reader-written column called My Chicago. In it, we want you to tell us about a place, space...

Any schmoe with arm muscles can swing from a trapeze in mid-air. It takes a real acrobat to pull off a handstand atop a stack of seven chairs, four brandy...

Carey Bell, Lazy Lester, Raful Neal and Snooky Pryor Superharps II (Telarc) The follow-up to last year's Grammy-nominated harmonica summit doesn't have quite the star power of James Cotton or...

The Cherry Poppin' Daddies/Squirrel Nut Zippers thing slipped into the Fad Graveyard months ago, but people keep dancing in ballrooms. "Forever Swing," a musical revue built around the fictitious Tommy...

We hear Mark Burnett, creator of "Survivor," founder of the Eco-Challenge Expedition Race and a featured speaker at next weekend's International Adventure Travel and Outdoor Sports Show, really likes it...

The summer street fest season may seem ages away during these gray days but the Chicago Historical Society will try to bring that vibe indoors Saturday with its Neighborhood Indoor...