Chicago Reader

11/12/2025

The Paper is a useful and nostalgic sitcom, but it will need multiple seasons to reach its potential. https://bit.ly/4hUYoUH

The Paper is a useful and nostalgic sitcom, but it will need multiple seasons to reach its potential.

11/11/2025

Long-running Chicago shows provide opportunities for artists and audiences to imbibe--but there's an art to keeping it from going too far. https://bit.ly/49TrIZI

Long-running Chicago shows provide opportunities for artists and audiences to imbibe—but there's an art to keeping it from going too far.

11/11/2025

First snow may have fallen but these concerts are stilling heating up venues all across town! Check out our recommended shows this week.

11/13 Facing at Empty Bottle https://bit.ly/4p8rPoY

11/14 Pixel Grip at Metro https://bit.ly/4hTYe03

11/14 Rwake at Sleeping Village https://bit.ly/4p5P2Im

11/15 Chad Taylor Quintet at Constellation https://bit.ly/484xfvj

11/16 Danny Brown at The Vic https://bit.ly/4hXLeGH

11/11/2025

The Hallogallo scene has grown up! What was once a teen-oriented scene confined to Chicago has spread out and gotten bigger. Much of the community still calls Chicago a homebase, despite some of its most successful bands like Horsegirl, Friko and Lifeguard branching out to other cities and touring internationally.

“It’s like a headquarters or a clubhouse—or a meeting place where people go to visit and make art,” says Shannon McMahon, an NYU student who makes a zine called My Little Underground. Shannon first made contact with the Hallogallo scene after interviewing Lifeguard during the final Pitchfork Music Festival in 2024.

Senior staff writer Leor Galil spoke to 18 people for this story, recounting Hallogallo’s origins and how it’s changed (and remained the same) in recent years. Read more below!

The Hallogallo scene has produced international successes—Horsegirl, Friko, Lifeguard—as its grassroots DIY spirit spreads beyond Chicago.

11/10/2025

University of Chicago historian Michael Rossi explores the dark history of eugenics in Capturing Kahanamoku. https://bit.ly/4hS2KMh

University of Chicago historian Michael Rossi explores the dark history of eugenics in Capturing Kahanamoku.

11/08/2025

As federal agents deployed to Chicago terrorize, brutalize, and arrest citizens, noncitizens, press, and anyone else they feel like, unhoused people are particularly vulnerable to their violence: heavily criminalized, culturally scapegoated, and with fewer smartphones and eyes to notice or bear witness to their abductions.

The Reader asked the city’s chief homelessness officer, Sendy Soto, and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s press office if they, or anyone else with the city, knew how many unhoused people have been taken from shelters and encampments and whether the presence of ICE impacted any future plans for encampment closures. Neither responded to our inquiries as of press time.

Like housed immigrants in the city, who have been forced to miss work and forgo trips to the grocery store, unhoused Chicagoans have lost access to life-sustaining resources because of the danger posed by ICE and other federal agents. “Being unhoused isn’t a singular condition. It doesn’t exclude you from being a worker, paying taxes, or having the status of being targeted by ICE,” said Adam, a participant in the Latino Union of Chicago’s Adopt a Corner initiative.

Read the full story by features reporter Katie Prout here: https://bit.ly/47PFfPC

11/08/2025

Check out these incredible shows on stages now across the city!

🎭 The Baldwin|Giovanni Experience at Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre https://bit.ly/4nIBRM6

🎭 Duck Soup! with the Conspirators https://bit.ly/4oYHtmH

🎭 The Pilon at Red Theater https://bit.ly/47svZlw

🎭 Uz, el pueblo, presented by Aguijón Theater as part of the eighth annual Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival https://bit.ly/4oXHXcA

🎭 The Wash at Perceptions Theatre https://bit.ly/3WNdm5A

11/07/2025

In recent weeks, the designated lots for rideshare drivers at O’Hare International Airport have been virtually empty amid widespread fear of federal agents, who have repeatedly abducted drivers with legal work permits from their cars and disappeared them to immigration jails or fast-track deportation flights.

Between October 10 and November 4, federal agents targeted the rideshare driver parking lots on at least ten separate days, according to interviews with multiple drivers and video reviewed by the Reader. In some cases, agents with U.S. Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned to abduct drivers multiple times in a single day, taking as many as ten to 20 people each time.

“These are not targeted raids,” says Lori Simmons, lead organizer of the Chicago Gig Alliance, the rideshare worker organizing arm of the People’s Lobby. “[Federal agents] don’t know who these people are ahead of time. . . . I think they just have gotten wind that that’s where rideshare drivers are, and they probably have learned that they are a mostly immigrant population.”

Read the full story by social justice reporter Devyn-Marshall Brown (DMB) at the link in our bio.

11/07/2025

Los secuestros por parte de agentes federales de inmigración ocurrieron tras los recientes desalojos en parques de la ciudad. https://bit.ly/3LN1DS6

Los secuestros por parte de agentes federales de inmigración ocurrieron tras los recientes desalojos en parques de la ciudad.

11/07/2025

Set against the Chicago skyline, sculptures by Diane Simpson at the Art Institute are geometric siblings to their urban environment. https://bit.ly/482ef0n

Set against the Chicago skyline, sculptures by Diane Simpson at the Art Institute are geometric siblings to their urban environment.

11/06/2025

While there is uncertainty about the deployment of the National Guard in Chicago at the moment, there already is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity targeted at the unhoused community. Here’s what you should know about your rights when encountering ICE agents if you’re unhoused.

Mientras hay incertidumbre sobre el despliegue de la Guardia Nacional en Chicago, la migra ya está dirigida a las personas que experimentan la falta de vivienda. Lo que saber durante interacciones con policía o agentes federales como persona sin hogar.

To report ICE activity targeted toward the unhoused community or to get support for a family member or friend who has been detained, call the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) Family Support Line at 855-435-7693.

Para informar sobre la actividad de la migra dirigida a las personas que experimentan la falta de vivienda o para obtener apoyo para un familiar o amigo que ha sido detenido, llame a la línea de apoyo familiar de ICIRR al 855-435-7693.

🎨 Amber Huff (map) and Shira Friedman-Parks (resources). Resources developed by Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness.