The close relationship between Nashville-based Outback Presents and Chicago-based Jam Productions dates back to working on the TBS Just for Laughs festival a decade ago, when the major comedy festival reached Chicago. Now the companies are combining the power of Zanies, Chicago Improv and Jam to bring the first-ever 312 …

NEW YORK – Stephen Sondheim died happily, at the top of his lyrical and compositional game and clearly in love, as his final musical, “Hear We Are,” confirms. “To love is to live” was a Sondheim belief. So it’s a chance to sit in a theater seat at The Shed …

NEW YORK — In a movie pairing almost as unlikely as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” Martin Scorsese went up against Taylor Swift in theaters over the weekend. “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” is a second-time box office hit, while Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is off to a strong start …

There was a time when I would have told you that there was no writer I trusted more than Michael Lewis; He is the author of too many best-selling non-fiction books to count, including “Moneyball”, “The Blind Side”, “Flash Boys” and “Flash Boys”. “Big Short.” Lewis was particularly insightful on …

In a year of neighborhood change in the main screening venue, AMC NewCity 14, the Chicago International Film Festival, in the gray area known as “sort of Goose Island, sort of Old City”, was deemed worthy of the grand prize in the international feature juried competition. Hungarian-Slovak co-production “The Explanation …

After a stay of more than a century in the United States, a baroque landscape painting lost during World War II was returned to Germany on Thursday. The FBI handed over the work of 18th-century Austrian artist Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer to a German museum representative during a brief ceremony …

When did “fun” become such a dirty word in classical music? “Fun” connects to children’s or pop concerts or a playful opera scene long before it becomes fixated on your average night at the symphony. (Not that these species can’t be very smart, too.) But something strange, perhaps dangerous, happens …

LAS VEGAS — When it comes to live entertainment, two trends now dominate this famous city in the desert. First is the rise of mid-career musical stars like Adele and Katy Perry, who command eye-popping ticket prices. The second is projections. With the late September opening of the $2.3 billion—no …

“Betrayal fascinates me,” says David Cornwell, better known as the prolific British spy novelist who writes under the name John le Carré. Ironically, it is filmmaker Errol Morris who betrays his own investigative instincts in his documentary about Cornwell’s life, “Pigeon Tunnel.” Oscar-winning director “Fog of War” Morris has developed …

This weekend, State Street will be filled with downtown Chicago’s signature Halloween event. Plus Humanities Day in Hyde Park, David Sedaris at the Auditorium, and the crazy annual festival Music Box of Horrors. The family-friendly event hosted annually by LUMA8 draws thousands of spectators to State Street. Approximately 4,000 parade …