92 stories by "Dmitry Samarov"
Westley Heine never dreamed of singing for change on the streets of Chicago but life sometimes offers only stark choices. Getting by as a musician, artist, or writer is uphill […]
The post…
I have no idea how an A-list cast like this was hoodwinked into participating in this wink-wink nudge-nudge snooze fest.
The post See How They Run appeared first on Chicago Reader.
"The people who pick up flyers and show up to free classes tend to be restless searchers," John tells his students, after remarking that there must be something wrong with […]
The post Per…
I love Dracula. I've loved him ever since a Saturday afternoon in the late 70s or early 80s when I saw Bela Lugosi portray him on TV as part of […]
The post A little bit bloodless appeared…
Christian Alexander is the writer and co-star of this world premiere production from his brand-new company, Campfire Repertory Theatre. James (Keith Ferguson) and Michelle (Ashley Graham) co…
It's a small story whose roots and branches radiate in all directions.
The post Let the Little Light Shine appeared first on Chicago Reader.
Wolfgang Amadeus Aleksandr "Aleks" Fa has a lot of baggage. The protagonist of Joe Meno's new novel Book of Extraordinary Tragedies has that name, after all"which also serves as a clue about…
Filmmaker Danny Cohen gave Barnett a Dictaphone and asked her to talk into it as she traversed the world on tours over three years, in support of her celebrated second album in 2018, and onw…
A novelist, writing professor, and covert comedian named Solomon Gladman wakes up one morning in Chicago, sometime in 2022. He and his French-born wife, Daphne Bourbon (would she be named Si…
Despite all the beautiful water, sun, and half-naked bodies, what I was left with as the credits rolled was a mere trace memory of stylish vacuity.
The post Murina appeared first on Chicago …
"Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink," Coleridge's sailor complains in the famous 1798 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The mariner is talking about the plight on his ship,…
With over a hundred years of the moving image at their disposal, these creative people appear at a loss how to proceed. It's a very familiar feeling.
The post Not just another remake appeare…
This is a skillful but flawed portrait of amateur sports on the global stage that doesn't quite stick the landing.
The post Olga appeared first on Chicago Reader.
"My dear boy, why don't you try acting?" Laurence Olivier's quippy response to Dustin Hoffman's story of how he stayed up three nights to fully inhabit the sleepless state of his character i…
"Cézanne, he's the greatest of us all.""Claude Monet to Georges Clemenceau in conversation, cited in translation in The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné (trans. John Rewald…
Charles has a mannequin head, rubber gloves for hands, and a washing-machine torso. But the rest of him is quite obviously human. His hodgepodge construction neatly describes the disjointedn…
Nealshow Productions premieres Pat Radke's and Dave Satterwhite's malaprop-fueled road-trip comedy. Candyce (Lee Satterwhite), in WWI helmet and goggles, is at the wheel of a middle-school-a…
In a time when the most banal information is up for debate, this fake documentary reads as much too real.
The post Donbass appeared first on Chicago Reader.
Unfortunately, what Juergens presents onscreen comes across more like a loose scrapbook or vlog than a film.
The post Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day appeared first on Chicago Re…
Being the son of the great Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi and the protege of the late master director Abbas Kiarostami can't help but cast a shadow, but if this digressive and slyl…
Margaret Knapp directs the world premiere of Martha Hansen's first play (presented by Light and Sound Productions) about five women on an Alaskan cruise"each hoping to sight something other …
Steve Scott directs a storefront production of Shakespeare's wallow into the nature of unadorned power-lust and demagoguery. With a minimal set"a couple benches, steps with a recess to indic…
A wooden rowboat and plastic sheets lining two back walls are the only decorations for Sarah Tolan-Mee's English-language adaptation of Heiner Müller's 1982 cry-of-anguish riff on war, betr…
A new exhibition at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art surveys over 60 years of cartoonists.
Does a comic strip belong on a museum wall? I ask this not to ques…
A former cabbie talks to writer Reginald Edmund about Ride Share at Writers Theatre"and the real-life experiences that inspired it.
Being a public driver has nev…
