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Warning: This review contains spoilers. But, it’s in episode three that the deep-seated issues of Chicago housing come into play when heroine Letitia “Leti” Lewis (played by Jurnee Smollett) buys a huge old house on the city’s north side. As an opening title card reminds us, “pioneering is dangerous,” and to stay in this home, Leti battles both physical and spiritual evil. But as scary as the supernatural storyline may be, nothing is quite as chilling as knowing what a group of Black folks have to face when moving to an all-white neighborhood....

When T.S. Eliot wrote “April is the cruelest month,” he wasn’t thinking about what passes for spring here. But this time every year, Gossip Wolf breeds lilacs and grudgingly mixes memory and desire—while listening for new jams that sound like warmer weather. Singer-songwriter Danielle Sines and her beach-ready jangle-pop project, Impulsive Hearts, reliably provide! Last month, Sines and the band (drummer Dan Julian, bassist Doug Hoyer, violinist Jess LeMaster, and saxophonist Fallon McDermott) dropped the sun-dappled four-song cassette MeToo: A Benefit for Resilience, proceeds from which will support Chicago nonprofit Resilience, which helps victims of sexual violence....

Most top-ten lists of queer feminist authors don’t mention Louisa May Alcott, and Little Women is better remembered as a quaint account of feminine domesticity than the subtle revolution that it is: the story of sisters in a wartime household headed by their mother that includes but does not focus on their relationships with men. At the center of the narrative is Jo—an impassioned author of hilariously melodramatic thrillers who won’t bow to fashion or tradition as she drives and then chronicles the escapades of the March girls....

Kick off this spooky time of year (the homestretch of election season!) with some of our recommended events: Sat 10/1: Taste samples from 18 different breweries including Ale Syndicate, Moody Tongue, and Tighthead at the Logan Square Beer Festival at Logan Square Auditorium (2539 N. Kedzie). 1-4 PM and 5-8 PM Sun 10/2: Will Braden, creator of Henri Chat Le Noir, hosts CatVideo Fest at the Music Box (3733 N. Southport), a screening of back-to-back-to-back cat videos benefiting Friends of Chicago Animal & Care Control and Red Door Animal Shelter....

With a long wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a tree-lined section of the Chicago River, Metropolitan Brewing‘s Avondale taproom is practically pastoral. It feels like a hidden refuge, an impression enhanced by the fact that it’s located at the back of a large building that’s currently very much under construction. “I tell people when they’re visiting that if they feel like they’re going to be arrested for trespassing, they’re in the right place,” says Tracy Hurst, who co-owns the brewery with business partner and ex-husband Doug Hurst....

The consensus is that composer, bandleader, and pianist Duke Ellington did his best work in the 30s and 40s, but he achieved so many moments of brilliance in the decades that followed that there’s no good reason to cling to that thinking—few 20th-century musicians adapted and grew like he did while retaining a clear artistic identity. One of my all-time favorite Ellington works is The Far East Suite, recorded in December 1966 and released early the next year....

Courtesy of the artist Luke Gullickson Pianist and composer Luke Gullickson is part of a new breed of new-music figures who make the boundaries between once-disparate stylistic approaches as porous as they want. Not only does he ignore the traditional wall between serious composer and performer, his wide-open ears allow all sorts of unique approaches to mingle with his fluid writing. Although he’s now based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Gullickson has spent plenty of time in Chicago....

Producer SqueakPivot has long been a crucial member of the Chicago hip-hop collective he’s incorporated into his stage name, applying his talents largely to mixes and DJ sets—I’m hard-pressed to think of a Pivot Gang show I’ve seen where Squeak wasn’t behind the turntables. He’s infrequently released his own music, though that began to shift when Pivot dropped the playful 2019 group album You Can’t Sit With Us. Squeak brought an understated cool to the songs he coproduced, two of which (“Jason Statham, Pt....

Augustin-Eugène Scribe would’ve felt right at home in today’s television industry. The most popular French playwright and librettist during a good chunk of the 19th century, Scribe anticipated the Hollywood writers’ room by maintaining a creative staff whose members assembled the hundreds of entertainments that appeared under his name. He also invented the well-made play, a template capable of generating endless variations within an ironclad set of narrative rules. Scribe was, as his 1861 New York Times obituary noted, “Less a dramatist than a manafacturer [sic] of comedies, vaudevilles and opera librettos....

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated producer is being named executive editor of the Chicago Reader, the alt-weekly’s parent company, Sun-Times Media LLC, announced today. In his new role, Konkol will be tasked with maintaining the Reader‘s history as the social-justice and cultural voice of Chicago while developing and executing a digital content strategy to ensure that that voice remains strong well into the future.

The tattoo industry, as we typically think of it, seems like no place for queer people. Even with early pioneers like Cliff Raven and Phil Sparrow, it’s remained an overwhemingly heteronormative, patriarchal, and white field, a fact that was only confirmed by my search to find Chicago queer tattoo artists, especially folks of color, which yielded many a “nobody like that works at our shop, sorry!” But pockets of queer tattooers exist and seem to be growing, forming their own communities and reimagining industry standards, especially to cater to clients beyond those who are typically represented....

Hollywood’s annual release calendar is divided roughly into thirds: the summer-action season (which actually starts in the spring); awards season, which begins in earnest in September; and the rest of the year, the postholiday winter months when some scrappy genre movies get to fight for screen time against prestige, Oscar-buzz holdovers. We’re currently in the third period, and during the past month a number of horror movies have made it to local theaters....

Here’s some of what we recommend for your Thanksgiving week: Thu 11/23: Serbia’s Goran Bregović returns with his influential Yugoslavian rock band, Bijelo Dugme, to perform at Joe’s Live (5441 Park Pl., Rosemont). The Reader‘s Peter Margasak says Bregović “displays his broad-minded ability to express the full splendor of vintage eastern European traditional and folk music.” 10 PM, $60-$100 For more things to do this weekend—and every day—visit our Agenda page....

R NAmerican Factory The first title to debut from Higher Ground Productions, Barack and Michelle Obama’s partnership with Netflix, could not have been more timely. This pellucid documentary by longtime collaborators and Dayton residents Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert frames larger questions about the future of postindustrial America by focusing on one way their Ohio rust belt town is navigating the economic realities of globalization. The film opens with a clip from the directors’ Oscar-nominated nonfiction short, The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, about the final operating days in 2008 of a factory based in Moraine, Ohio, that had employed 2,400 locals....

Read this week’s cover story: Profiles Theatre actors and crew members break their two-decade-long silence about mistreatment at the acclaimed storefront theater, in the hopes of protecting workers in non-Equity theaters nationwide. Have you experienced harassment or abuse as an actor or theater professional in Chicago? E-mail tips@chicagoreader.com.

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, October 27, 2016. Kirk and Duckworth are both courting the black community in heated Senate race A few black aldermen skipped a breakfast with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth in Bronzeville after she won the primary, because they believe she “ignored black communities during the primary and didn’t deserve their support in the general election,” according to WBEZ. Duckworth, who had two black opponents in the primary, Andrea Zopp and state senator Napoleon Harris, has worked to improve her relationship with the black community, but incumbent GOP senator Mark Kirk still sees an opportunity to win votes....

On August 28, Mayor Emanuel had one of his infamous “Oh happy day” press conferences, proclaiming great news for the south side. Or as the Chicago Tribune—in a burst of goodwill for the mayor—put it: “For Emanuel, the move fits into a broader strategy of trying to leverage valuable real estate assets to create economic development in some of the city’s struggling neighborhoods.” The motor vehicle facility—which stores most of the city’s garbage trucks—is squeezed between Wicker Park and Lincoln Park on the banks of the Chicago River....

Classically trained vocalist and masterful banjo and fiddle player Rhiannon Giddens is celebrated as one of the leading proponents of what’s variously called Americana or roots music. Though her aesthetic has wide appeal, she toughens it with her uncompromising determination to bear witness to the ongoing (and too often neglected) Africanist voice and history in the Western “folk” and vernacular traditions. Giddens was cofounder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a contemporary string band whose deft musicianship and gift for updating traditional themes and ideas earned them a Grammy for the 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch)....

It doesn’t get much more local than jeans from Dearborn Denim & Apparel—sewn by an all-Chicago staff in a Garfield Park former laundry turned factory, and sold in the company’s flagship store in Hyde Park. And once you visit the store and start talking to Kaleb Sullivan, Dearborn’s head of retail, it’s very likely you’ll be leaving with your own pair, hemmed while you wait. The jump from Chicago Board of Trade bond trader to local clothing manufacturer is not a typical career path, but that didn’t dissuade Rob McMillan, owner of Dearborn Denim & Apparel and West Loop resident....

Anyone who’s ever reported a news story knows that the line between reporter and subject is harder to perceive the closer you get to it, and at some point you may realize that you’ve crossed it without even noticing. True Story, an engrossing drama adapted from a nonfiction book by Michael Finkel, recounts Finkel’s professional relationship with Christian Longo, an Oregon man charged with murdering his wife and three children. Finkel was trying to salvage his reputation after being fired by the New York Times Magazine (he had created a composite character from multiple people for dramatic effect); Longo was trying to con Finkel into publishing his version of events and granted him exclusive interviews for a book project on the condition that he maintain confidentiality until after the verdict was announced....