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Director Kimberly Senior’s monumental staging of Sam Shepard’s career-defining Buried Child has all the heft and anguish of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the play Shepard called the greatest in American history. Like O’Neill’s masterpiece, Buried Child focuses on a spiritually bankrupt family torn asunder and glued together by unspeakable secrets. When estranged grandson Vince, heading out west to reconnect with his errant father, stops by the Illinois homestead, he’s drawn inexorably into the childhood home where everything’s familiar and nothing’s recognizable....

The Whites and the Reds. The Projects. Cabrini-Green. The notorious public housing development whose near total demolition was finalized ten years ago had many names. But to the thousands of people who lived there, they were home. In 2000, Chicago launched the Plan for Transformation, a sweeping project to demolish 18,000 units of high-rise public housing across the city. Through demolition, the city said in its plan that it would then be able to rehab roughly 25,000 units of public housing....

The next time you’re cruising on Lake Shore Drive south of McCormick Place, look to the lake and try to imagine how different your commute might have been if Mayor Richard J. Daley had pulled off his most audacious public works plan—a major airport built in Lake Michigan, five miles from shore. Unlike a “Chicago” airport built in adjoining unincorporated DuPage or Will Counties, Chicagoans would take the lion’s share of the jobs generated by an airport on the south side....

As a food writer, I’m beginning to view the appearance of every new Italian restaurant with existential dread. In terms of word slinging, the battle between steak houses and Italian spots for Chicago restaurant hegemony throughout the last few years has me running low on ammo. While there are fresh things to write and be excited about (Osteria Langhe, Animale), I fear the oversupply of new, formulaic, pan-Italian pizza-pasta-piattini pushers might be creating an impression among unseasoned eaters that one of the world’s greatest cuisines is molto repetitivo....

Zipporah Films Aspen Of the ten films playing in the Frederick Wiseman retrospective currently underway at Doc Films (which, full disclosure, my wife Kat Sachs and I programmed), Aspen (1991) is one of the documentarian’s most underrated films, if not one of the most underrated American movies, period. It plays in the series tonight at 7 PM. Like Robert Altman’s comparably novelistic Nashville (1975), Aspen is a both a city portrait and a State of the Union address, a bracing mix of cutting social satire and heartfelt Americana....

All the Way, the latest full-length from local ambient project TALsounds, aka Natalie Chami of experimental group Good Willsmith, opens with gentle synth notes, unearthly and largely indecipherable vocals, and what sounds like the gentle pitter-patter of leaves and branches rustling in the wind. Good Willsmith member and Hausu Mountain cohoncho Max Allison sent me All the Way at the end of April, and though I can’t recall connecting the dots at the time, the opening song, “Only One,” and some of the other tracks on the immersive All the Way have elements reminiscent of spring, of nature slowly appearing out of winter’s shadow....

As long as Omnivore Records continues its reissue program dedicated to idiosyncratic California indie-pop greats Game Theory, I’ll keep using that as an excuse to share my favorite tunes. Last Friday the label released a deluxe two-CD version of the band’s excellent 1987 album, Lolita Nation, considered by many to be the group’s apex. I prefer its predecessor, The Big Shot Chronicles, but Lolita Nation was a great leap forward for Game Theory in terms of artistic ambition, with all sorts of cool fragments and sonic experiments scattered among its sophisticated pop songs....

Peter Gannushkin / downtownmusic.net Jerome Cooper The singular percussionist Jerome Cooper died on Wednesday at the age of 68 following a battle with cancer. The Chicago native is probably known best for his long involvement in the Revolutionary Ensemble, a daring trio with bassist Sirone and violinist Leroy Jenkins that moved easily between group improvisation and knotty compositional gambits that reached well outside of strict jazz traditions (and, of course, its instrumentation offered something utterly new as well)....

My Friend Dahmer (which is now playing at Webster Place) takes place in 1978, and the movie evokes a certain type of filmmaking that flourished in the U.S. around that time—an improbable mixture of art house sensibilities and exploitation-movie content. Dahmer draws viewers in with a provocative title, which promises to reveal intimate secrets about serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, then refuses to deliver any details about his crimes. Rather, it’s a portrait of the killer as a young man—the movie depicts Dahmer’s senior year of high school and the events leading up to his first murder....

“Today fashionistas turn to Instagram and its influencers to see the latest styles,” says Virginia Heaven, guest curator of a new exhibit at the Chicago History Museum. “This exhibition explores the emergence of a distinctively American glamour: fresh, independent, stylish yet easy to wear and comfortable . . . It showcases how the costumers in Hollywood were the original influencers of American Style.” “Silver Screen to Mainstream,” which runs through January 2020, features 30 garments that illustrate just how influential Tinseltown was in the 30s and 40s, a time when unemployment in Chicago hit 40 percent....

What have you taken comfort in during this terrifying, infuriating, exhausting year? Maybe oblivion in an ocean of whiskey? A relentless, endorphin-pumping intake of pasta and pastry? What about just living like there’s no tomorrow with your best friends and lovers? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you’ve likely been taking regular advantage of the great comforts offered by the Chicago restaurant industry. Whether you go out eating and drinking to exorcise your rage or to forget your fears, 2017 had your back....

THEATER PICKS (KERRY REID) On the heels of the Trump impeachment, City Lit may have snagged the “good timing” award with this revival of Kristine Thatcher’s 2000 play about Barbara Jordan, the Black Texas congresswoman (and the first elected from the deep south) who first came to national prominence during the Watergate hearings. Thatcher’s play also delves into Jordan’s longtime relationship with speechwriter Nancy Earl and her struggle with multiple sclerosis....

Are you aware that the American tradition of Mother’s Day has origins in feminism and the peace movement? You can read up about the origins of the celebration and some contemporary campaigns to improve the lives of mothers worldwide at the Zinn Education Project’s website, which includes the Mother’s Day Proclamation written in 1870 by East Coast writer, suffragist, and social activist Julia Ward Howe. Howe wrote the proclamation in response to both the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and called upon women to stand up against the unjust violence of war and convince their husbands and sons of the uselessness of killing other men....

I generally consider Brandon Seabrook a jazz guitarist, and over the years he’s made plenty of recordings where he plays in that tradition, both in relatively straightforward bands led by the likes of Ben Allison, Jeremy Udden, and Eivind Opsvik and in unusually charged ways alongside folks such as saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Seabrook’s main instrument is electric guitar, but he’s also done a lot of fascinating playing on tenor banjo, including in Brian Carpenter’s exploratory trad-jazz ensemble the Ghost Train Orchestra and his own early trio Seabrook Power Plant....

Afro-Futurism The seven members of Afro-Futurism may perform at Second City, but they don’t deal in sketch revues. In fact, they’re less a company than a collection of black comics—performing solo stand-up routines, for the most part, punctuated with rap segments fronted by Marcel “Mr. Greenweedz” Wilks. There were a couple misfirings on the night I attended, as when an overly zealous Shantira Jackson tried to make a political point by getting the audience to yell out “No!...

Greetings 2016 Pitchfork Music Festival artists, and welcome to our beautiful, encased-meat-laden city by the lake! Or should I say “Welcome back”? After a quick perusal of the lineup card, I can see that this isn’t the first trip to the salad bar for many of you—by my count, 13 acts are making their second, third, or even fourth Pitchfork appearance this year, with some having played as recently as 2014....

In April 2013, author Dave Hofer (who’s also a buyer for Reckless Records and played in the Chicago Thrash Ensemble) launched a Bandcamp page called DuPage County Hardcore that’s dedicated to archiving bygone punk bands from his old stomping grounds. Since then he’s dug up and uploaded for posterity a growing trove of old cassette demos, seven-inches, and CDs from barely remembered grind bands, long-forgotten punk crews, and even some groups you’ve probably heard of—among them Spitalfield, the pop-punk band fronted by Downwrite cofounder Mark Rose....

The first time I saw 21-year-old Texas native Eli Winter perform was about a year ago, when he opened for Ryley Walker at the Chicago record-release show for Walker’s Deafman Glance. He told an adorable story about catching Walker at a show in Winter’s hometown of Houston and being overwhelmed with nerves when they talked at the merch table—and crazily enough, now here he was, not only living in the same town as Walker (who’s since moved to New York) but also sharing the stage with him....

I was ten years old when the virtual world of The Sims was released. After popping the CD into my desktop computer in my parent’s basement, hours would easily pass by, whole lives would be lived. Reality moved fast in Sims time. Building my dream house, making my fake family (with the occasional murder by fire), and forcing everyone to “woohoo” are some of my fondest memories. Electronic Arts released its cover art for The Sims 4 last year which featured the first same-sex lesbian couple....

Uncle Jam wants you . . . to go see George Clinton on Saturday. On Saturday none other than George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic play at the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, a venue befitting the ersatz spectacle that is the present-day version of the legendary 70s band. I haven’t seen Clinton and P-Funk since the mid-2000s, but the few times I saw them play, well, let’s just say the performances were inconsistent....