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Let’s get one thing straight: It’s not the long sit I mind. One of my favorite sitting experiences ever was the English Shakespeare Company’s Wars of the Roses heptalogy, which played the International Theatre Festival of Chicago (what an idea, huh?) and literally took days to watch. By comparison, the six-hour running time of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Tug of War: Foreign Fire should be an easy stretch to handle. I can understand why Gaines might be attracted to Edward III, aside from the coolness factor of its obscurity: The tale of an English king’s 1346 campaign to assert his sovereignty over France, it takes us back to the beginnings of the grotesque slog known as the Hundred Years War....

The pileup of massive releases from big-name artists over the past few months has an unfortunate side effect: the number of new high-profile albums becomes the story in and of itself, often overriding the narratives in the music. At times the proximity of Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Drake’s Views, to pick the two most recent, has caused their rollouts to come across like a volley of cannon shots between competing streaming services....

This spring Chicago rapper Adamn Killa dropped the mixtape Back 2 Ballin, whose forlorn, shimmering “Jeremy Lin” featured a typically moody beat from LA producer (and Jeremih collaborator) Shlohmo. Shlohmo is a compatriot of Canadian pop wunderkind Ryan Hemsworth, and not at all by coincidence, yesterday Hemsworth and Adamn Killa dropped the collaborative track “Commas.” Killa raps with a zonked lilt that makes him sound like he’s just woken up from a deep sleep, but he can assert himself against Hemsworth’s animated instrumental....

With Mayor Emanuel under fire over police scandals and the schools crisis, it’s a strange time for him to move forward with a plan for an airport express train aimed at well-heeled business travelers. But last week the city awarded a $2 million contract to local engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff to identify possible routes, station locations, and a cost estimate for pricey high-speed rail service between the Loop and O’Hare....

Reports of electioneering are cropping up around the city as Chicago prepares to choose a new mayor and treasurer, and 15 wards host runoff elections for alderman. But in the 46th Ward on the north side, incumbent Alderman James Cappleman has put a sweet twist on the age-old practice of trying to entice voters right before they cast their ballots. On Friday, poll watchers began to complain that Cappleman and his allies were dropping off batches of frosted cupcakes decorated with the words “Team Cappleman” at nursing home polling places....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, September 27, 2017. City Hall has few details on replacing police oversight agency head Sharon Fairley Mayor Rahm Emanuel “declined to say how much input community members will have in finding a new head of the just-launched police oversight agency that’s a key piece of his effort to increase public trust in the Chicago Police Department” following the resignation of Civilian Office of Police Accountability chief Sharon Fairley, according to the Tribune....

The new third full-length from Seattle five-piece Eye of Nix, Ligeia (Prophecy), is a gloriously self-possessed howl and wail that floats through the walls between genres like a vengeful ghost. In a 2015 interview with Vice, front woman Joy Von Spain eloquently described the band’s process: “A piece or song that begins in silence and climbs to these weird places, pushing icy noise into blast beats and screams or aria high notes, takes a lot of structural choices....

courtesy of the Chicago Jazz Festival Muhal Richard Abrams This morning the city announced the full lineup of the annual Chicago Jazz Festival in September. (Full disclosure: I serve on the volunteer committee that programs the event). The focus in 2015 is squarely on the 50th anniversary of Chicago’s deeply influential and paradigm-shifting Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), including a rare performance by the Experimental Band, led by pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, that concludes the festival—the group is widely considered the first AACM ensemble, a kind of workshop project for members to work out their radical ideas....

The point of theater, according to Hamlet, is to hold a mirror up to nature. But all too often on Chicago’s stages it seems like the mirror is being held up to the members of a yoga class in Lincoln Park. Strides have been made in recent years (just look at Broadway’s hip-hop musical Hamilton, in which the Founding Fathers are played by black and Latino actors), but when it comes to casting, particularly of commercial and canonical work, the default setting is still thin, gender-conforming, able-bodied, and lily white....

It’s not hard to tell the difference between New Orleans and Chicago: open a window in the wintertime, or take back-to-back bites of gumbo and a hot dog. Each city has its own proud and particular musical traditions, including distinctive past and present approaches to jazz. Just like a meal of gumbo and a hot dog makes more sense after you’ve eaten both, there’s a lot to be gained by putting artists from both cities together....

Police officers who work in Chicago Public schools and other districts across the state could be required to get special training under a proposed bill moving forward in the Illinois legislature, while another bill would give funds to schools that hire behavioral or mental health counselors to help with discipline. Police reform advocates are now poised to achieve their goal of required training for any school-based police officer across Illinois....

And don’t miss the Gift Theatre’s “exhilaratingly subversive” Richard III, reviewed by Tony Adler here. 42nd Street Based on Bradford Ropes’s novel and the 1933 movie it spawned, this 1980 stage musical concerns desperate chorus girls and boys, doing their damnedest to stay afloat and hold on to their dreams during the Great Depression. What’s interesting is that they don’t backbite to achieve those goals. Whenever they make a decision, they do it for the good of the group—even if that means stepping aside to help one of their number get her big break....

Two separate protest groups lined the sidewalk outside of McDonald’s new West Loop headquarters at 11 AM Thursday—the day of the fast-food giant’s annual shareholders’ meeting. Thursday’s action marked the fourth day in a row that groups have voiced their discontent with McDonald’s at its home, which opened in April. Earlier in the week, nearly 150 members of the Fight for $15—a union-backed movement campaigning to raise the pay of minimum-wage workers—chanted slogans like “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, you can’t hide / We can see your greedy side”—and paraded up and down Restaurant Row....

I missed the concert that Alejandro Escovedo played at FitzGerald’s last week, where he was supporting his excellent new album, the hard-rocking, raucous Burn Something Beautiful (Fantasy). Yesterday, while flipping through some old CDs, I came across a much earlier Escovedo record—his second solo album, 1993’s Thirteen Years—which reflects a very different side of his aesthetic. Back then Escovedo was transforming the rude power of protopunk into something even more devastating with the unlikely addition of chamber-music-style strings....

If you blindfolded me and played me the self-titled debut from Aurora thrash band Sour, I’d totally believe it’d been recorded in 1984 with a cassette four-track in a dusty garage. They recall thrash metal’s glory days with guitar shredding that makes you want to skateboard off your roof, drumming that erupts with cavalcades of cymbal crashes, and vocals that fight through the nonstop din as little more than half-swallowed grunts....

Yesterday two kids, brothers who both look younger than ten, were at Pokémon Go Fest. Today they’re at the River watching drag queen Elektra Del Rio literally swing from the rafters, totally overwhelmed by the loud music and the experience of being the only children in a screaming crowd of 150 adults. They are the toughest audience I’ve seen at any of my four drag brunches. Brunch of Bitches satisfies that craving with exhilarating performances and a celebratory atmosphere....

From Foehammer’s Facebook page Left to right: Joe Cox, Ben Blanton, and Jay Cardinell How much poorer the nomenclature of metal would be had Tolkien never written! Doom trio Foehammer, from Annandale, Virginia, takes its name from the sword Glamdring, which Gandalf found in the trolls’ cave (along with Sting and Orcrist) toward the beginning of The Hobbit. Elrond of the elves calls the weapon “Foe-hammer that the King of Gondolin once wore” after translating the ancient runes on its hilt....

Count it a lucky thing that the Art Institute of Chicago was too booked to put “Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist” on its schedule this year. Instead, the touring exhibit of more than 40 paintings by this quintessential Chicago artist landed on the fourth floor of the Chicago Cultural Center, where you can see it as many times as you like between now and the end of August, without having to pony up an entry fee....

On a recent hot Friday afternoon, I went with photographer Amy Boyle to visit 80-year-old Sue Smith in Lincoln Park, to hear her joyous words of wisdom I’d only read about. She greeted us in a summery orange shirt and matching handkerchief with shining jewelry, but an even brighter smile. “The community that the project has built, whether in person [or on Facebook],a lot of these women have gotten to know each other....

A big list of events for the next seven days, some online, some in person (with various guidelines, see links for details). Stay safe and enjoy! Fri 3/19 through Sun 4/4: Chicago Restaurant Week puts the spotlight on local eateries offering prix fixe multi-course meals ($25 for brunch or lunch and $39-$55 for dinner, excluding beverages, tax, gratuity, and deliver fees if applicable). Check out a new spot or order in from the participating restaurants throughout the city and suburbs....