Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

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The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week and distributed for free to the more than 1,100 locations on this map.

The latest issue

The latest print issue of the Reader is the issue of June 23, 2022, the Summer Theater & Arts Preview special issue.

You can download the print issue as a free PDF.

The next print issue will be the issue of July, 7, 2022.

Subscribe

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Please consider donating.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through December 2022 are:

7/7/20227/21/20228/4/20228/18/20229/1/20229/15/20229/29/202210/13/202210/27/202211/10/202211/24/202212/8/202212/22/2022

Download the full 2022 editorial calendar is here (PDF). See our information page for advertising opportunities.

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Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

Read More

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week and distributed for free to the more than 1,100 locations on this map.

The latest issue

The latest print issue of the Reader is the issue of June 23, 2022, the Summer Theater & Arts Preview special issue.

You can download the print issue as a free PDF.

The next print issue will be the issue of July, 7, 2022.

Subscribe

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Please consider donating.

Chicago Reader print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through December 2022 are:

7/7/20227/21/20228/4/20228/18/20229/1/20229/15/20229/29/202210/13/202210/27/202211/10/202211/24/202212/8/202212/22/2022

Download the full 2022 editorial calendar is here (PDF). See our information page for advertising opportunities.

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The NBA trade deadline saw a bombshell deal between the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons and James Harden. But trades had been on hiatus since then.

Four months later, big deals are back on the menu in the NBA draft and ahead of the league’s free-agency frenzy.

The Oklahoma City Thunder kicked off the latest round of trades Monday when they sent the No. 30 overall pick to the Denver Nuggets for forward JaMychal Green and two future second-round picks.

Then, the Houston Rockets acquired the No. 26 overall pick from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for center Christian Wood. The Rockets also get four players on expiring contracts.

Which other draft picks and players are on the move?

Keep this page bookmarked: We’ll have a rundown of every trade, including grades from ESPN NBA Insider Kevin Pelton.

Trade grades roundup | All 58 NBA draft picks

June 29: Wizards acquire Morris and Barton from Nuggets

Washington Wizards get:
Will Barton
Monte Morris

Denver Nuggets get:
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Ish Smith

Detroit Pistons get:
Nerlens Noel
Alec Burks
Two future second-round picks
Cash considerations

New York Knicks get:
TBD

DRAFT-DAY DEALS

Indiana Pacers get:
Kendall Brown (No. 48 pick in 2022)

Minnesota Timberwolves get:
TBD

Denver Nuggets get:
Ismael Kamagate (No. 46 pick in 2022)

Portland Trail Blazers get:
TBD

Golden State Warriors get:
Ryan Rollins (No. 44 pick in 2022)

Atlanta Hawks get:
No. 51 pick in 2022
Cash

Charlotte Hornets get:
Bryce McGowens (No. 40 pick in 2022)

Minnesota Timberwolves get:
Two future second-rounders

Memphis Grizzlies get:
Kennedy Chandler (No. 38 pick in 2022)

San Antonio Spurs get:
Future second-round pick
Cash

Dallas Mavericks get:
Jaden Hardy (No. 37 pick in 2022)

Sacramento Kings get:
Two future second-round picks

Minnesota Timberwolves get:
Wendell Moore Jr. (No. 26 pick in 2022)

Houston Rockets get:
TyTy Washington Jr. (No. 29 pick in 2022)
Two future second-round picks

Philadelphia 76ers get:
De’Anthony Melton

Memphis Grizzlies get:
David Roddy (No. 23 pick in 2022)
Danny Green

Memphis Grizzlies get:
Jake LaRavia (No. 19 pick in 2022)
Future second-round pick

Minnesota Timberwolves get:
Walker Kessler (No. 22 pick in 2022)
TyTy Washington Jr. (No. 29 pick in 2022)

Detroit Pistons get:
Jalen Duren (No. 13 pick in 2022)
Kemba Walker

Charlotte Hornets get:
Conditional first-round pick
Four future second-round picks

New York Knicks get:
2025 first-round pick (via Milwaukee)

New York Knicks get:
Three future first-round picks

Oklahoma City Thunder get:
Ousmane Dieng (No. 11 pick in 2022)

Los Angeles Lakers get:
Max Christie (No. 35 pick in 2022)

Orlando Magic get:
Future second-round pick
Cash

Cavaliers pick up second-round pick

Cleveland Cavaliers get:
Isaiah Mobley (No. 49 pick in 2022)

Sacramento Kings get:
Draft rights to Sasha Vezenkov (No. 57 pick in 2017)

PRE-DRAFT DEALS

Portland Trail Blazers get:
Jerami Grant
No. 46 pick in 2022

Detroit Pistons get:
2025 first-round pick (via Milwaukee Bucks)
No. 36 pick in 2022
2025 second-round pick
2026 second-round pick

NBA trade grades: What the deal for Jerami Grant means for the Portland Trail Blazers and Detroit Pistons

Dallas Mavericks get:
Christian Wood

Houston Rockets get:
Boban Marjanovic
Marquese Chriss
Trey Burke
Sterling Brown
No. 26 pick

NBA trade grades: What the deal for Christian Wood means for the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets

Oklahoma City Thunder get:
JaMychal Green
2027 first-round pick

Denver Nuggets get:
2022 No. 30 pick
Two future second-round picks

NBA trade grades: Breaking down the Denver Nuggets-Oklahoma City Thunder deal for JaMychal Green

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Maybe it’s a sign of our times that musicals about the aftermath of loss and grief have become so prominent in 21st-century life, from Next to Normal to Dear Evan Hansen. But while both those shows relied on plot devices that hinged on audience misdirection in the case of the former (the better to illustrate the mental disintegration of the mother at the center of the story) and a pretty disquieting Big Lie in the case of the latter, Britta Johnson’s Life After is going for something much less complicated, and yet also more profound. Judging by Annie Tippe’s admirably heartfelt production at the Goodman, this first-time musical largely succeeds at its simple aims.

Life After
Through 7/17: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also sensory-friendly/relaxed performance Tue 7/12, 7:30 PM, ASL interpreted Fri 7/15, 8 PM, Spanish subtitles Sat 7/16, 8 PM, open captions Sun 7/17, 2 PM; Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$80

Which isn’t to say that Johnson’s musical about a teenager searching for clues about the sudden death of her father in a car accident doesn’t have mystery in its favor. The story hinges on Alice (Samantha Williams) trying to figure out why her father, Frank (Paul Alexander Nolan), a popular self-help author (his bestseller is Transformotions—a title mocked by his youngest offspring), didn’t make his flight the night of her 16th birthday. Was he looking for her because they had a huge argument that morning? Was he looking for someone else? A champion debater, Alice feels most at home in the world of facts to support a thesis. But death isn’t neat and categorizable. And we’re all going to lose our argument with it eventually.

Johnson, a native of Stratford, Ontario, lost her own father at age 13, which may account for the refreshing honesty and general lack of sentimentality in her story and her score. Much here is familiar to anyone who has been through a family loss. We meet siblings who have very different relationships with their dead parent. Alice’s older sister, Kate, played with smoldering rage and protective one-liners by Skyler Volpe, believes she was never their father’s favorite. Mother Beth, played with warmth and barely-holding-it-together forthrightness by Bryonha Marie Parham, can’t wait to replace the flowered wallpaper in Frank’s former study with neutral beige paint, which feels like erasure to Alice. For Beth (as expressed with sorrowful passion by Parham in “Wallpaper”), it represents a chance to reclaim her own life from the shadow of her charismatic husband. 

And throughout there are the choral utility-player Furies (Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Lauryn Hobbs, and Chelsea Williams) who bring endless casseroles; gossip like the “Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little” townswomen in The Music Man; serve as the high school “mean girls” newly interested in Alice once her loss makes her interesting; and erect plaques and park benches to a man who they revered for his insights (the very ones mocked by Alice), and who died before his children could really know who he was. There’s also Alice’s adorably dorky best friend, Hannah (the scene-stealing Lucy Panush), who sees Frank as a surrogate dad, and her debate coach, Ms. Hopkins (Jen Sese), who is hiding a secret, but not the one Alice first suspects. 

There are some lags in the evening, even at 90 minutes—sometimes we get ahead of Alice in terms of where the story is going, and though the meddling Furies are fun (especially when they’re performing Ann Yee’s sprightly choreography), the joke becomes repetitive. The show almost feels as if Johnson intended it to be sung-through entirely, then changed her mind and inserted more expositional scenes, not all of which feel that illuminating.

There are ways in which the show reminds me of Fun Home, the brilliant musical by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir about her closeted father. But Life After doesn’t split Alice’s perspective in three parts at different stages of her life, as that show does. (We do see a few flashbacks that flesh out the relationships, but no big leap into an adult perspective for Alice occurs.) Instead, we see Alice and her family slowly coming to terms with the understanding that closure isn’t real, but life does go on, no matter how unimaginable it might seem at the time.

That’s arguably a slight message, as predictable as the aphorisms Frank deals out in his books about forgiving yourself and moving on. But at its best, Life After finds truthful moments that hit the heart and head with equal force.

Read More

Maybe it’s a sign of our times that musicals about the aftermath of loss and grief have become so prominent in 21st-century life, from Next to Normal to Dear Evan Hansen. But while both those shows relied on plot devices that hinged on audience misdirection in the case of the former (the better to illustrate the mental disintegration of the mother at the center of the story) and a pretty disquieting Big Lie in the case of the latter, Britta Johnson’s Life After is going for something much less complicated, and yet also more profound. Judging by Annie Tippe’s admirably heartfelt production at the Goodman, this first-time musical largely succeeds at its simple aims.

Life After
Through 7/17: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also sensory-friendly/relaxed performance Tue 7/12, 7:30 PM, ASL interpreted Fri 7/15, 8 PM, Spanish subtitles Sat 7/16, 8 PM, open captions Sun 7/17, 2 PM; Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$80

Which isn’t to say that Johnson’s musical about a teenager searching for clues about the sudden death of her father in a car accident doesn’t have mystery in its favor. The story hinges on Alice (Samantha Williams) trying to figure out why her father, Frank (Paul Alexander Nolan), a popular self-help author (his bestseller is Transformotions—a title mocked by his youngest offspring), didn’t make his flight the night of her 16th birthday. Was he looking for her because they had a huge argument that morning? Was he looking for someone else? A champion debater, Alice feels most at home in the world of facts to support a thesis. But death isn’t neat and categorizable. And we’re all going to lose our argument with it eventually.

Johnson, a native of Stratford, Ontario, lost her own father at age 13, which may account for the refreshing honesty and general lack of sentimentality in her story and her score. Much here is familiar to anyone who has been through a family loss. We meet siblings who have very different relationships with their dead parent. Alice’s older sister, Kate, played with smoldering rage and protective one-liners by Skyler Volpe, believes she was never their father’s favorite. Mother Beth, played with warmth and barely-holding-it-together forthrightness by Bryonha Marie Parham, can’t wait to replace the flowered wallpaper in Frank’s former study with neutral beige paint, which feels like erasure to Alice. For Beth (as expressed with sorrowful passion by Parham in “Wallpaper”), it represents a chance to reclaim her own life from the shadow of her charismatic husband. 

And throughout there are the choral utility-player Furies (Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Lauryn Hobbs, and Chelsea Williams) who bring endless casseroles; gossip like the “Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little” townswomen in The Music Man; serve as the high school “mean girls” newly interested in Alice once her loss makes her interesting; and erect plaques and park benches to a man who they revered for his insights (the very ones mocked by Alice), and who died before his children could really know who he was. There’s also Alice’s adorably dorky best friend, Hannah (the scene-stealing Lucy Panush), who sees Frank as a surrogate dad, and her debate coach, Ms. Hopkins (Jen Sese), who is hiding a secret, but not the one Alice first suspects. 

There are some lags in the evening, even at 90 minutes—sometimes we get ahead of Alice in terms of where the story is going, and though the meddling Furies are fun (especially when they’re performing Ann Yee’s sprightly choreography), the joke becomes repetitive. The show almost feels as if Johnson intended it to be sung-through entirely, then changed her mind and inserted more expositional scenes, not all of which feel that illuminating.

There are ways in which the show reminds me of Fun Home, the brilliant musical by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir about her closeted father. But Life After doesn’t split Alice’s perspective in three parts at different stages of her life, as that show does. (We do see a few flashbacks that flesh out the relationships, but no big leap into an adult perspective for Alice occurs.) Instead, we see Alice and her family slowly coming to terms with the understanding that closure isn’t real, but life does go on, no matter how unimaginable it might seem at the time.

That’s arguably a slight message, as predictable as the aphorisms Frank deals out in his books about forgiving yourself and moving on. But at its best, Life After finds truthful moments that hit the heart and head with equal force.

Read More

The Chicago Blackhawks are having a big week. They just announced a new head coach as Luke Richardson is going to be the guy replacing Derek King in 2022-23. They are going to rebuild now and it is time that they actually do it the right way again.

A lot of the trade speculation seems to surround Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane. That makes sense as each of them has one year left on their current deals. They are also the two best players on the team right now.

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