The Cy Young winner and longtime ESPN analyst knew of a team in need and, well, let’s just say it was a family affair he’ll never forget.

What else was Ryder Benson’s dad supposed to do when a team of 8-year-olds — signed up to play kid-pitch for the first time — suddenly found itself without a head coach?

Hunter Benson raised his hand because that’s just the kind of guy he is. Then again, the former Arkansas tennis player was no baseball expert. So he did one more thing: call on a San Diego-area neighbor, who just so happened to be his father-in-law, and offer the coveted position of Encinitas Braves assistant.

“And that’s how I became a coach,” said Rick Sutcliffe, the ESPN analyst, Marquee contributor and ex-Cubs Cy Young winner who turns 65 next week.

Technically, it wasn’t Sutcliffe’s first time coaching ball. After then-Cubs general manager Ed Lynch declined his request in 1995 to coach in the organization, the Red Baron trucked out with his family to Idaho Falls, Idaho, for a job with the Padres. They had a rookie-league squad there, and Padres president Larry Lucchino had been in Baltimore when Sutcliffe pitched for the Orioles and served as a mentor to Ben McDonald and Mike Mussina. Who better, then, to work with the pitchers?

But that assignment led quickly to a TV job in San Diego, and the rest is broadcast history. Coaching Ryder was an unexpected development, albeit a simple and sweet one. For Sutcliffe, it simply meant leaving wife Robin’s, daughter Shelby’s and younger grandson Austin’s sides in the bleachers, getting out on the dirt and grass and imparting both a ballplayer’s experience and some grandfatherly wisdom.

OK, so things at Ecke Sports Park weren’t quite that easy for the youngest team — by far, according to Sutcliffe — in a league for 8- to 10-year-olds.

“This was the first year any of them played kid-pitch,” he said. “We had three kids to begin with who, when the pitcher would throw it, would turn the other way or duck down. We got off to an 0-4 start.”

The roster also included a 7-year-old, who had to squint into the sun to see the faces of 10-year-old opponents, as well as a player with a prosthetic lower leg whose three-time big-league All-Star assistant coach calls him “as tough a kid as there is on Earth.” It also included Ryder, a right-hander whose arm is, well, take a guess.

“Electric,” Sutcliffe said. “He throws like a 12-year-old.”

But what did Ryder do on his first pitch of the season? Drill a guy, and not on purpose. Rattled, Ryder started walking one batter after another because he didn’t want to hit anyone else. It didn’t make things any easier that his mom had told him he’d have to apologize to anyone else he plunked. What to do?

“I moved him to the first-base side of the rubber,” Sutcliffe said, “which got him away from those right-handed hitters and kind of opened up the zone.”

Eureka! Before long, Ryder was starting to lock in and the whole team was coming around. Sutcliffe told them stories of being 17 in rookie ball — along with similarly young Dodgers hotshot prospects Pedro Guerrero and Jeffrey Leonard, to name two — and that team losing loads of games before turning the corner and becoming a big winner. Benson, meanwhile, hit on the perfect slogan, playing on his team’s nickname:

“Be Brave.”

It became the Braves’ rallying cry before every practice and every game. Hands in the middle. All together: “One, two, three, BE BRAVE!”

It took a while, but every last kid on the team dented the hit column and — lo and behold — some actual wins began to occur. That hadn’t looked so likely on opening day, when Sutcliffe sent photos from the diamond to a few pals on a text chain: ex-Cubs president Theo Epstein, Red Sox president Sam Kennedy and noted Encinitas Little League veteran Eddie Vedder, perhaps slightly better known for his work with Pearl Jam.

“Eddie went crazy,” Sutcliffe recalled with a laugh.

The Braves made the playoffs as the sixth-place team out of nine, then upset the third- and second-place teams. Only one “W” to go … but no. It didn’t happen. No championship for the Braves this time.

“But if you’d have been at our team party, you’d have thought we won it,” Sutcliffe said. “I know what the Cubs’ parade was like in 2016. I’m telling you, those kids out there had every bit as much fun.”

That party was Monday at a small community park in Encinitas. The kids sat together, ate, drank and received awards. Then, something special happened: the little ballfield there opened up. A game of Wiffle ball broke out.

Sutcliffe watched it all and remembered when, early in his big-league career, someone involved with a Big Brothers mentoring program in Cleveland advised him that five minutes of his time with young people was worth more than $5,000.

“For some reason,” Sutcliffe said, “that always stuck with me.”

At the party, he was presented with a gift: a coffee cup with “Thank you Coach Rick!” on it. And above those words, in big, bold letters?

“Be Brave.”

It’s exactly what he’ll be. After all, that’s his team.

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Notre Dame tests found 56% of foundations and eye products, 48% of lip products and 47% of mascaras contained high levels of fluorine — an indicator of PFAS.

More than half the cosmetics sold in the United States and Canada likely contain high levels of a toxic industrial compound linked to serious health conditions, including cancer and reduced birth weight, according to a new study.

University of Notre Dame researchers tested more than 230 commonly used cosmetics and found that 56% of foundations and eye products, 48% of lip products and 47% of mascaras contained high levels of fluorine — an indicator of PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals” that are used in nonstick frying pans, rugs and countless other consumer products.

Some of the highest PFAS levels were found in waterproof mascara (82%) and long-lasting lipstick (62%), according to the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Twenty-nine products with high fluorine concentrations were tested further and found to contain between four and 13 specific PFAS chemicals, the study found.

Only one item listed PFAS as an ingredient on the label.

The study results were announced as a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to ban the use of PFAS — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — in cosmetics and other beauty products.

The move to ban PFAS comes as Congress considers wide-ranging legislation to set a national drinking water standard for certain PFAS chemicals and clean up contaminated sites across the country, including military bases where high rates of PFAS have been discovered.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also is moving to collect industry data on PFAS uses and health risks as it considers regulations to reduce potential risks caused by the chemicals.

“There is nothing safe and nothing good about PFAS,″ said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who introduced the cosmetics bill with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “These chemicals are a menace hidden in plain sight that people literally display on their faces every day.″

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who has sponsored several PFAS-related bills in the House, said she has looked for PFAS in her own makeup and lipstic, but could not see whether they were present because the products weren’t properly labeled.

“How do I know it doesn’t have PFAS?” Dingell said, referring to the eye makeup, foundation and lipstick she was wearing. “People are being poisoned every day.″

Graham Peaslee, a physics professor at Notre Dame and the principal investigator of the study, called the results shocking. Not only do the cosmetics pose an immediate risk to users, but they also create a long-term risk, he said.

“PFAS is a persistent chemical,” Peaslee said. “When it gets into the bloodstream, it stays there and accumulates.”

The chemicals also pose a risk of environmental contamination associated with manufacturing and disposal, he said.

“This should be a wake-up call for the cosmetics industry,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a Washington nonprofit that has worked to restrict PFAS.

The products tested in the study “are applied each and every day by millions of Americans. It is critical that we end all non-essential uses of PFAS,” Andrews said.

The man-made compounds are used in countless products, including nonstick cookware, water-repellent sports gear, cosmetics and grease-resistant food packaging as well as firefighting foams.

Studies on exposed populations have associated the chemicals with an array of health problems, including some cancers, weakened immunity and low birth weight. Widespread testing in recent years has found high levels of PFAS in many public water systems and military bases.

“PFAS chemicals are not necessary for makeup,” said Arlene Blum, a co-author of the study and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, an advocacy group in Berkeley, Calif. “Given their large potential for harm, I believe they should not be used in any personal care products.”

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates cosmetics, had no comment.

The Personal Care Products Council, an association representing the cosmetics industry, said that a small number of PFAS chemicals might be found as ingredients or at trace levels in products such as lotion, nail polish, eye makeup and foundation. The chemicals are used for product consistency and texture and are subject to safety requirements by the FDA, according to Alexandra Kowcz, the council’s chief scientist.

“Our member companies take their responsibility for product safety and the trust families put in those products very seriously,″ Kowcz said.

She said the group supports prohibition of certain PFAS from use in cosmetics.

Brands that want to avoid likely government regulation should voluntarily go PFAS-free, Blumenthal said: “Aware and angry consumers are the most effective advocate” for change.”

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When the Chicago Bears drafted Justin Fields, it not only shook the fanbase, our division rivals, the rest of the league, but also the dynamics of their QB room – especially the future of former Super Bowl MVP, Nick Foles, who the Bears had traded for just one year prior. The signing of Andy Dalton […]

Chicago Bears: 3 Nick Foles trade packages with the New York Jets – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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The Big Theeth, Small Shorts Film Festival returns.Read More

Pour, 22, joins Dominik Kubalik, Pius Suter, Matej Chalupa and numerous other European free agents to sign with the Hawks in recent years.

European free agents keep pouring into the Blackhawks organization.

Jakub Pour, a 22-year-old Czech forward, became the Hawks’ latest import when he signed a two-year entry-level contract Tuesday. The contract carries a modest $842,500 cap hit.

Pour had played his entire career until now in the Czech Republic with the HC Plzen organization, where he was teammates and friends with Dominik Kubalik.

Pour tallied 16 points (including 12 goals) in 48 games this past season in Plzen, production not quite comparable to Kubalik — who averaged nearly a point per game his last three seasons there — but good enough to receive NHL interest.

“Ever since Dominik Kubalík started playing for the Blackhawks, I have been following the club in great detail,” Pour said in a statement. “In Chicago, I will do my best to fulfill my dream of playing in the NHL. I believe it will be sooner than later, but I will be patient. Whether the chance comes after a month or in the second year of the contract, I have to be prepared.”

Pour will likely start next season with Rockford in the AHL before working his way up the depth chart. Matej Chalupa, another young Czech forward who signed with the Hawks last summer in similar circumstances, spent all of 2021 in Rockford and recorded seven points in 27 games.

For the Hawks, the signing represents the continued strengthening of their pipeline from the European pro leagues, from which they’ve pulled many undrafted, relatively unknown players across the Atlantic in recent years.

The list of success stories includes Kubalik, Pius Suter, Artemi Panarin, David Kampf, Dominik Kahun, Michal Kempny and Erik Gustafsson, among others, and the Hawks have already dipped into it twice — for Pour and Swedish goalie Arvid Soderblom — again so far this offseason.

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Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be mostly sunny with a high near 78 degrees. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 56. Tomorrow will be sunny with a high near 78.

Top story

Chicago police were alerted to two reports of gunfire, hours apart, at Englewood home where 4 were killed and 4 others wounded

Three women and a man were shot and killed, and four other people were seriously wounded, when an argument broke out inside a home in Englewood on the South Side early today, according to Chicago police.

The four were pronounced dead shortly before 6 a.m. at the scene, a two-story house with a gray stone front in the 6200 block of South Morgan Street.

Chicago police spokesman Tom Ahern initially said all four were women, but he was corrected by Police Supt. David Brown at a news conference.

A witness told police there were two volleys of gunshots inside the home, hours apart.

The first was around 2 a.m., when Brown said the ShotSpotter system alerted police to gunfire near the Morgan address. Brown did not say if police responded to the alert.

The witness heard shots again around 5 a.m., around the time officers arrived to find the eight victims. Police found shell casings inside the house and a large-capacity “drum magazine.”

There was no sign of forced entry, Brown said. At least one of the victims likely lived at the address, but Brown did not elaborate on the relationships of the victims and the shooter.

Read our reporters’ full story here.

More news you need

1. Chicago’s big reopening weekend left the city’s beaches and parks littered in trash, and Mayor Lightfoot called out residents to do more to clean up after themselves today. The head of Chicago Park District also noted that the city still has more summer jobs available than applicants.
2. A West Side animal boarding business is under fire on social media after a dog died in its care last week when it was left in a vehicle during the recent heat wave. The Illinois Department of Agriculture, which licensed the business, says it’s investigating the incident.
3. Chicago’s reawakening hotel industry and union leaders have forged a deal on a “Right to Return to Work” ordinance requiring hotels to rehire employees laid off during the pandemic. The ordinance will help protect older, more senior employees from pushed out in favor of younger, lower-paid workers.
4. A grueling year for the eighth-graders at Jensen Miller Scholastic Academy on the West Side ended on a high note with surprise gifts from local non-profit Dion’s Chicago Dream. Happy students got computer tablets, sneakers and other goodies.

A bright one

Obamas return to Chicago — as works of art

Let’s face it, most official portraits are traditional and, well, a little staid. While their subjects are usually respectfully and skillfully depicted, these often easy-to-forget paintings offer little in the way of visual pizzazz.

But the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery buck convention in almost every way, and crowds have flooded this arm of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., since the works were unveiled in 2018.

In part because of the unprecedented appeal of these works, the Portrait Gallery decided to tour them to five major museums across the United States, starting June 18 at the Art Institute of Chicago. (The exhibit will run through Aug. 15.)

AP (file photo)

“These portraits have gotten a very different reception than any other presidential portraits in our history,” said Taína Caragol, curator of painting and sculpture and Latino art and history at the National Portrait Gallery. “I think that is because the artists that the Obamas chose are very much part of the contemporary art world and not the formal tradition of state portraiture.”

The portraits will be shown in the first-floor Abbott Galleries in the Art Institute’s Modern Wing, and museum officials expect a big turnout. Perhaps more important, he said, they hope these works draw many first-time visitors.

Read Kyle MacMillan’s full story on the Obama portraits’ upcoming Chicago exhibition run here.

From the press box

• With things going well for both the Cubs and White Sox so far this season, Rick Telander can’t help but wonder if the first crosstown Chicago World Series since 1906 is possible.
• Lexie Brown has turned her opportunity with the Sky into a spot on the roster for the rest of the year after signing a rest-of-season contract with the team.
• The Bears worked out former Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall yesterday, a source confirmed to Patrick Finley. Marshall, a former teammate of Danny Trevathan, hasn’t played an NFL snap since 2018.

Your daily question ☕

What’s your favorite video game of all time? Why?

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Reply to this email (please include your first name and where you live) and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday, we asked you: How did you enjoy the first weekend in Chicago without pandemic restrictions in over a year? Here’s what some of you said…

“Loved it! My wife and I were in town from San Diego for a wedding and got to do a lot of fun things all across the city. Botanical gardens, Sox game, Navy Pier, the Windy and then the wedding and my cousins birthday party. Threw in some Portillo’s, Al’s beef and Giordanos and it was a great weekend all the way around!” — Dan Giles

“Loved watching my Cubbies with everyone around rooting them on.” — Alisa Dube

“I saw the Cubs snag another W with 39,000 other Cubs fans and saw five of my closest friends at a restaurant in Logan Square. I have witnessed a lot of loss felt a lot of emotions over the past year. Moments like these spent this weekend made me exceptionally grateful.” — Melissa McGlynn

“Did what I always do, chilled in my backyard.” — Dre Jackson

“Pretty much the same, just stayed further away from people who weren’t wearing masks.” — Sarah Villegas

“Will still wear mask. There are those who don’t care, I do.” —Krystyna Szczur

Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.

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The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

One by one, the family of Denice Mathis walked up to the police tape on the block in Englewood and reached out to each other. Some sobbed, others cursed.

Down the street, inside a two-story house with a gray stone front, lay Mathis and the bodies of two women and a man killed in a shooting that seriously wounded four other people early Tuesday.

Mathis, in her early 30s, was a mother of four boys and a girl, and had just taken her children to Six Flags over the weekend.

Another one of those killed was Shermetria Williams, 19 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter. She was set to graduate from Country Club Hills Trade & Tech Center on Tuesday.

A third woman who died in the attack lived in the home and was the mother of a 2-year-old girl who was there when the shots were fired, relatives said. She was not hit.

The fourth fatality was Blake Lee, who also lived in the home and did odds jobs in the neighborhood, relatives said. He had recently lost his mother and grandmother.

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

The attack prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to say Chicago has joined a “club of cities to which no one wants to belong: Cities with mass shootings.”

As she repeatedly has done, she decried lack of federal action aimed at “eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children, to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again.”

Chicago police released few details of how the eight people were shot, but said it occurred when an argument broke out inside the home.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 6 a.m., and four others were taken to hospitals, at least two of them in critical condition.

The 2-year-old girl found in the home was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital for observation.

A witness told police there were two volleys of gunshots inside the home, hours apart.

The first was around 2 a.m., when the ShotSpotter system alerted police to gunfire near the Morgan address, according to Police Superintendent David Brown. He did not say if police responded to the alert.

The witness heard shots again around 5 a.m., around the time officers arrived to find the victims. Police recovered shell casings inside the house and a large capacity “drum magazine.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

There was no sign of forced entry, Brown said. At least one of the victims lived at the address, a barber who cut hair out of the house.

Brown did not elaborate on the relationships of the victims and the shooter, or what the argument was about.

Brown said the victims taken to hospitals had not yet been interviewed by detectives, and the investigation still was “very preliminary.”

“All we know about this residence is there’s been several calls there for disturbances,” Brown told reporters. “Overall, the block where this residence is located is fairly quiet, not much activity going on that requires a police response.”

As officers worked the scene into the late morning, a crowd of distraught relatives and neighbors gathered along the police tape blocking off Morgan Street.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Mathis’ family said she was a devoted mother. “She was a good person — a free-spirited person,” said a cousin, Vickie Smith. “She loved her family.”

Mathis lived on the South Side, but the family didn’t know what brought her to the gathering on South Morgan.

A man who said he was Mathis’ brother said his sister had been to the house many times before. “She was a good girl — none of these knuckleheads,” the brother said.

Demetrius Williams said he was at home in Maywood, putting on a shirt and tie for his daughter’s graduation, when he heard she had been killed.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“This is unbelievable — a massacre,” said Williams, struggling to compose his thoughts as officers took down the crime tape around the Englewood house. “Why? Why did this have to happen?”

Williams still held the ticket for his daughter’s graduation. Back home were red roses and balloons that said “Congratulations.”

“All she wanted to do was take care of her daughter and be successful in life,” the father said. “She meant the world to me. That was my baby girl.”

Also standing and waiting for answers outside the police tape was Raheem Hall, who grew up in Englewood and always had words of caution for his nephew Blake Lee.

“I told him just to be careful out here. Stay away from the wrong crowd,” Hall said.

Blake lived in the house where the attack occurred. “He was a good guy,” said Hall, who now lives in Indiana. “He did no harm to no one. He was just trying to live his life as an ordinary guy.”

Blake had had a hard life, his uncle said, but he was also enjoying things recently, having traveled to Miami on vacation, his uncle said.

Similar scenes played out through the day at the hospitals where the wounded were taken.

A group of about 10 people waited outside the University of Chicago Hospital, where a woman in her mid-20s was taken after being shot on Morgan.

A 45-year-old man said his daughter remained in surgery as of 12:45 p.m. The man said his daughter worked at Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp.

After he walked away, several women began to weep. One woman dropped to the ground and buried her face in her hands.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

One person wrapped her arms around another and rubbed their back to comfort them as they stood against a chain-linked fence and faced the emergency room entrance.

“She got shot in the head,” another person sobbed on the phone as they walked away.

Outside Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, relatives said the man who lived in the home, James Tolbert, was “alert and coherent.”

Tolbert operated a barbershop from his home after COVID-19 restrictions closed down the shop where he worked. The 2-year-old girl taken to Comer’s for observation is his daughter, according to Tolbert’s sister, Michelle Tolbert.

Waiting outside the emergency room entrance, Michelle Tolbert said she learned her brother had been shot from a Facebook post and feared the worst.

“There were a lot of people putting up ‘RIP’ posts, so I was worried,” she said.

Hospital staff would not let her up to her brother’s room, but said Tolbert no longer was in critical condition. “They told me he’s awake, he’s responsive.”

Michelle Tolbert said her brother had a jovial “barbershop” personality and had studied to be an EMT before going to barber college.

“He’s a good person,” she said. “He definitely didn’t deserve this.”

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week, and came just hours after gunfire erupted at a party in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, killing a man and wounding two women wounded.

Early Saturday, a woman was killed and nine others wounded near 75th Street and South Prairie Avenue. Kimfier Miles, 29, a mother of three, was out with a group of girlfriends when two men opened fire about 2 a.m. Saturday.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The weekend before, six men and two women were wounded when someone in a silver car opened fire in a shooting in the 8900 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in the Burnside neighborhood.

Lightfoot blamed the violence on the lack of national laws that would curb the flow of illegal guns.

“When gun [laws] are so porous that they can come across our borders with such ease, as we see every single day in Chicago, we know that we have to have a multi-jurisdictional, national solution to this horrible plague of gun violence,” she said. “And that starts with eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again—not just this year, but every year.”

Lightfoot bristled when asked how the steady stream of mass shootings might impact her efforts to reopen the city and encourage Chicagoans to come downtown to dine and shop and patronize the stores and restaurants in their own neighborhoods.

She noted that the Englewood shooting happened “inside a single residence” — not out on the street or in a large outdoor gathering.

“The reality is, our city is safe,” the mayor said. “And I stand by that. We have done yeoman’s work over the course of a very difficult year where every major city—New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Atlanta and on and on the list goes—has seen similar surge in violence.”

Pressed about the perception of safety, she said, “What I’m concerned about is the fact that people lost their lives this morning. I’m concerned about the fact that there are people who are dead in an act of violence that makes no sense to me.”

Asked whether she believes Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is doing a good job prosecuting gun offenders, Lightfoot pointed to what one of the state’s attorney’s top aides said about the Chicago Police Department during a recent webinar for reporters.

“The conclusion of her policy person was that the Chicago Police Department is arresting the wrong people who possess guns. I fundamentally disagree with that,” she said. “We are a city that’s awash in illegal guns. Those illegal guns cause deep pain and injury and death.”

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Here we go again, Bears fans.

A Tuesday deadline looms for developers to submit initial offers to Churchill Downs Inc. for the historic Arlington Park Horse Racetrack and Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes says the Bears moving to the Northwest suburb is still on the table as a possibility.

The post MAYOR: Chicago Bears Moving to Suburbs “Still on the Table” first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

Mount Prospect’s Mallory Smart, who publishes the online journal Maudlin House, has a new book coming out from Trident Press this year.

“Lit!” is what writer and publisher Mallory Smart says more often than not. I don’t always know what she means, but I think it’s a good thing.…Read More

Some performing arts groups are opening their doors, but others are inviting audiences to soak up the sun.

In just the past couple of weeks, theaters have started sending out announcements that they’re getting ready to reopen. Second City is already welcoming audiences back with Happy to Be Here on the mainstage and Out of the House Party at Second City e.t.c.  Goodman plans to open its doors with Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play, directed by Lili-Anne Brown, on July 30.…Read More