This new Lyric Opera coproduction—with Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Teatro Real Madrid—of La Bohème looks like it’s trying to make the well-worn favorite fresh for both first-timers and those who’ve seen it before. There’s no startling change in time or place—we’re still in 19th-century Paris—but the production is nonetheless jarring, drenched in cold white light that’s the opposite of the intimate candle glow so central to this story of scrappy, impoverished, and ultimately tragic young love....

You only have to recall how poor James’s parents get devoured by a bizarrely carnivorous rhinoceros in James and the Giant Peach to know that a big and rambunctious nasty streak runs through Roald Dahl’s writing. And it continues into his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Augustus Gloop disappears into a chocolate river, Violet Beauregarde turns into a blueberry, Mike Teavee becomes miniaturized, and Veruca Salt-well, let’s not talk about what happens to Veruca Salt....

Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth starts with 21-year-old Dennis Ziegler hanging out in his studio apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, watching TV. (Since the year is 1982, it’s a big, freestanding cube of a set—the kind with vacuum tubes inside.) The stage directions say he’s got an “old black-and-white movie” on, but they’re not specific about which one. If you’re sitting in the right (i.e., south) section of Steppenwolf Theatre’s upstairs space, though, you can glimpse Boris Karloff on the screen....

The gigantic sea monster from Japan known as Godzilla has appeared in more than two dozen films since debuting in Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla back in 1954; Godzilla resurfaces in theaters today, and it’s the first American take on the iconic kaiju since Roland Emmerich’s 1998, um, abomination. I don’t use the term “iconic” lightly—Godzilla has a strong grip on pop culture beyond just the cinema world, and closer to home the creature has played a role in the development of footwork....

Last Tuesday I got an offer to sit on the board of a media company, but it was hard to take the pitch very seriously. I’d only been mingling at the so-called “TechMixer” in a loud River North club for an hour and had been acquainted with the smooth-talking CEO for all of five minutes. Not only that, he was heavily intoxicated and worked in advertising, not tech. So why come to Techweek every year?...

Jean-Luc Bideau and Bulle Ogier in La Salamandre Of the numerous films referenced in Sébastien Betbeder’s 2 Autumns, 3 Winters (which I discussed a few days ago), La Salamandre (1971) might be the least familiar to contemporary U.S. audiences. Yet Alain Tanner, who wrote and directed it, was a prolific figure from the late 1960s to the early 2000s—and until the mid ’80s, his work frequently played in the U....

Because such an impressive glut of local punk full-lengths came out this year, to pick just five I had to come up with a narrower category. Luckily for me (and for you), local punk showcase Ian’s Party (see page TK) has supersized for 2016, moving into three relatively large venues and blowing out its lineup. I chose my five favorite 2015 albums from bands playing the festival—and even that was tough....

STEFAN FALKE Holmes Brothers Andrew Bird returns to town on Saturday to headline the Chicago Theatre—he’s also one of the participants in this week’s Artist on Artist, which you should go read if you haven’t already. If you’re hoping to make it out to some other shows this weekend you’ve got plenty of options. “I saw Chapel Hill band Spider Bags play in Atlanta two years ago, and their set was a blast of high-octane, country-fried garage slop—so when I heard this month’s Frozen Letter, their first release on indie giant Merge, I was surprised by its sophistication and nuance,” writes Luca Cimarusti....

Two sure things in Chicago: (1) Outdoor summertime stagings of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and (2) strenuously amped-up stagings of Shakespeare’s anything by Barbara Gaines. Chicago Shakespeare Theater has brought the two inevitabilities together for a production touring to 18 city parks. And with Gaines directing her own adaptation, there’s no limit to the audience-goosing liberties on view. Gaines’s anachronistic filigrees are often more annoying than illuminating, suggesting a director way too determined to demonstrate what we can easily learn on our own: that what happens in a Shakespeare play might mean something even after 400 years....

South American metal fans have been enjoying this Chilean monster for 15 years, and it’s time for the U.S. to catch up: Slaughtbbath have been releasing a stream of vile and vicious black metal via demos and EPs, only once slowing down enough to grind out a full-length, 2013’s Hail to Fire. But hot on the heels of the past few years’ worth of blistering split sides with the likes of Vultur, Ill Omen, and Hades Archer, they’ve just dropped a filler-free compilation, Contempt, War and Damnation (Hells Headbangers), that’s as good a place to start as any....

This Friday night at Lincoln Hall, local artist Chris Hefner will premiere his second feature, The Poisoner, at 7 and 9 PM. Local musician (and Hefner’s occasional bandmate) Daniel Knox composed the film’s score; he’ll perform a live set before each screening. You can purchase tickets for the event and watch a short trailer at the Lincoln Hall website. The Poisoner tells the Kafkaesque story of a young woman who responds to a bizarre newspaper ad....

Congratulations and praise is rolling in for Chris Jones, the Tribune drama critic who just won the George Jean Nathan Award for drama criticism. The announcement of Jones’s award hails his “panoramic understanding of contemporary playwriting and directing, and adds that his “knowledge of Chicago theater history is especially deep.” Critic Michael Riedel of the New York Post offered a salute reflecting the times we live in. One of the reasons a lot of first-rate Tribune writers took buyouts a few weeks ago is that the paper hadn’t given raises in five years....

If there’s one well-known Chicago restaurant that neither I nor any food writer I can think of has ever written about, it would have to be Lou Mitchell’s. Why would we need to when it’s been a recommendation in every guidebook ever published about Chicago for the last 60 years? It’s the quintessential Greek coffee shop, located just beyond the southwest corner of the Loop, the beginning of Route 66 for those who don’t feel a bunch of stoplights in the Loop quite counts as the great American open road....

When I first saw that the mysterious and beguiling Kath Bloom would be playing the Hideout, I honestly gasped. The elusive singer-songwriter hardly ever tours, and when she does, it’s usually in the UK and Europe. This tour jaunt covers only Chicago and a handful of rust-belt cities including Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Allentown, Pennsylvania—all places Bloom, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, admits she has never even visited. After studying cello and guitar, Bloom launched her career back in 1976 when she began performing with legendary avant-guarde guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors....

Earlier in July, I spotted two-time Bachelorette finalist Nick Viall skulking around the VIP section at Pitchfork Music Festival. I stomped up to him, plucked a pen from behind my ear, and began jotting down detailed notes about his demeanor and body language as I peppered him with questions about the reality show franchise’s inner workings. And that wasn’t the only instance of the producers fucking with the formula to entertainment’s detriment....

Provided by Morlen Sinoway Atelier Trucks lining up during setup for the Guerrilla Truck Show A cold rain thinned the crowd but didn’t kill the vibe at the 10th annual Guerrilla Truck Show on Tuesday. Held in a pop-up caravan of U-Hauls-turned-showrooms, the annual art and design street party in Fulton Market showcases art, furniture, and a variety of products crafted by local makers. The deluge definitely didn’t affect the show’s eccentricity or character—it’s a safe bet it was the only event this year where you’ll have the opportunity to step into a moving van, chat with Alinea’s resident design guru, Martin Kastner, then enjoy free soft serve topped with gourmet syrup poured from one of his stylish Porthole decanters....

Peter Holderness/Sun-Times Chief Keef Earlier today AllHipHop broke the news that Interscope dropped lightning rod drill rapper Chief Keef a couple weeks ago; Keef confirmed the news on Twitter by posting a screencap of a text conversation with local MC Lucki Ecks saying Interscope dropped him a week ago (hat tip to Fake Shore Drive). According to AllHipHop the label began distancing itself from Keef following a series of high-profile court cases dating back to 2013....

As Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn discovered, it’s a strange experience to attend your own funeral. Robin Wright gets to do just that in the head-turning sci-fi fantasy The Congress, because director Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir) has turned Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 novel The Futurological Congress into a eulogy for the art of movie acting. The Congress opens with a close-up of Wright crying, one of the most demanding tasks an actor can be called upon to perform on camera; meanwhile an offscreen voice, addressing Wright by her own name, reviews the long history of bad personal and professional choices that have led her career to a dead end....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, April 5, 2017. Report: Rauner might face a Republican primary challenger Republican state senator Sam McCann has been approached by other Republicans who want him to run against Governor Bruce Rauner in the 2018 primary race for governor, according to Politico. McCann is pro-union and has found himself opposing Rauner on several issues, but says that he won’t make a decision about running until the current legislative session in Springfield is over....

Just like every little girl’s backyard clubhouse, the four stages of Stage 773 boast a “No boys allowed!” sign this weekend: It’s time for the Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, now in its third year. From June 5 to 8, estrogen flows freely on Belmont, with 70 acts featuring 400 lady performers (and perhaps a few male strays) showing off their skills in improv, stand-up, musical comedy, burlesque, and anything else they feel like....