Concerts

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

When you think of the blues, you probably think of guitars (acoustic and electric), piano, harmonica, maybe even the bass and drums in a full band. Saxophone, on the other hand, is much more closely associated with jazz and R&B. Sax players do exist in the blues, of course, but you usually see them only in bigger, better-established groups—and despite high-profile exceptions like Eddie Shaw, who led Howlin’ Wolf’s band, they’ve often had to take gigs in other genres to maintain their careers.

Case in point: J.T. Brown, a saxophonist who not only gigged with legends such as Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James but also played with the early blues-rock configuration of Fleetwood Mac. Brown should be at least as well-known as Shaw and fellow horn man A.C. Reed, and the Secret History of Chicago Music is here to help make it happen.

John Thomas Brown was born in Mississippi on April 2, 1918, to Sam and Cecelia Rimmer Brown. Much of his early life is obscure. The first musical outfit he’s known to have joined was the long-running Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, whose roster over the decades also included Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Ida Cox, Louis Jordan, and Rufus Thomas—not to mention players who built audiences in Chicago, among them Big Joe Williams, Maxwell Street Jimmy, and Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson. 

Black theater owner and entrepreneur Patrick Henry Chappelle formed the Rabbit’s Foot Company in Florida in 1900. He assembled five dozen or so Black performers to stage a touring musical comedy show called A Rabbit’s Foot, which traveled by rail and played theaters as well as tents. Chappelle avoided describing “the Foots” as a minstrel show, for obvious reasons. After his death in 1911, though, a white businessman from Michigan, Fred Swift Wolcott, bought the production and began marketing it that way. He moved the company’s headquarters to Port Gibson, Mississippi, in 1918, the year Brown was born. The troupe’s annual tours remained popular into the 1940s, and their last show appears to have been in 1959. 

Brown traveled all over the country with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, and by historians’ best guesses he landed in Chicago in the mid-40s. A man of many nicknames, he was alternately known as Saxman Brown, J.T. “Big Boy” Brown, Bep Brown, “Nature Boy” Brown, and J.T. “Blow It” Brown. 

Brown had a famously distinctive saxophone tone: “He’s the only man I know could make a horn sound like a nanny goat,” guitarist Jody Williams told Jim O’Neal (founder of Living Blues magazine) in a 1977 essay for German label Bear Family Records. Brown played on and off with pianist Little Brother Montgomery for 20 years, at clubs such as the Hollywood Rendezvous near 39th and Indiana (where Little Walter often played), the A&B Lounge at 63rd and Cottage Grove, and the White Rose in Phoenix, Illinois. They frequently sat in with guitarist J.B. Lenoir.

Brown recorded in Chicago with Roosevelt Sykes and St. Louis Jimmy Oden in 1945, and as far as I can tell, that session was his first—though I can’t be super confident about discographical information more than 70 years old for an artist who used at least half a dozen names. Brown’s raw saxophone stylings also graced late-40s sides by Washboard Sam and Memphis Jimmy Clark. 

In 1947, Brown led a five-piece billed as “J.T. Brown’s Boogie Band” that backed Little Eddie Boyd on the 78 rpm platter “I Had to Let Her Go” b/w “Kilroy Won’t Be Back.” A different group called “Brown’s Blu-Blowers” supported Corporal Booker T. Washington on the 1949 single “St. Louis Boogie” b/w “Good Whiskey.” That same year, Brown’s Blues Blowers played behind Grant Jones on the Apex release “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water (And Sleep in a Hollow Log)” b/w “When the Deal Goes Down.” 

Brown’s first session as a bandleader was in 1949, also for Apex: “Blackjack Blues” b/w “Brown’s Boogie” is credited to J.T. Brown & His Blu-Blowers. The O’Neal essay for Bear Family says Brown’s first session was in 1950 for Harlem Records, but Apex was affiliated with Harlem and the single came out on both labels—it seems likely that later year is just wrong.

In 1951, Brown was signed to the brand-new United Records as Nature Boy Brown & His Blues Ramblers, and his first of three 78s for the label featured the local anthem “Windy City Boogie.” The instrumental jump-blues release did well enough that Brown put together a touring band that included trumpeter King Kolax. “J.T. and I worked together about five or six months,” Kolax told O’Neal. “We went to LaSalle, IL, Louisville, Montgomery, AL. It was Brown, myself, Art Tarry on piano, Hillard Brown on drums and Ernest Ashley on guitar, and he picked up a bass player out of Chattanooga at Harry Brown’s place on East 9th Street. J.T. had an act and he could draw a crowd.” 

That Chattanooga bass player was Tommy Braden, also lead singer for R&B act the Four Blazes, who had a hit for Chicago’s Delmark Records in 1952 with the saucy “Mary Jo.” That same year, Brown jumped to the Meteor and J.O.B labels, cutting jumping tunes such as “Round House Boogie” and “Boogie Baby” under his own name and as Bep Brown.

The early 50s were arguably the peak of Brown’s career. He continued to gig constantly in Chicago clubs and tour whenever he could, but he never got comfortable enough that he didn’t have to worry about money. In Jody Williams’s interview with O’Neal, the guitarist recalled accompanying Brown on a tour supporting a popular California vocal group called Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, whose leader and guitarist likely influenced Chuck Berry with his rhythmic playing. Williams said Brown threatened Moore with a beating on that tour, accusing him of withholding $100 from Brown’s group after a show at the armory in Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

At this point Fleetwood Mac were still a blues-rock group—they were years away from hiring Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks—and the place they afforded Brown among the city’s blues royalty reflects what I’ve always thought his stature should be. He even sang a tune of his own, “Blackjack Blues,” on the UK band’s double album. 

Muddy Waters’s son Mud Morganfield nodded to Brown’s legacy by opening his 2012 album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with a version of Brown’s “Short Dressed Woman.” Perhaps more important, compilations of Brown’s work have been appearing since 1977, when Delmark released the retrospective Windy City Boogie via its Pearl imprint, which it had acquired in 1974. (Delmark is still kicking, and the record is still in print.) As recently as 2005, The Chronological J.T. Brown: 1950-1954 arrived on the French label Classics.

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Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

When you think of the blues, you probably think of guitars (acoustic and electric), piano, harmonica, maybe even the bass and drums in a full band. Saxophone, on the other hand, is much more closely associated with jazz and R&B. Sax players do exist in the blues, of course, but you usually see them only in bigger, better-established groups—and despite high-profile exceptions like Eddie Shaw, who led Howlin’ Wolf’s band, they’ve often had to take gigs in other genres to maintain their careers.

Case in point: J.T. Brown, a saxophonist who not only gigged with legends such as Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James but also played with the early blues-rock configuration of Fleetwood Mac. Brown should be at least as well-known as Shaw and fellow horn man A.C. Reed, and the Secret History of Chicago Music is here to help make it happen.

John Thomas Brown was born in Mississippi on April 2, 1918, to Sam and Cecelia Rimmer Brown. Much of his early life is obscure. The first musical outfit he’s known to have joined was the long-running Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, whose roster over the decades also included Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Ida Cox, Louis Jordan, and Rufus Thomas—not to mention players who built audiences in Chicago, among them Big Joe Williams, Maxwell Street Jimmy, and Johnny “Daddy Stovepipe” Watson. 

Black theater owner and entrepreneur Patrick Henry Chappelle formed the Rabbit’s Foot Company in Florida in 1900. He assembled five dozen or so Black performers to stage a touring musical comedy show called A Rabbit’s Foot, which traveled by rail and played theaters as well as tents. Chappelle avoided describing “the Foots” as a minstrel show, for obvious reasons. After his death in 1911, though, a white businessman from Michigan, Fred Swift Wolcott, bought the production and began marketing it that way. He moved the company’s headquarters to Port Gibson, Mississippi, in 1918, the year Brown was born. The troupe’s annual tours remained popular into the 1940s, and their last show appears to have been in 1959. 

Brown traveled all over the country with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, and by historians’ best guesses he landed in Chicago in the mid-40s. A man of many nicknames, he was alternately known as Saxman Brown, J.T. “Big Boy” Brown, Bep Brown, “Nature Boy” Brown, and J.T. “Blow It” Brown. 

Brown had a famously distinctive saxophone tone: “He’s the only man I know could make a horn sound like a nanny goat,” guitarist Jody Williams told Jim O’Neal (founder of Living Blues magazine) in a 1977 essay for German label Bear Family Records. Brown played on and off with pianist Little Brother Montgomery for 20 years, at clubs such as the Hollywood Rendezvous near 39th and Indiana (where Little Walter often played), the A&B Lounge at 63rd and Cottage Grove, and the White Rose in Phoenix, Illinois. They frequently sat in with guitarist J.B. Lenoir.

Brown recorded in Chicago with Roosevelt Sykes and St. Louis Jimmy Oden in 1945, and as far as I can tell, that session was his first—though I can’t be super confident about discographical information more than 70 years old for an artist who used at least half a dozen names. Brown’s raw saxophone stylings also graced late-40s sides by Washboard Sam and Memphis Jimmy Clark. 

In 1947, Brown led a five-piece billed as “J.T. Brown’s Boogie Band” that backed Little Eddie Boyd on the 78 rpm platter “I Had to Let Her Go” b/w “Kilroy Won’t Be Back.” A different group called “Brown’s Blu-Blowers” supported Corporal Booker T. Washington on the 1949 single “St. Louis Boogie” b/w “Good Whiskey.” That same year, Brown’s Blues Blowers played behind Grant Jones on the Apex release “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water (And Sleep in a Hollow Log)” b/w “When the Deal Goes Down.” 

Brown’s first session as a bandleader was in 1949, also for Apex: “Blackjack Blues” b/w “Brown’s Boogie” is credited to J.T. Brown & His Blu-Blowers. The O’Neal essay for Bear Family says Brown’s first session was in 1950 for Harlem Records, but Apex was affiliated with Harlem and the single came out on both labels—it seems likely that later year is just wrong.

In 1951, Brown was signed to the brand-new United Records as Nature Boy Brown & His Blues Ramblers, and his first of three 78s for the label featured the local anthem “Windy City Boogie.” The instrumental jump-blues release did well enough that Brown put together a touring band that included trumpeter King Kolax. “J.T. and I worked together about five or six months,” Kolax told O’Neal. “We went to LaSalle, IL, Louisville, Montgomery, AL. It was Brown, myself, Art Tarry on piano, Hillard Brown on drums and Ernest Ashley on guitar, and he picked up a bass player out of Chattanooga at Harry Brown’s place on East 9th Street. J.T. had an act and he could draw a crowd.” 

That Chattanooga bass player was Tommy Braden, also lead singer for R&B act the Four Blazes, who had a hit for Chicago’s Delmark Records in 1952 with the saucy “Mary Jo.” That same year, Brown jumped to the Meteor and J.O.B labels, cutting jumping tunes such as “Round House Boogie” and “Boogie Baby” under his own name and as Bep Brown.

The early 50s were arguably the peak of Brown’s career. He continued to gig constantly in Chicago clubs and tour whenever he could, but he never got comfortable enough that he didn’t have to worry about money. In Jody Williams’s interview with O’Neal, the guitarist recalled accompanying Brown on a tour supporting a popular California vocal group called Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, whose leader and guitarist likely influenced Chuck Berry with his rhythmic playing. Williams said Brown threatened Moore with a beating on that tour, accusing him of withholding $100 from Brown’s group after a show at the armory in Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

At this point Fleetwood Mac were still a blues-rock group—they were years away from hiring Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks—and the place they afforded Brown among the city’s blues royalty reflects what I’ve always thought his stature should be. He even sang a tune of his own, “Blackjack Blues,” on the UK band’s double album. 

Muddy Waters’s son Mud Morganfield nodded to Brown’s legacy by opening his 2012 album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with a version of Brown’s “Short Dressed Woman.” Perhaps more important, compilations of Brown’s work have been appearing since 1977, when Delmark released the retrospective Windy City Boogie via its Pearl imprint, which it had acquired in 1974. (Delmark is still kicking, and the record is still in print.) As recently as 2005, The Chronological J.T. Brown: 1950-1954 arrived on the French label Classics.

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British playwright Caryl Churchill is having a bit of a moment this month in Chicago. Court Theatre opens her rarely produced 1983 play, Fen, under the direction of Vanessa Stalling on February 10. And Curious Theatre Branch opens This Is Not a Churchill—four plays inspired by her work—this weekend at the Facility Theatre in Humboldt Park.

Churchill, who turned 84 this past September, is hardly an unknown quantity. Her first professionally produced play, Owners, went up in London 50 years ago. She’s the author of around 50 plays (not all of which have been produced). In the early days, a lot of her work was created through collaborations with Joint Stock Theatre Company (an experimental troupe dedicated to deep research among communities as part of the creative process) and the feminist company Monstrous Regiment, which also used an intensive workshop method in creating new scripts. 

But she’s not produced regionally in the U.S. nearly as often as her contemporaries, such as the late Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. The latter, at 85, just had a Broadway premiere of his 2020 play Leopoldstadt (one of 21 Broadway productions he’s enjoyed, including revivals and multipart plays). By contrast, Churchill has had two brief Broadway runs with Serious Money in 1988 and Top Girls (perhaps her most-produced play since its 1983 premiere) in 2008. In Chicago, the most recent productions of her work include Red Theater’s revival of Vinegar Tom(from 1976) this past November; Remy Bumppo’s Top Girlsin 2020; and—of more recent vintage—2012’s Love and Information, produced at Trap Door in 2019.

Fen2/10-3/5: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM; audio description and touch tour Sat 3/4 2 PM (touch tour at 12:30 PM), open captions Sun 3/5 2 PM, ASL interpretation Sun 3/5 7:30 PM; Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis, 773-753-4472, courttheatre.org, $28.50-$66 previews (2/10-2/17), $40.50-$82 regular run (2/18-3/5)This Is Not a Churchill2/3-2/25: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Facility Theatre, 1138 N. California, facilitytheatre.org, $15 or pay what you can

But for both Stalling and Curious Theatre Branch’s Beau O’Reilly, who is curating and producing This Is Not a Churchill as part of his BeauTown Cabaret series (formerly housed at Jimmy Beans Coffee), Churchill’s influence as a writer and theatrical visionary cannot be overstated. 

The current project isn’t Curious’s first outing with Churchill. They produced her 1994 dystopian horror epic, The Skriker, in 2019 as part of Rhinofest. “It was one of my favorite productions that I’ve ever done, frankly,” says O’Reilly. “And it’s a very, very powerful play.” (The story follows a vengeful shapeshifting entity, known as a “skriker” in British folklore, who pursues two single working-class mothers in England, and is notable for the singsong, fragmented wordplay of the title character.)

While teaching a workshop at the University of Iowa after that production, O’Reilly came across a collection of Churchill’s works featuring plays he hadn’t read before, including 1999’s This Is a Chair, in which a series of fraught domestic scenes are presented with labels suggesting political conflicts, such as “The Labour Party’s Slide to the Right” and “Pornography and Censorship,” that at first seem to have nothing to do with the onstage action.

“I was intrigued by the form even more than the content,” O’Reilly notes. “There’s a title that’s a big announcement that was from the news of the day when she was writing it. And then there’s these little domestic scenes. At first, I didn’t understand how they connected. Now I have come to understand something about it, which is that the titles are about violence—public violence. And the little scenes are domestic violence, which are often presented in quite subtle ways, like just an unpleasantness in tone between people. That affected me a lot.”

Unable to acquire the rights to produce This Is a Chair, Curious decided to move forward with part of the original plan, which always included the idea of having four local writers create their own responses riffing off Churchill. Those pieces include The Umbrella Disguise, written by O’Reilly and directed by Chris Bower; (Not) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, written by Jayita Bhattacharya and Ira Murfin and directed by Jeffrey Bivens; How To Fix Your Fatigue (Do This Everyday), written and directed by Bower; and This Is Not a Play by Caryl Churchill, Titled This Is a Chair, written and directed by Chris Zdenek.

O’Reilly notes that, while Bhattacharya and Murfin were both already Churchill fans, Bower and Zdenek were not as steeped in her work. But the support of the entire team for this project means a lot to O’Reilly right now: he’s in the middle of treatment for cancer, and has found that the energy required to direct all the pieces as well as produce the show would be overwhelming without his Curious family. “It was obvious to me that I couldn’t do all the rehearsals in the rehearsal process,” he says.

(Not) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, part of Curious Theatre Branch’s This Is Not a Churchill at Facility Theatre Credit Jeffrey Bivens

For Stalling, Fen is her first time out directing Churchill. The project came together after she directed Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 at Court in 2019. Court artistic director Charles Newell asked her what her dream follow-up project would be. “And I just was like, ‘Well, uh, it’s a play that I don’t think anyone would wanna do, and no one would wanna produce,’” Stalling says with a laugh. “He was like, ‘What is it?’ And I just said ‘Fen by Caryl Churchill.’ Charlie just said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it! Go for it.’”

Like This Is a Chair and many of Churchill’s other plays, Fen unfolds in a series of short scenes that often focus on domestic tension and terror that reflects the larger forces of unbridled capitalism and misogyny. The title refers to the English marshlands in the eastern part of the island, which has been rich farmland for centuries. As corporate agriculture moves in, the farm workers in Churchill’s story find themselves facing growing economic terror that turns inward. 

Stalling appreciates that, while Churchill’s politics are always clear, her storytelling offers nuance and layers. “Part of that is that she challenges the idea that it’s easy to understand. We start in scene one, blaming a certain source of power. And then we find later on, ‘No, no, it’s this actually, let’s look above that. It’s that person.’ It’s not so simple to say, ‘Oh, you know, those are the bad guys.’ There’s not one villain in this play. Everybody is really kind of a cog in something that if it was super easy to explain or just point at—well then, wouldn’t it be fixed?”

But Stalling also notes that, though the women may be treated as cogs by systems beyond their immediate control, Churchill gives all of them, even the most minor of characters, their own names and, thus, their own agency. Given the attacks on women’s rights and health unfolding across the nation, that makes Fen feel particularly timely. But it’s the language and theatricality of Churchill’s vision that Stalling, like O’Reilly, also feels compelled by. 

“To me, the play is a compounding experience,” she says. “It’s not like you watch the play and you’re like, this event leads to this event, leads to this event, leads to this event. I hope the audience has the experience I feel like we’re having in the [rehearsal] room where it’s like the end of the play is this incredible joy and incredible grief at the exact same time.”

Dimming the house lights: Adrianne Cury (left) and David Rice in And Neither Have I Wings to Fly, the last production at Oak Brook’s First Folio Theatre. Courtesy First Folio

Farewell to First FolioIn December 2021, the board of First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook announced that they planned to close up shop at the end of the 2023-24 season. That changed to closing at the end of this season, with their final production being a staging of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in spring 2023.

Earlier this week, the company, founded in 1996 by the husband-and-wife team of David Rice and Alison C. Vesely, announced that they are now closing with the end of their current production of Ann Noble’s And Neither Have I Wings to Fly on February 26. 

The reasons for closing at all were, as Rice made clear when I spoke to him about the first announcement, mostly to do with fundraising and personnel. He and Vesely (who died of ovarian cancer in 2016) could tag team as managing director and artistic director without taking market salaries for running an Equity theater. But after Vesely’s death, Rice realized that continuing the theater without a solid succession plan wasn’t feasible. As he told me in 2021, “The only way you could be sure you’re going to have the ongoing funding for something like this is if the funding had already been in place for years, which it hasn’t been, or if you could set up an endowment.”

It’s a bittersweet announcement. Though I’m glad that they’re ending largely on their own terms and without the kind of acrimony that has brought down other theaters recently, I’ve enjoyed many productions at First Folio over the years, both in their outdoor summer Shakespeare presentations on the lush grounds of the Mayslake Peabody Estate and in the atmospheric Peabody mansion and the adjoining hall. It was a helluva run.

Non-Equity Jeff nominationsChicago’s answer to the Tonys, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are presented in two different ceremonies annually: one for Equity theaters, and the other for non-Equity (which essentially means union vs. non-union houses. Or bigger regional and midsize theaters vs. smaller storefront operations, if you prefer.)

The non-Equity nominations came out earlier this week, and they cover productions from July 2021 to December 2022. The extension recognizes that some theaters didn’t start producing after the pandemic shutdown until later in 2021. The theater with the most nominations out of the more than 100 productions seen by the Jeff Awards committee members was Theo Ubique (or, as it’s now known, Theo), with a grand total of 19 nominations from five productions. They were followed by Kokandy Productions with 16 nominations (their production of Sweeney Todddrew the most for a single show, with nine); Blank Theatre Company with 14; and Invictus Theatre with 13.

The complete list of nominations is available at jeffawards.org. The ceremony will be held Monday, March 27, at Park West.

Curtain raiser for Chicago Theatre WeekFinally, if you find yourself downtown on Monday, February 6, around noon, head over to the Harold Washington Library Center for a panel discussion cosponsored by the Reader, Chicago Public Library, and the League of Chicago Theatres. “A New Year for Theatre: New Leaders, New Directions, and Exciting New Productions” serves as an appetizer for Chicago Theatre Week (February 16-26). I’ll be talking to Mica Cole, executive director of TimeLine Theatre; Marti Lyons, artistic director of Remy Bumppo Theatre; Marcela Muñoz, co-artistic director for Aguijón Theater; and freelance director Grace Dolezal-Ng. It’s free, but reservations and information are at leagueofchicagotheatres.org.

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British playwright Caryl Churchill is having a bit of a moment this month in Chicago. Court Theatre opens her rarely produced 1983 play, Fen, under the direction of Vanessa Stalling on February 10. And Curious Theatre Branch opens This Is Not a Churchill—four plays inspired by her work—this weekend at the Facility Theatre in Humboldt Park.

Churchill, who turned 84 this past September, is hardly an unknown quantity. Her first professionally produced play, Owners, went up in London 50 years ago. She’s the author of around 50 plays (not all of which have been produced). In the early days, a lot of her work was created through collaborations with Joint Stock Theatre Company (an experimental troupe dedicated to deep research among communities as part of the creative process) and the feminist company Monstrous Regiment, which also used an intensive workshop method in creating new scripts. 

But she’s not produced regionally in the U.S. nearly as often as her contemporaries, such as the late Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. The latter, at 85, just had a Broadway premiere of his 2020 play Leopoldstadt (one of 21 Broadway productions he’s enjoyed, including revivals and multipart plays). By contrast, Churchill has had two brief Broadway runs with Serious Money in 1988 and Top Girls (perhaps her most-produced play since its 1983 premiere) in 2008. In Chicago, the most recent productions of her work include Red Theater’s revival of Vinegar Tom(from 1976) this past November; Remy Bumppo’s Top Girlsin 2020; and—of more recent vintage—2012’s Love and Information, produced at Trap Door in 2019.

Fen2/10-3/5: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM; audio description and touch tour Sat 3/4 2 PM (touch tour at 12:30 PM), open captions Sun 3/5 2 PM, ASL interpretation Sun 3/5 7:30 PM; Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis, 773-753-4472, courttheatre.org, $28.50-$66 previews (2/10-2/17), $40.50-$82 regular run (2/18-3/5)This Is Not a Churchill2/3-2/25: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Facility Theatre, 1138 N. California, facilitytheatre.org, $15 or pay what you can

But for both Stalling and Curious Theatre Branch’s Beau O’Reilly, who is curating and producing This Is Not a Churchill as part of his BeauTown Cabaret series (formerly housed at Jimmy Beans Coffee), Churchill’s influence as a writer and theatrical visionary cannot be overstated. 

The current project isn’t Curious’s first outing with Churchill. They produced her 1994 dystopian horror epic, The Skriker, in 2019 as part of Rhinofest. “It was one of my favorite productions that I’ve ever done, frankly,” says O’Reilly. “And it’s a very, very powerful play.” (The story follows a vengeful shapeshifting entity, known as a “skriker” in British folklore, who pursues two single working-class mothers in England, and is notable for the singsong, fragmented wordplay of the title character.)

While teaching a workshop at the University of Iowa after that production, O’Reilly came across a collection of Churchill’s works featuring plays he hadn’t read before, including 1999’s This Is a Chair, in which a series of fraught domestic scenes are presented with labels suggesting political conflicts, such as “The Labour Party’s Slide to the Right” and “Pornography and Censorship,” that at first seem to have nothing to do with the onstage action.

“I was intrigued by the form even more than the content,” O’Reilly notes. “There’s a title that’s a big announcement that was from the news of the day when she was writing it. And then there’s these little domestic scenes. At first, I didn’t understand how they connected. Now I have come to understand something about it, which is that the titles are about violence—public violence. And the little scenes are domestic violence, which are often presented in quite subtle ways, like just an unpleasantness in tone between people. That affected me a lot.”

Unable to acquire the rights to produce This Is a Chair, Curious decided to move forward with part of the original plan, which always included the idea of having four local writers create their own responses riffing off Churchill. Those pieces include The Umbrella Disguise, written by O’Reilly and directed by Chris Bower; (Not) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, written by Jayita Bhattacharya and Ira Murfin and directed by Jeffrey Bivens; How To Fix Your Fatigue (Do This Everyday), written and directed by Bower; and This Is Not a Play by Caryl Churchill, Titled This Is a Chair, written and directed by Chris Zdenek.

O’Reilly notes that, while Bhattacharya and Murfin were both already Churchill fans, Bower and Zdenek were not as steeped in her work. But the support of the entire team for this project means a lot to O’Reilly right now: he’s in the middle of treatment for cancer, and has found that the energy required to direct all the pieces as well as produce the show would be overwhelming without his Curious family. “It was obvious to me that I couldn’t do all the rehearsals in the rehearsal process,” he says.

(Not) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, part of Curious Theatre Branch’s This Is Not a Churchill at Facility Theatre Credit Jeffrey Bivens

For Stalling, Fen is her first time out directing Churchill. The project came together after she directed Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 at Court in 2019. Court artistic director Charles Newell asked her what her dream follow-up project would be. “And I just was like, ‘Well, uh, it’s a play that I don’t think anyone would wanna do, and no one would wanna produce,’” Stalling says with a laugh. “He was like, ‘What is it?’ And I just said ‘Fen by Caryl Churchill.’ Charlie just said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it! Go for it.’”

Like This Is a Chair and many of Churchill’s other plays, Fen unfolds in a series of short scenes that often focus on domestic tension and terror that reflects the larger forces of unbridled capitalism and misogyny. The title refers to the English marshlands in the eastern part of the island, which has been rich farmland for centuries. As corporate agriculture moves in, the farm workers in Churchill’s story find themselves facing growing economic terror that turns inward. 

Stalling appreciates that, while Churchill’s politics are always clear, her storytelling offers nuance and layers. “Part of that is that she challenges the idea that it’s easy to understand. We start in scene one, blaming a certain source of power. And then we find later on, ‘No, no, it’s this actually, let’s look above that. It’s that person.’ It’s not so simple to say, ‘Oh, you know, those are the bad guys.’ There’s not one villain in this play. Everybody is really kind of a cog in something that if it was super easy to explain or just point at—well then, wouldn’t it be fixed?”

But Stalling also notes that, though the women may be treated as cogs by systems beyond their immediate control, Churchill gives all of them, even the most minor of characters, their own names and, thus, their own agency. Given the attacks on women’s rights and health unfolding across the nation, that makes Fen feel particularly timely. But it’s the language and theatricality of Churchill’s vision that Stalling, like O’Reilly, also feels compelled by. 

“To me, the play is a compounding experience,” she says. “It’s not like you watch the play and you’re like, this event leads to this event, leads to this event, leads to this event. I hope the audience has the experience I feel like we’re having in the [rehearsal] room where it’s like the end of the play is this incredible joy and incredible grief at the exact same time.”

Dimming the house lights: Adrianne Cury (left) and David Rice in And Neither Have I Wings to Fly, the last production at Oak Brook’s First Folio Theatre. Courtesy First Folio

Farewell to First FolioIn December 2021, the board of First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook announced that they planned to close up shop at the end of the 2023-24 season. That changed to closing at the end of this season, with their final production being a staging of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in spring 2023.

Earlier this week, the company, founded in 1996 by the husband-and-wife team of David Rice and Alison C. Vesely, announced that they are now closing with the end of their current production of Ann Noble’s And Neither Have I Wings to Fly on February 26. 

The reasons for closing at all were, as Rice made clear when I spoke to him about the first announcement, mostly to do with fundraising and personnel. He and Vesely (who died of ovarian cancer in 2016) could tag team as managing director and artistic director without taking market salaries for running an Equity theater. But after Vesely’s death, Rice realized that continuing the theater without a solid succession plan wasn’t feasible. As he told me in 2021, “The only way you could be sure you’re going to have the ongoing funding for something like this is if the funding had already been in place for years, which it hasn’t been, or if you could set up an endowment.”

It’s a bittersweet announcement. Though I’m glad that they’re ending largely on their own terms and without the kind of acrimony that has brought down other theaters recently, I’ve enjoyed many productions at First Folio over the years, both in their outdoor summer Shakespeare presentations on the lush grounds of the Mayslake Peabody Estate and in the atmospheric Peabody mansion and the adjoining hall. It was a helluva run.

Non-Equity Jeff nominationsChicago’s answer to the Tonys, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are presented in two different ceremonies annually: one for Equity theaters, and the other for non-Equity (which essentially means union vs. non-union houses. Or bigger regional and midsize theaters vs. smaller storefront operations, if you prefer.)

The non-Equity nominations came out earlier this week, and they cover productions from July 2021 to December 2022. The extension recognizes that some theaters didn’t start producing after the pandemic shutdown until later in 2021. The theater with the most nominations out of the more than 100 productions seen by the Jeff Awards committee members was Theo Ubique (or, as it’s now known, Theo), with a grand total of 19 nominations from five productions. They were followed by Kokandy Productions with 16 nominations (their production of Sweeney Todddrew the most for a single show, with nine); Blank Theatre Company with 14; and Invictus Theatre with 13.

The complete list of nominations is available at jeffawards.org. The ceremony will be held Monday, March 27, at Park West.

Curtain raiser for Chicago Theatre WeekFinally, if you find yourself downtown on Monday, February 6, around noon, head over to the Harold Washington Library Center for a panel discussion cosponsored by the Reader, Chicago Public Library, and the League of Chicago Theatres. “A New Year for Theatre: New Leaders, New Directions, and Exciting New Productions” serves as an appetizer for Chicago Theatre Week (February 16-26). I’ll be talking to Mica Cole, executive director of TimeLine Theatre; Marti Lyons, artistic director of Remy Bumppo Theatre; Marcela Muñoz, co-artistic director for Aguijón Theater; and freelance director Grace Dolezal-Ng. It’s free, but reservations and information are at leagueofchicagotheatres.org.

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“Regarding the Missing Objects,” a group exhibition on view at the Hyde Park Art Center, takes absence as its theme. There is the absence of one of the artists whose work is included in the show, Dana Carter, who died before the exhibition opened. Then there are the missing objects of the show’s title, a subtle reference to a not-so-subtle act of institutional censorship which resulted in this show, an earlier iteration of which was meant to take place at the Spertus Institute in 2019.

That show, tentatively titled “Inquiry 02: Material Investigations into the Spertus Collection,” would have been the culmination of the Spertus’s second Chicago Jewish artist fellowship, of which the eight artists here were a part of. The fellows spent several months developing a project in relation to items from the Spertus’s eclectic 15,000-piece collection, which were meant to be displayed along the final works. Four months before the opening, leadership at the institution refused to show a piece proposed by artist Tirtza Even, who subsequently withdrew. Once the rest of the artists were informed of what had happened, they too withdrew, in solidarity, and the curator and director of the fellowship program, Ruslana Lichtzier, resigned. 

Institutional censorship, of course, is nothing new. Private institutions in particular, like the Spertus, are free to make any decisions they want; they don’t answer to the public. What is different about this instance is that the artists and curator kept working together. Now, more than three years after that first show’s cancellation, “Regarding the Missing Objects” presents newly articulated works, sans the original items from the collection. Each artist interpreted the idea of absence differently. Ben Segal wrote wall text, installed throughout the galleries, that explores ideas of isolation and censorship. Elana Adler’s ghostly hanging sculpture, I see through your barriers, evokes the Eruv, an enclosed area “permitting various activities on the Sabbath.” 

Maggie Taft, an art historian, makes visible the absence of the Spertus Institute, the missing objects from the collection, and the canceled exhibition. In the final room of the gallery sit chairs and a table, where a partial archive of the activities of the Spertus fellows is chronicled: emails, notes, research materials, all open to public perusal. 

“It felt like rather than sort of allowing the institution to tell the story or to erase the story of that fellowship, this could be an opportunity to build a counter archive, to insist upon the existence of this program and what emerged out of that program,” Taft says.

The opening of the Hyde Park Art Center show, in November 2022, is the first time that the participants are speaking publicly about their experience, with the hope that the exhibition and its public programming will inspire a productive dialogue on censorship and institutional denial. “It’s usually an individual who experiences censorship,” Lichtzier says. “So we have so much privilege to bring this conversation and open the door to talk about it. . . . That is why I think it was really important for us to think about how we civically engaged in a conversation, that it’s about us [cultural workers] being under threat.”

Elana Adler, I see through your barriers, 2021Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

“Inquiry 02: Material Investigations into the Spertus Collection” wasn’t the Spertus’s first brush with censorship. Back in 2008, the exhibition “Imaginary Coordinates,” which presented modern and historical maps of the Holy Land alongside contemporary artworks, was shut down a week after opening. 

“Imaginary Coordinates” was curated by Rhoda Rosen, who was the Spertus Museum’s director at the time—a position that no longer exists. It was only the second exhibition to be staged in Spertus’s gleaming new building, at 610 South Michigan. For Rosen, the glass-and-steel building, located near other cultural institutions, signified an openness to the greater public. “My charge, as I understood it, was to speak to all people and the way in which we are connected to one another,” Rosen says.

News reports from the time note pushback from the board and complaints from the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, a major donor to the Spertus. Michael Kotzin, then the executive vice-president of the Jewish Federation, called the exhibition “unwelcome and inappropriate,” and noted some works were “anti-Israel.” Rosen recalls receiving negative messages from people who hadn’t even seen the show, along with many messages of support.

“It showed something very positive, that people don’t often think about, maybe it showed the point of the museum actually, which is that the Jewish community isn’t a single community,” Rosen says. “It is a rich and varied community with all sorts of perspectives that many times, [because of the community’s powerful centralized power], have to be curtailed. But we all claim a space in it—whether we have to create alternative structures, or whether the institutional world will allow us in.” 

As the Reader’s Deanna Isaacs wrote at the time, “Imaginary Coordinates” was reorganized and reopened, for guided tours only, until it was officially shut down for good. The next year, longtime Spertus CEO Howard Sulkin left his position; he died in 2018. Rosen left the institution after the change in leadership, when it felt like the ability to think independently had narrowed. “The next [Spertus president] was definitely shrinking the vision to be more in line with the [Jewish] Federation,” she says. “It didn’t align with my own values.”

The impact of this sort of institutional denial is twofold. “Its function is to take people really concerned and interested in the question of Israel/Palestine and not allow them to work, not to give them the space to work,” Rosen says. But it also forecloses the opportunity for art to heal, to bring people together. “The beauty of bringing Palestinians and Jews together through art was vacated.”

The canceled exhibition garnered quite a bit of attention at the time. Lichtzier was aware of the incident before she joined the organization, though she hoped that things may have changed in the intervening years. Lichtzier originally ran the fellowship program with Ionit Behar, who was then curator of collections and exhibitions at Spertus. But in September 2018, a few months into the second fellowship, Behar had her own experience with censorship. 

Days before the opening of a show by Ukrainian-born Chicago artist Todros Geller, Spertus’s leadership objected to the inclusion of two nude works. The censorship led Behar to resign. In an email to the fellowship artists, she said the Spertus president offered “no explanation” or opportunity for dialogue regarding the decision, noting that their email was “disrespectful and insulting.” (Emails referenced in this story are open to the public via the archive on view at the Hyde Park Art Center.)

After Behar’s departure, the fellowship continued, with the exhibition slated to open in September of 2019, following a few postponements. From the start of the program, artist Tirtza Even, an experimental documentary filmmaker and professor at the School of the Art Institute, expressed interest in making work about Gaza. 

“I actually already then expressed some concern about the political kind of misalignment of the institution versus where my politics are,” Even says. “And I said that for the final show I will probably create a piece that will deal with the situation in Palestine and they were very open to that.”

The fellows were encouraged to explore the Spertus’s vast collection in order to find materials to inspire their own projects. Even chose a photograph by artist Jazon Lazarus, Untitled (Palestinian wall, east Jerusalem), from 2008. For the photo, Lazarus used a now-defunct web service, where you could pay a fee and someone would spray-paint a message of your choice on the Palestinian side of the Separation Wall in East Jerusalem. (The fees were used to renovate a youth center in Bir Zeit.) Lazarus’s message read, “Trying to imagine a clear view between Palestine and Israel.”

“I decided to react to that and actually go deeper and question this whole concept of viewership, which I feel like is a little more complicated than what is suggested by his language,” Even says. 

In April, an email thread about Even’s project began, between Lichtzier, Spertus dean Keren Fraiman, and Spertus president and CEO Dean Bell. Leadership was hoping to schedule a meeting with the artist to discuss her project, which Fraiman wrote had “significant challenges/questions.”

By the end of May, Spertus had declined to show Even’s proposed work, and she subsequently withdrew from the exhibition. At that point, the project was not even finished. In a later email, Bell called Even’s work “unnecessarily inflammatory,” “one-sided,” and “non-contextualized.”

According to Even and Lichtzier, there was scant opportunity for conversation about the work, or how it might be presented in a way that added additional context. Bell’s characterization of the work struck Even as particularly off-base, as context and an opportunity for dialogue was exactly what she’d hoped her work would offer. 

“I wanted to bring context but from the other perspective, not the one that is consistently endorsed by the institution,” she says. “I thought that it was crucial for me, as a Jew, to be the one who brings this critique. I think it’s more valuable in a way, that it comes from inside, so people start asking the right questions and maybe undo some of that indifference that I think is at the heart of a lot of the violence that’s allowed to happen.”

When Lichtzier told the rest of the fellowship artists about Even’s withdrawal, they quickly came together to form a group response. In an email to Bell and Fraiman, the artists wrote: “. . . we must stand together as a cohort in objecting to the censorship of our colleague’s work. We thus insist that the Spertus permit Tirtza Even to show her work as proposed. Otherwise, we will all recuse ourselves from the planned exhibition.”

The institution did not waver in their position, so the artists withdrew, Lichtzier resigned, and all mention of the show was promptly removed from the Spertus website. In fact, Spertus decided to formally end the fellowship program at the same time. 

Rosen sees Spertus’s decision as a direct result of the controversy around “Imaginary Coordinates.” “It’s not just that they’re related, right? You can’t look at Ruslana’s show without seeing the deep wounds that had been caused by my exhibition,” she says.

A statement provided by Spertus about the exhibition reads, in part, “The exhibition was never completed over concerns regarding a piece in the collection whose approach we believed was at odds with our institutional mission, values, and goals . . . We were clear then and maintain now that this decision in no way was an issue of censorship, but a sensitivity to institutional values and the commitment to providing opportunities for nuanced and complex discussion of important and sensitive issues.”

Despite this institutional denial, the fellowship group continued working together, meeting regularly throughout the pandemic to consider what a new exhibition might look like. Both Taft and Even credit Lichtzier for her work in this. “We owe the exhibition to her certainly,” Taft says. Even agrees, noting how important her vision was to the show. “She held us together,” Even says. 

The experience they all went through together forged a deep connection between them, and their dedication to showing work together was strengthened following the death of artist Dana Carter in July 2019.

In 2019, the Hyde Park Art Center agreed to host the exhibition, with no restrictions. “They were entirely open to the whole situation,” Even says, crediting HPAC director of exhibitions and residency programs Allison Peters Quinn. “It’s risky, since we are critiquing another institution in the city. Allison is just a very open-minded, courageous woman.”

Detail of William J. O’Brien’s Lost Family Pt. 2 – 2, 2022Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

“Regarding the Missing Objects” is tucked away in HPAC’s second-floor Kanter Family Foundation Gallery, installed behind a black velvet curtain. The first work you see upon entering is Even’s video projection, Gaza Strip. The work is subtle, almost calming to behold. It shows a static shot of a Chicago pier extending into Lake Michigan. The day is overcast and looks cold and windy, with little evidence of life, save for a flock of seagulls. 

Your eye is drawn to the most dynamic part of the scene, a panoramic strip projected onto the wall of the pier. At first it’s hard to make out—the images are only a few inches in height. What you see are aerial shots, taken by drone, of the Gaza Strip, following Israel’s 2014 attack on the area.

An in-depth wall panel explains that the footage was taken by Palestinian residents, and made available through the Gazan company Media Town. The clarity of the images, similar to what Americans are used to seeing through Google Street View, doesn’t seem notable. But the panel, written by Even and Lichtzier, points out that until recently satellite images of Israel and Palestine were not publicly available at such high resolutions. A 1997 U.S. regulation, the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, “limited the quality and availability of high-resolution satellite imagery” of the area, at the behest of Israel, ostensibly for national security purposes. In practice, the low resolution made it hard for Palestinians to prove human rights violations or settlement expansion. (Partly due to the growing availability of high-resolution satellite imagery from non-U.S. companies, the amendment was altered in 2020.)

While Even’s panoramic video is clear, showing vast destruction in Gaza, the image is not sensationalized. “I wanted to really make us see the fact that we don’t see and how we live oblivious of what goes on behind the wall,” she says. By juxtaposing the drone footage with Lake Michigan, she is bringing the war home, implicating herself and the viewer in the violence. “I chose to live here because I couldn’t support what goes on in Israel, but even by leaving, in some way, I’m endorsing certain kinds of passive nonparticipation. So it’s complicated.”

Gaza Strip’s wall text also makes America’s role in the conflict explicit, calling out General Dynamics, a weapons contractor to Israel, which is partly owned by Chicago’s Crown family. The Crowns are major philanthropists in the arts and in education, including to the Spertus.

Dana Carter’s book, Extract from Captain Stormfield Visit to Heaven, is on view in the final room of the exhibition.Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

Throughout the galleries, and in an artist book on display, artist Dana Carver’s fabric drawings also evoke landscapes and satellite images. The saltwater drawings began by accident, when the artist’s studio had a leak during the winter, and street salt left stains on dark theatrical fabric. The resulting works are spectral abstractions, with lines of grayish salt moving fluidly across the fabric.

Jaclyn Mednicov’s work tackles both absence and presence. In Traces of Unclaimed Objects, the artist made photographic transfers onto acrylic polymer, which are hung from the ceiling. The images were taken by the artist while doing research about unclaimed post-World War II textiles, primarily shawls, in the Spertus collection. Referring to the pieces as “skins,” the patterned works signify complex layers of Jewish history. Her second piece, Memories of Objects, consists of nine cyanotype panels, featuring collaged photographs of personally meaningful objects that the fellowship participants brought to a workshop earlier in their program. The items in the collages are hard to make out: there seems to be a hairbrush, family photographs, jewelry. During the workshop, the participants had a conversation about what institutions collect, what they value, and what objects individuals find important to keep, to remember. 

Jaclyn Mednicov’s Memories of Objects features collaged photographs of personally meaningful objects that the fellowship participants brought to a workshop earlier in their program.Courtest Hyde Park Art Center

“It’s a grid [of separate units] but it’s completely united,” Lichtzier explains. “You cannot take one piece off . . . It’s important, for me at least, that like every artist that saw that work for the first time, they started tearing up because they really saw it as a group image.”

For Even, the community that formed out of this experience was an unexpected reward. “It’s really rich and broad and expansive and it went way beyond what I ever expected entering this fellowship,” she says. “I really didn’t know that that home would happen. Kind of oddly, it did serve exactly the goal that it set out to serve, but what brought us together was the walls that the Spertus chose to enforce.”

“Regarding the Missing Objects”Through 2/27: Mon-Thu 10 AM-7 PM, Fri 10 AM-4:30 PM, Sat 10 AM-4 PM, Sun 10 AM-1:30 PM, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell, hydeparkart.org, free

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“Regarding the Missing Objects,” a group exhibition on view at the Hyde Park Art Center, takes absence as its theme. There is the absence of one of the artists whose work is included in the show, Dana Carter, who died before the exhibition opened. Then there are the missing objects of the show’s title, a subtle reference to a not-so-subtle act of institutional censorship which resulted in this show, an earlier iteration of which was meant to take place at the Spertus Institute in 2019.

That show, tentatively titled “Inquiry 02: Material Investigations into the Spertus Collection,” would have been the culmination of the Spertus’s second Chicago Jewish artist fellowship, of which the eight artists here were a part of. The fellows spent several months developing a project in relation to items from the Spertus’s eclectic 15,000-piece collection, which were meant to be displayed along the final works. Four months before the opening, leadership at the institution refused to show a piece proposed by artist Tirtza Even, who subsequently withdrew. Once the rest of the artists were informed of what had happened, they too withdrew, in solidarity, and the curator and director of the fellowship program, Ruslana Lichtzier, resigned. 

Institutional censorship, of course, is nothing new. Private institutions in particular, like the Spertus, are free to make any decisions they want; they don’t answer to the public. What is different about this instance is that the artists and curator kept working together. Now, more than three years after that first show’s cancellation, “Regarding the Missing Objects” presents newly articulated works, sans the original items from the collection. Each artist interpreted the idea of absence differently. Ben Segal wrote wall text, installed throughout the galleries, that explores ideas of isolation and censorship. Elana Adler’s ghostly hanging sculpture, I see through your barriers, evokes the Eruv, an enclosed area “permitting various activities on the Sabbath.” 

Maggie Taft, an art historian, makes visible the absence of the Spertus Institute, the missing objects from the collection, and the canceled exhibition. In the final room of the gallery sit chairs and a table, where a partial archive of the activities of the Spertus fellows is chronicled: emails, notes, research materials, all open to public perusal. 

“It felt like rather than sort of allowing the institution to tell the story or to erase the story of that fellowship, this could be an opportunity to build a counter archive, to insist upon the existence of this program and what emerged out of that program,” Taft says.

The opening of the Hyde Park Art Center show, in November 2022, is the first time that the participants are speaking publicly about their experience, with the hope that the exhibition and its public programming will inspire a productive dialogue on censorship and institutional denial. “It’s usually an individual who experiences censorship,” Lichtzier says. “So we have so much privilege to bring this conversation and open the door to talk about it. . . . That is why I think it was really important for us to think about how we civically engaged in a conversation, that it’s about us [cultural workers] being under threat.”

Elana Adler, I see through your barriers, 2021Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

“Inquiry 02: Material Investigations into the Spertus Collection” wasn’t the Spertus’s first brush with censorship. Back in 2008, the exhibition “Imaginary Coordinates,” which presented modern and historical maps of the Holy Land alongside contemporary artworks, was shut down a week after opening. 

“Imaginary Coordinates” was curated by Rhoda Rosen, who was the Spertus Museum’s director at the time—a position that no longer exists. It was only the second exhibition to be staged in Spertus’s gleaming new building, at 610 South Michigan. For Rosen, the glass-and-steel building, located near other cultural institutions, signified an openness to the greater public. “My charge, as I understood it, was to speak to all people and the way in which we are connected to one another,” Rosen says.

News reports from the time note pushback from the board and complaints from the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, a major donor to the Spertus. Michael Kotzin, then the executive vice-president of the Jewish Federation, called the exhibition “unwelcome and inappropriate,” and noted some works were “anti-Israel.” Rosen recalls receiving negative messages from people who hadn’t even seen the show, along with many messages of support.

“It showed something very positive, that people don’t often think about, maybe it showed the point of the museum actually, which is that the Jewish community isn’t a single community,” Rosen says. “It is a rich and varied community with all sorts of perspectives that many times, [because of the community’s powerful centralized power], have to be curtailed. But we all claim a space in it—whether we have to create alternative structures, or whether the institutional world will allow us in.” 

As the Reader’s Deanna Isaacs wrote at the time, “Imaginary Coordinates” was reorganized and reopened, for guided tours only, until it was officially shut down for good. The next year, longtime Spertus CEO Howard Sulkin left his position; he died in 2018. Rosen left the institution after the change in leadership, when it felt like the ability to think independently had narrowed. “The next [Spertus president] was definitely shrinking the vision to be more in line with the [Jewish] Federation,” she says. “It didn’t align with my own values.”

The impact of this sort of institutional denial is twofold. “Its function is to take people really concerned and interested in the question of Israel/Palestine and not allow them to work, not to give them the space to work,” Rosen says. But it also forecloses the opportunity for art to heal, to bring people together. “The beauty of bringing Palestinians and Jews together through art was vacated.”

The canceled exhibition garnered quite a bit of attention at the time. Lichtzier was aware of the incident before she joined the organization, though she hoped that things may have changed in the intervening years. Lichtzier originally ran the fellowship program with Ionit Behar, who was then curator of collections and exhibitions at Spertus. But in September 2018, a few months into the second fellowship, Behar had her own experience with censorship. 

Days before the opening of a show by Ukrainian-born Chicago artist Todros Geller, Spertus’s leadership objected to the inclusion of two nude works. The censorship led Behar to resign. In an email to the fellowship artists, she said the Spertus president offered “no explanation” or opportunity for dialogue regarding the decision, noting that their email was “disrespectful and insulting.” (Emails referenced in this story are open to the public via the archive on view at the Hyde Park Art Center.)

After Behar’s departure, the fellowship continued, with the exhibition slated to open in September of 2019, following a few postponements. From the start of the program, artist Tirtza Even, an experimental documentary filmmaker and professor at the School of the Art Institute, expressed interest in making work about Gaza. 

“I actually already then expressed some concern about the political kind of misalignment of the institution versus where my politics are,” Even says. “And I said that for the final show I will probably create a piece that will deal with the situation in Palestine and they were very open to that.”

The fellows were encouraged to explore the Spertus’s vast collection in order to find materials to inspire their own projects. Even chose a photograph by artist Jazon Lazarus, Untitled (Palestinian wall, east Jerusalem), from 2008. For the photo, Lazarus used a now-defunct web service, where you could pay a fee and someone would spray-paint a message of your choice on the Palestinian side of the Separation Wall in East Jerusalem. (The fees were used to renovate a youth center in Bir Zeit.) Lazarus’s message read, “Trying to imagine a clear view between Palestine and Israel.”

“I decided to react to that and actually go deeper and question this whole concept of viewership, which I feel like is a little more complicated than what is suggested by his language,” Even says. 

In April, an email thread about Even’s project began, between Lichtzier, Spertus dean Keren Fraiman, and Spertus president and CEO Dean Bell. Leadership was hoping to schedule a meeting with the artist to discuss her project, which Fraiman wrote had “significant challenges/questions.”

By the end of May, Spertus had declined to show Even’s proposed work, and she subsequently withdrew from the exhibition. At that point, the project was not even finished. In a later email, Bell called Even’s work “unnecessarily inflammatory,” “one-sided,” and “non-contextualized.”

According to Even and Lichtzier, there was scant opportunity for conversation about the work, or how it might be presented in a way that added additional context. Bell’s characterization of the work struck Even as particularly off-base, as context and an opportunity for dialogue was exactly what she’d hoped her work would offer. 

“I wanted to bring context but from the other perspective, not the one that is consistently endorsed by the institution,” she says. “I thought that it was crucial for me, as a Jew, to be the one who brings this critique. I think it’s more valuable in a way, that it comes from inside, so people start asking the right questions and maybe undo some of that indifference that I think is at the heart of a lot of the violence that’s allowed to happen.”

When Lichtzier told the rest of the fellowship artists about Even’s withdrawal, they quickly came together to form a group response. In an email to Bell and Fraiman, the artists wrote: “. . . we must stand together as a cohort in objecting to the censorship of our colleague’s work. We thus insist that the Spertus permit Tirtza Even to show her work as proposed. Otherwise, we will all recuse ourselves from the planned exhibition.”

The institution did not waver in their position, so the artists withdrew, Lichtzier resigned, and all mention of the show was promptly removed from the Spertus website. In fact, Spertus decided to formally end the fellowship program at the same time. 

Rosen sees Spertus’s decision as a direct result of the controversy around “Imaginary Coordinates.” “It’s not just that they’re related, right? You can’t look at Ruslana’s show without seeing the deep wounds that had been caused by my exhibition,” she says.

A statement provided by Spertus about the exhibition reads, in part, “The exhibition was never completed over concerns regarding a piece in the collection whose approach we believed was at odds with our institutional mission, values, and goals . . . We were clear then and maintain now that this decision in no way was an issue of censorship, but a sensitivity to institutional values and the commitment to providing opportunities for nuanced and complex discussion of important and sensitive issues.”

Despite this institutional denial, the fellowship group continued working together, meeting regularly throughout the pandemic to consider what a new exhibition might look like. Both Taft and Even credit Lichtzier for her work in this. “We owe the exhibition to her certainly,” Taft says. Even agrees, noting how important her vision was to the show. “She held us together,” Even says. 

The experience they all went through together forged a deep connection between them, and their dedication to showing work together was strengthened following the death of artist Dana Carter in July 2019.

In 2019, the Hyde Park Art Center agreed to host the exhibition, with no restrictions. “They were entirely open to the whole situation,” Even says, crediting HPAC director of exhibitions and residency programs Allison Peters Quinn. “It’s risky, since we are critiquing another institution in the city. Allison is just a very open-minded, courageous woman.”

Detail of William J. O’Brien’s Lost Family Pt. 2 – 2, 2022Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

“Regarding the Missing Objects” is tucked away in HPAC’s second-floor Kanter Family Foundation Gallery, installed behind a black velvet curtain. The first work you see upon entering is Even’s video projection, Gaza Strip. The work is subtle, almost calming to behold. It shows a static shot of a Chicago pier extending into Lake Michigan. The day is overcast and looks cold and windy, with little evidence of life, save for a flock of seagulls. 

Your eye is drawn to the most dynamic part of the scene, a panoramic strip projected onto the wall of the pier. At first it’s hard to make out—the images are only a few inches in height. What you see are aerial shots, taken by drone, of the Gaza Strip, following Israel’s 2014 attack on the area.

An in-depth wall panel explains that the footage was taken by Palestinian residents, and made available through the Gazan company Media Town. The clarity of the images, similar to what Americans are used to seeing through Google Street View, doesn’t seem notable. But the panel, written by Even and Lichtzier, points out that until recently satellite images of Israel and Palestine were not publicly available at such high resolutions. A 1997 U.S. regulation, the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, “limited the quality and availability of high-resolution satellite imagery” of the area, at the behest of Israel, ostensibly for national security purposes. In practice, the low resolution made it hard for Palestinians to prove human rights violations or settlement expansion. (Partly due to the growing availability of high-resolution satellite imagery from non-U.S. companies, the amendment was altered in 2020.)

While Even’s panoramic video is clear, showing vast destruction in Gaza, the image is not sensationalized. “I wanted to really make us see the fact that we don’t see and how we live oblivious of what goes on behind the wall,” she says. By juxtaposing the drone footage with Lake Michigan, she is bringing the war home, implicating herself and the viewer in the violence. “I chose to live here because I couldn’t support what goes on in Israel, but even by leaving, in some way, I’m endorsing certain kinds of passive nonparticipation. So it’s complicated.”

Gaza Strip’s wall text also makes America’s role in the conflict explicit, calling out General Dynamics, a weapons contractor to Israel, which is partly owned by Chicago’s Crown family. The Crowns are major philanthropists in the arts and in education, including to the Spertus.

Dana Carter’s book, Extract from Captain Stormfield Visit to Heaven, is on view in the final room of the exhibition.Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center

Throughout the galleries, and in an artist book on display, artist Dana Carver’s fabric drawings also evoke landscapes and satellite images. The saltwater drawings began by accident, when the artist’s studio had a leak during the winter, and street salt left stains on dark theatrical fabric. The resulting works are spectral abstractions, with lines of grayish salt moving fluidly across the fabric.

Jaclyn Mednicov’s work tackles both absence and presence. In Traces of Unclaimed Objects, the artist made photographic transfers onto acrylic polymer, which are hung from the ceiling. The images were taken by the artist while doing research about unclaimed post-World War II textiles, primarily shawls, in the Spertus collection. Referring to the pieces as “skins,” the patterned works signify complex layers of Jewish history. Her second piece, Memories of Objects, consists of nine cyanotype panels, featuring collaged photographs of personally meaningful objects that the fellowship participants brought to a workshop earlier in their program. The items in the collages are hard to make out: there seems to be a hairbrush, family photographs, jewelry. During the workshop, the participants had a conversation about what institutions collect, what they value, and what objects individuals find important to keep, to remember. 

Jaclyn Mednicov’s Memories of Objects features collaged photographs of personally meaningful objects that the fellowship participants brought to a workshop earlier in their program.Courtest Hyde Park Art Center

“It’s a grid [of separate units] but it’s completely united,” Lichtzier explains. “You cannot take one piece off . . . It’s important, for me at least, that like every artist that saw that work for the first time, they started tearing up because they really saw it as a group image.”

For Even, the community that formed out of this experience was an unexpected reward. “It’s really rich and broad and expansive and it went way beyond what I ever expected entering this fellowship,” she says. “I really didn’t know that that home would happen. Kind of oddly, it did serve exactly the goal that it set out to serve, but what brought us together was the walls that the Spertus chose to enforce.”

“Regarding the Missing Objects”Through 2/27: Mon-Thu 10 AM-7 PM, Fri 10 AM-4:30 PM, Sat 10 AM-4 PM, Sun 10 AM-1:30 PM, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell, hydeparkart.org, free

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There are so many ways to meet new people, but nothing is more adventurous and electrifying than calling a phone chat line. It’s exciting to think about all the new people you could meet through a phone dating line, all from the comfort of your own home. It’s a testament to how far dating has come, and how phones have enhanced our ability to make meaningful connections.

We’ve put together a new list of the top chat lines in 2023. The top 10 are in the table with clickable phone numbers and free trial minutes available. Our runner-up chat lines are below the table.

Best Free Phone Chat Lines of 2023

RankBrandPhone NumberFree TrialBest For1.LiveLinks888-901-268860 minutesMeeting local singles2.FreeChatGirls866-995-533130 minutesBest free trial3.Local Hot Chat888-710-26255 minutesGreat singles4.Livetalk800-444-LIVE10 minutesHybrid naughty/singles5.RedHot Dateline855-933-061030 minutesLate night chat6.Vibeline866-488-080930 minutesMeeting black singles7.Fonochat866-605-301630 minutesChatting with latina singles8.Talk121855-677-054530 minutesBest early day number9.Phone and Flirt800-381-54555 minutesBest flirty line10.Desires Chat888-598-83365 minutesBest confessional line

More Chat Lines To Call

Moonlight Line: 855-677-0538Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625Lover’s Lane: 509-876-5930Adult Talk: 833-937-ADULTHowl Line: 888-655-6366Azul Line: 888-589-4999Sexy Live Connections: 800-317-4475Hollar Line: 888-650-2223Taboo Chat: 855-50-TABOOExotic Chat Line: 888-633-9453Lavalife Voice: 877-800-5282Girls Flirt Free: 800-364-4757Social Voice USA: 844-706-5518Hot Latinas Chat: 800-309-9388Latino Phone Chat: 888-702-8887Nightline: 877-834-4044Questchat: 888-889-6565Black Singlez: 800-287-3991Night Exchange: 866-917-8328Español Chat: 888-674-8887College Party Line: 888-598-3927Black Phone Chat: 800-319-7277America’s Hottest Talk Line: 206-876-56711PartyLine: 562-621-1201Grapevine Personals: 250-984-3322Metrovibe: 877-390-6677TangoPersonals: 800-810-8108MegaMates: 866-718-4930Metrochat: 206-876-56751-800-DATE-LINE: 800-DATE-LINE1800Personals: 213-687-7675Party Lines Uncensored: 712-432-4800

1. LiveLinks: 888-901-2688 – Best overall chat line
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveLinks is the most prominent and well-known chat line in North America. Not only has it been around since the 90s, but it’s also famous for its ability to establish all sorts of relationships, from the friendly to the romantic. Not many lines cater to such a large variety.

LiveLinks has great features, like the Hot List where you can add your favorite people and chat instantly. The best feature, by far, is that the callers are real. No fake profiles, no paid callers. Just singles looking to connect with other people in their area.

Women chat for free. First-time male callers can enjoy a hefty one-hour trial, which is an extremely generous amount of free time that can be used to get to know a special someone. Unlike other lines, LiveLinks allows you to browse profiles and chat live one-on-one during the free trial. Once the hour’s up, you need to purchase minutes.

Need more info before calling? Check out our full LiveLinks review.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.99 (best value)10 minutes$4.99

2. FreeChatGirls: 866-995-5331 – Best for new chat line callers

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

FreeChatGirls is a naughty adult line where the ladies always talk for free. It’s a phone sex line without any paid operators, only real people who are just like you. This chat line is for hot like-minded individuals who want to dive into their fantasies with strangers on the phone. You are allowed a half-hour free phone chat trial, which you can use to browse profiles. Once you use up that time, you’re going to want to purchase one of their affordable memberships to talk live one-on-one.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

3. Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625 – Best hybrid naughty/singles number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Local Hot Chat may appear to be on the risqué side of phone dating, but it caters to callers of all types. Whether you’re looking for something serious or spicy, Local Hot Chat delivers. The gender ratio skews female, so if you’re want to chat with a single lady, this is the number to call. The 5 minute free trial allows you to browse profiles and request connect. As soon as you talk live, you’ll have to pay. But it’s worth it. The memberships are affordable. What’s one downside? Their user interface (IVR) system is a little outdated, but it gets the job done.

Local Hot Chat updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99
4. LiveTalk: 800-444-LIVE – Best for real connections
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveTalk provides a safe and secure phone dating environment for adults over the age of 18. People come to LiveTalk when they want to meet someone who is like-minded and genuine. Locals from different cities across the U.S. flock to this newer chat line. While it hasn’t been around since the 90s like LiveLinks, it’s one of the most favored and talked about chat lines right now. This premier phone chat service does a great job of connecting folks who are truly interested in creating a bond. You will never meet anyone flaky when you call LiveTalk.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$19.99*60 minutes$29.99*90 minutes$42.99**prices subject to change per LiveTalk’s parent company, NTS

5. Redhot Dateline: 855-993-0610 – Best late night number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Redhot Dateline is a line most notable for its ability to link sexy individuals to each other for steamy phone chat. It’s a very popular line, making finding a match a seamless experience no matter when you call in. If you are seeking a little wild fun, Redhot Dateline is for you. However, if romance is more your pick, we’d suggest heading to one of the lines dedicated to dating rather than erotic chat. Redhot Dateline doesn’t shy away from its namesake; it really is red hot. The only unfortunate thing about Redhot Dateline is that the 30-minute free trial is limited. To take full advantage, you’ll need a membership.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

6. Vibeline: 866-488-0809 – Best black chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★

Vibeline has long been a chat line that has attracted Black callers. But in more recent years, it has expanded into a more diverse bunch of young and trendy folks. It’s known as a pretty “hip” line, which is why it brings in a younger and more vibrant crowd. Callers on this line are looking for all sorts of relationships. Some want something serious, but many are seeking a flirty fling. Women can talk on Vibeline free of charge and men can take advantage of that sweet 30-minute free trial. These 30 minutes can be spread out over time if you’d like, which is a nice and unique touch that other chat lines usually don’t offer.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

7. Fonochat: 866-605-3016 – Best latina chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Brought to you by the same people who created LiveLinks, Fonochat is the best Latinx chat line available for Hispanic singles in your area. It’s an exciting place where Latinx people and those looking for Latinx partners can come and be themselves. If you prefer to chat in Spanish, that’s an option for you at Fonochat (but you don’t have to if you don’t want to). Like Livelinks, Fonochat allows you to create a Hot List of potential partners. You can also send private messages to people you wish to explore a friendship or relationship with.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

8. Talk121: 855-677-0545 – Best to meet local singles over the phone

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Talk121 is a chat line that’s been around for a long time and has done a good job at keeping up with the tech innovations in the chat line space. It’s a great competitor in the chat line game and keeps the other lines on their toes. Thousands of people call into Talk121 on a regular basis, and they stay because the line is always very reliable. Though aged, it doesn’t feel like an outdated chat line. It’s a leader in the industry and promotes everything from friendship to long-term relationships.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

9. Phone and Flirt: 800-381-5455 – Best for quick, flirty phone chat

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★

This safe and discreet chat line is used by people who want to laugh, flirt, and have a good time. When calling Phone and Flirt, there’s an underlying expectation that you are there to have a frisky good time. That doesn’t mean that all the callers are looking for erotic chat. Some are simply seeing who can give them those chat line butterflies. Phone and Flirt is very popular for this reason, saturated with younger flirters who love how unexpected and surprising this line can be.

Phone and Flirt has the same parent company as Local Hot Chat and, subsequently, also updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99

10. Desires Chat: 888-598-8336 – Best for confessional

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Desires Chat is a leading chat line that operates solely for adults who want to share their secret desires with one another. Discretion is taken very seriously over at Desires Chat, so you should feel completely free to let your wild side out on the line. There’s a level of open-mindedness not seen on every chat line that attracts some of the most interesting callers. Get lost in conversation with one of these dreamers on the Desires Chat line. You will feel as sexy as you will liberated.

Membership LengthPrice90 minutes$25.00200 minutes$50.00215 minutes$95.00

How To Use a Chat Line

These toll-free numbers can be used to flirt or start a full-blown relationship with a hot local single. What’s more is that they all offer free trials, so you might even meet that special someone without paying a dime.

Rather than swiping through images on a vapid app, chat lines promote conversation and help you get to know your match on a deeper level. It’s also great for more sexual relationships too! Most chat lines follow a similar setup:

Call the number
Record a personal greeting in which you introduce yourself
Listen to other greetings to see who sounds most appealing
Send private messages through virtual mailboxes
Request to chat live with someone
Have an awesome phone chat experience

It’s as easy as that.

Chat Line Dating FAQHow did you judge these lines?We look at a lot of things when deciding which chat lines are best. The first are reliability and call volume. We don’t want you calling a chat line that gets little to no calls because that means your dating or chatting options are far too limited. We chose lines that get a lot of callers, even during non-peak hours of the day. They also have to have free trials so that you can enjoy a taste of their features before you even pull out your wallet. And finally, we judge these phone chat lines based on user experiences we’ve read about, like on Mr. Chat Line, heard about, or experienced ourselves.

What should I say in my chat line greeting?Your chat line greeting is what other callers will hear before they decide if they want to meet you. It’s an introduction and should sound like one. But remember, you are going after someone for a flirty or romantic relationship. You aren’t at a job interview. With that in mind, try to keep your greeting short, sweet, and interesting. Show your personality off without taking up too much time. And make sure you sound excited when you are speaking. This will attract others to you!

Are chat lines safe?Chat lines are one of the safest ways to flirt with a stranger. Again, you are virtually meeting a new friend from the comfort of your very own home. As far as physical safety, that’s pretty much taken care of! Chat lines also work very hard to make sure they are both safe and secure so that you’ll feel as comfortable as possible expressing yourself on the line. You can always change your name if you wish to remain anonymous, and no line will ever share identifying or sensitive information. Be wary of people on chat lines who try to coax information out of you that feels too personal.

What happens when the free trial is up?When your free trial is up on a chat line, we’d encourage you to try another trial! But if you love the line you’ve just called or want to spend more time with a certain phone date, you will need to purchase a time package. These are usually pretty affordable. If you want to have erotic chat, chat lines are far less expensive than traditional phone sex numbers with much longer free trials.

How likely am I to hook up because of a chat line?Calling a chat line is like going to a popular local bar. There are so many people who you’ll meet that live very close to you. Most chat line callers are calling so that they can eventually hang out in person. That common goal of connecting with new people in your area is what makes chat lines such a unique and reliable way to meet someone new to flirt with, hang out with, and hook up with.

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The Music Box Theatre found itself at the center of controversy in the local LGBTQ+ film space when it planned a February 2 screening of Actors by Betsey Brown. It stars her brother Peter Vack, who in the movie struggles with what he sees as hostility toward white cis males in the film industry and—fueled by sibling rivalry—slowly transitions into a woman in an attempt to stay relevant in the art and entertainment world.

Betsey Brown has participated in Music Box screenings before, most recently in the 2021 Music Box of Horrors, a 24-horror horror movie festival that screened The Scary of Sixty-First, directed by Dasha Nekrasova and starring Brown.

A January 10 screenshot (now a protected tweet) made its rounds on Twitter, showing an email from a local filmmaker to Music Box’s programmers calling the film “transphobic” and critiquing the theater’s decision to screen it. Because of this, several people called the box office to voice their concerns, and the hundred-year-old institution quietly removed the screening from its website by January 25. 

The Music Box is currently not commenting publicly on this issue. But this isn’t the first time the movie has drawn attention for its potential to be offensive. It allegedly hasn’t been accepted into any major festivals for that reason. 

Jack McCoy is the producer and filmmaker in Chicago whose email correspondence with the Music Box garnered local attention on Twitter, and he believes it also led to the film’s cancellation. McCoy, who is cis, became familiar with Vack and Brown when a review by New York film critic Michael Crumplar “made a big splash on Twitter” in the spring of 2022, and McCoy said he was concerned by the critic’s reaction to the film at the time. 

Here’s an excerpt from Crumplar’s older Substack piece:

My initial reaction was, well, one of genuine disgust and revulsion. I hate to say it, but the film really did appear to just be a very ignorant and mean-spirited satire of transness . . . Each important step of gender transition is presented viscerally on screen as pure campy horror . . . The film’s promotional materials and Betsey herself are insistent that Peter’s character is not trans, but a cis man, and that reading it as a trans statement misunderstands the film’s scope . . . I was very unsatisfied with this rationalization. 

“It’s honestly, I think, worse than the way he described it,” McCoy told the Reader about his own viewing of the film. “There’s just this constant cutting back and forth between Peter getting ahead because of his new identity and explicitly false identity and Betsey, her career not making it forward, in part because of him, quote, unquote, coming out . . . this is a movie about how trans women aren’t women—they’re cis men taking away from real women’s issues, which is what I think the film’s really saying.”

His email also accused Brown and Vack of being fascists, citing a particular incident in August 2022 when Vack invited Crumplar to a filming only to encourage the audience around the critic to yell transphobic slurs, Holocaust jokes, and more at him.

Here’s the excerpt from Crumplar’s work that recounts this experience last summer:

Then the cameras started rolling, and [Vack] addressed me directly. “Crumps,” he said, “tell us, what is fascism?” . . . 

Once I finished talking, Curtis Yarvin spoke from a few rows ahead of me. He made some predictable point about how fascist art is actually quite good, citing Arno Breker and Gabriele D’Annunzio and people like that . . . These people were encouraged to say whatever random edgelord vulgarities popped into their heads, which meant a lot of slurs, proclamations about how circumcision is worse than abortion, Holocaust jokes, and so on [in an attempt to provoke me.] . . . Someone asked if I was a “tr*nny chaser,” and then others joined in, a taunting chorus asking if I was a tr*nny chaser from all directions. 

McCoy felt that with the levels of anti-trans legislation coming out of states like Florida and Texas, as well as the multiple mass shootings targeting LGBTQ+ people, the film was in bad taste and only added more far-right echo chamber rhetoric to the film fiction world. After he emailed the Music Box, they responded, and McCoy said they seemed confused and tried to defend their programming decision. 

“I don’t know. It seems like they just didn’t think it through very much, is kind of my impression,” McCoy said. By the time McCoy hopped back online, he saw people talking about how the screening wasn’t online anymore or posting screenshots of their ticket refunds. 

Betsey Brown has not responded publicly to requests for comment but has spoken indirectly on her movie’s sensitive subject matter in the past on a February 2022 episode of The ION Pod. The podcast describes itself as New York City’s still-anonymous Instagram troll of the downtown film world, and Crumplar jokingly describes the Ion Pack, Brown, and their contemporaries as longing for an idealized gritty pre-woke underground art scene, a portion of downtown NYC now referred to as Dimes Square. 

Brown and the anonymous hosts discuss a range of topics on the podcast, including how “identity obsession” keeps people from enjoying art and how Brown worries people won’t be able to see the film because of the topics it deals with. 

“I don’t feel like I need to give voice to these criticisms because they do feel like they’re not even criticizing the movie,” she said back in 2022. “They’re like, just bringing their own baggage up in the film; what a lot of that sort of criticism is is personal hang-ups.”

On Letterboxd, the film has three-and-a-half stars out of five, but the most-liked film review comments are for one-half stars and critique it for the same reasons it was canceled.

“​​The premise here, of a cis actor pretending to transition for clout . . . has genuine satirical potential in the right hands,” writes commenter Esther Rosenfield, who rated the movie one-half star. “Those hands do not belong to betsey brown and peter vack, whose clumsy filmmaking and lazy provocations amount to something that struggles to even rise to the level of offensive . . . The idea that peter’s career prospects would skyrocket, that he could walk into auditions full of cis women and land their roles, is so absurd that it can only read as manifesting some private art-world jealousy.” +141 likes 

Below other popular negative reviews is a positive review with one like by commenter Ryan Jackson. He gave it four-and-a-half stars and wrote that Actors will get the proper praise once it’s available for more people to see. “Good art provokes. Good art reflects the moment in time we live. Actors is good art.”

Trans film critic Louise Charlotte Weard, a longtime fan of Betsey Brown’s performances thus far, shared her thoughts on the matter on Substack in October. 

Weard got her start a few decades ago trying to shoot “transgressive” films, namely, underground cinema she describes as full of rape, violence, and other insensitive or transphobic depictions, but it still didn’t feel transgressive to her.

“As much as Mike Crumplar harps on the ‘minstrel’ criticism of Peter’s character in his review, I’ve gotta say step the fuck back.” Weard writes that she watched Actors with a group of trans friends who were “just as excited to see this film,” and they each left the movie feeling “invigorated,” agreeing it was one of the most exciting films they’ve seen in a long time. 

“Now I’m not saying this film isn’t offensive to trans women,” Weard wrote, “but I’ll be honest in saying that neither myself or my friends walked away from this offended. I’m far more offended by the discourse around its supposed offensiveness towards ‘the trans community,’ which seems to have stunted its release.” 

Weard does add that she is offended that Betsey Brown won’t acknowledge the movie’s foundational trans themes. 

“Transness is executed in Actors in a far more sophisticated way than anyone gives Betsey credit for, and she’s so clearly terrified of what she’s created that she won’t even admit that this is what her movie is about.”

Fast forward to modern-day Chicago, and a number of trans filmmakers in the city are glad the Music Box canceled the screening.

Katie Coleman is a trans playwright and composer with a play called Krugozor! playing through February 4 at Factory Theater. She also hosts a podcast called Totally Trans: Searching For The Trans Canon, where she and her cohosts discuss trans representation in film, TV, and literature. 

As soon as she heard about Actors being screened, she knew she didn’t want to watch it or review it for her podcast. Why? “Because it seems very clear that it doesn’t seem to be in good faith.” She knew about Brown and Vack because of their association with Dimes Square, as well as the incident where Vack courted controversy for his own film by inviting the audience to yell slurs.

Coleman told the Reader that, objectively, it’s suspicious that this movie about transitioning is made by two cis people, but even with that, she doesn’t think it’s impossible for a cis person to make a movie about trans issues as long as they meet the good faith requirement. Actors doesn’t meet that requirement, though. She compares the matter to the 1982 movie Tootsie, where Dustin Hoffman is an actor who can’t get a job, so he goes in drag and creates the personality of Dorothy Michaels, a womanwho gets hired on a soap opera. At the time, Coleman said, this movie was considered progressive.

“Like, the idea of the movie is that he learns about feminism by pretending to be a woman, which, sure, good for them. But you know, it’s tough to watch now. But I think that they had good intentions when they made that movie.” In contrast, she knows Actors is made by folks who, politically, she wouldn’t expect to engage with trans issues earnestly. Ultimately, she’s glad Music Box canceled it.

“I think it’s easy for cis people to see something that’s blatantly transphobic and for it to miss them. I don’t think it was malicious.”

Charli Rogers is a Chicago autistic trans filmmaker and a big Music Box fan. Her film The Squish Trilogy screened at the Nightingale Cinema in the summer of 2021. She learned about the Actors screening from McCoy’s Twitter thread, which prompted her to call the Music Box to inform them she and her trans friends were uncomfortable with it. 

Like McCoy and Coleman, Rogers also associates the movie and its producers with Dimes Square, the set of downtown New Yorkers from earlier who Rogers describes as “gentrified 4chan.”

“Like all those nerds grew up going on 4chan, saying edgy shit. And then they grew up, they got nice tech jobs in New York and finance jobs . . . they have class now,” Rogers said. “And they want to go and continue their edgy fascist posting, but they want to do it with prestige.” 

Rogers says that there is problematic work that exists that she loves, and nothing is completely unproblematic, but producers have to be willing to apologize and fully reflect on the impact of their creative risks. “I feel like that’s the position you have to make with these sorts of things.”

Although the Music Box officially canceled the screening, the discourse has continued nonetheless. 

Will and John, two hosts of the Oscarbate podcast who also host a screening series at the Music Box called Highs & Lows, opened their podcast by addressing the controversy. For context, Will was one of the people to program the original Actors screening at the music box.

“You have nothing you want to say to some of our most downtrodden communities?” John says to his cohost. “I won’t talk about it too much today,” Will responds. “But for now, what I will say is a big ole, a big enthusiastic fuck you to my least favorite kind of human, which is the self-righteous virtue signaler. So big fuck you to someone named Jack in Chicago.” He also called out another account, trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun, for openly tweeting against the film. 

“What are you on? What kind of medications? Are you off? Are you on? Are you mixing?” John taunted. 

“Fuck you to those people starting Twitter mobs and feeling good about trying to cancel people and things,” Will continued. “Fuck you for, you know, trying to paint Betsey Brown and her movie in a light that has nothing to do with whether you think it’s a good movie or not. But painting her and the movie in a light that is factually untrue. And then also fuck everyone who has been making it a point to terrorize the Music Box staff.” 

Rogers is a longtime Oscarbate listener and was disheartened by the podcast’s opening conversation being offensive and mean-spirited. 

Rogers doesn’t know if other people were harassing box office members to the extent the podcast claimed, but she hopes not. “It feels so petty, like you’re still in middle school, to go on this obscure, douchebag left podcast, to go and get mad at people who are just pointing out a [problem] at the place you’re working at.”

The Ion Pack will also host the Actors screening rescheduled on February 10 at an undisclosed location.

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There are so many ways to meet new people, but nothing is more adventurous and electrifying than calling a phone chat line. It’s exciting to think about all the new people you could meet through a phone dating line, all from the comfort of your own home. It’s a testament to how far dating has come, and how phones have enhanced our ability to make meaningful connections.

We’ve put together a new list of the top chat lines in 2023. The top 10 are in the table with clickable phone numbers and free trial minutes available. Our runner-up chat lines are below the table.

Best Free Phone Chat Lines of 2023

RankBrandPhone NumberFree TrialBest For1.LiveLinks888-901-268860 minutesMeeting local singles2.FreeChatGirls866-995-533130 minutesBest free trial3.Local Hot Chat888-710-26255 minutesGreat singles4.Livetalk800-444-LIVE10 minutesHybrid naughty/singles5.RedHot Dateline855-933-061030 minutesLate night chat6.Vibeline866-488-080930 minutesMeeting black singles7.Fonochat866-605-301630 minutesChatting with latina singles8.Talk121855-677-054530 minutesBest early day number9.Phone and Flirt800-381-54555 minutesBest flirty line10.Desires Chat888-598-83365 minutesBest confessional line

More Chat Lines To Call

Moonlight Line: 855-677-0538Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625Lover’s Lane: 509-876-5930Adult Talk: 833-937-ADULTHowl Line: 888-655-6366Azul Line: 888-589-4999Sexy Live Connections: 800-317-4475Hollar Line: 888-650-2223Taboo Chat: 855-50-TABOOExotic Chat Line: 888-633-9453Lavalife Voice: 877-800-5282Girls Flirt Free: 800-364-4757Social Voice USA: 844-706-5518Hot Latinas Chat: 800-309-9388Latino Phone Chat: 888-702-8887Nightline: 877-834-4044Questchat: 888-889-6565Black Singlez: 800-287-3991Night Exchange: 866-917-8328Español Chat: 888-674-8887College Party Line: 888-598-3927Black Phone Chat: 800-319-7277America’s Hottest Talk Line: 206-876-56711PartyLine: 562-621-1201Grapevine Personals: 250-984-3322Metrovibe: 877-390-6677TangoPersonals: 800-810-8108MegaMates: 866-718-4930Metrochat: 206-876-56751-800-DATE-LINE: 800-DATE-LINE1800Personals: 213-687-7675Party Lines Uncensored: 712-432-4800

1. LiveLinks: 888-901-2688 – Best overall chat line
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveLinks is the most prominent and well-known chat line in North America. Not only has it been around since the 90s, but it’s also famous for its ability to establish all sorts of relationships, from the friendly to the romantic. Not many lines cater to such a large variety.

LiveLinks has great features, like the Hot List where you can add your favorite people and chat instantly. The best feature, by far, is that the callers are real. No fake profiles, no paid callers. Just singles looking to connect with other people in their area.

Women chat for free. First-time male callers can enjoy a hefty one-hour trial, which is an extremely generous amount of free time that can be used to get to know a special someone. Unlike other lines, LiveLinks allows you to browse profiles and chat live one-on-one during the free trial. Once the hour’s up, you need to purchase minutes.

Need more info before calling? Check out our full LiveLinks review.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.99 (best value)10 minutes$4.99

2. FreeChatGirls: 866-995-5331 – Best for new chat line callers

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

FreeChatGirls is a naughty adult line where the ladies always talk for free. It’s a phone sex line without any paid operators, only real people who are just like you. This chat line is for hot like-minded individuals who want to dive into their fantasies with strangers on the phone. You are allowed a half-hour free phone chat trial, which you can use to browse profiles. Once you use up that time, you’re going to want to purchase one of their affordable memberships to talk live one-on-one.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

3. Local Hot Chat: 888-710-2625 – Best hybrid naughty/singles number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Local Hot Chat may appear to be on the risqué side of phone dating, but it caters to callers of all types. Whether you’re looking for something serious or spicy, Local Hot Chat delivers. The gender ratio skews female, so if you’re want to chat with a single lady, this is the number to call. The 5 minute free trial allows you to browse profiles and request connect. As soon as you talk live, you’ll have to pay. But it’s worth it. The memberships are affordable. What’s one downside? Their user interface (IVR) system is a little outdated, but it gets the job done.

Local Hot Chat updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99
4. LiveTalk: 800-444-LIVE – Best for real connections
SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

LiveTalk provides a safe and secure phone dating environment for adults over the age of 18. People come to LiveTalk when they want to meet someone who is like-minded and genuine. Locals from different cities across the U.S. flock to this newer chat line. While it hasn’t been around since the 90s like LiveLinks, it’s one of the most favored and talked about chat lines right now. This premier phone chat service does a great job of connecting folks who are truly interested in creating a bond. You will never meet anyone flaky when you call LiveTalk.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$19.99*60 minutes$29.99*90 minutes$42.99**prices subject to change per LiveTalk’s parent company, NTS

5. Redhot Dateline: 855-993-0610 – Best late night number

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Redhot Dateline is a line most notable for its ability to link sexy individuals to each other for steamy phone chat. It’s a very popular line, making finding a match a seamless experience no matter when you call in. If you are seeking a little wild fun, Redhot Dateline is for you. However, if romance is more your pick, we’d suggest heading to one of the lines dedicated to dating rather than erotic chat. Redhot Dateline doesn’t shy away from its namesake; it really is red hot. The only unfortunate thing about Redhot Dateline is that the 30-minute free trial is limited. To take full advantage, you’ll need a membership.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

6. Vibeline: 866-488-0809 – Best black chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★★

Vibeline has long been a chat line that has attracted Black callers. But in more recent years, it has expanded into a more diverse bunch of young and trendy folks. It’s known as a pretty “hip” line, which is why it brings in a younger and more vibrant crowd. Callers on this line are looking for all sorts of relationships. Some want something serious, but many are seeking a flirty fling. Women can talk on Vibeline free of charge and men can take advantage of that sweet 30-minute free trial. These 30 minutes can be spread out over time if you’d like, which is a nice and unique touch that other chat lines usually don’t offer.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

7. Fonochat: 866-605-3016 – Best latina chat line

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Brought to you by the same people who created LiveLinks, Fonochat is the best Latinx chat line available for Hispanic singles in your area. It’s an exciting place where Latinx people and those looking for Latinx partners can come and be themselves. If you prefer to chat in Spanish, that’s an option for you at Fonochat (but you don’t have to if you don’t want to). Like Livelinks, Fonochat allows you to create a Hot List of potential partners. You can also send private messages to people you wish to explore a friendship or relationship with.

Membership LengthPrice120 minutes$29.9960 minutes$9.9910 minutes$4.99

8. Talk121: 855-677-0545 – Best to meet local singles over the phone

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★★

Talk121 is a chat line that’s been around for a long time and has done a good job at keeping up with the tech innovations in the chat line space. It’s a great competitor in the chat line game and keeps the other lines on their toes. Thousands of people call into Talk121 on a regular basis, and they stay because the line is always very reliable. Though aged, it doesn’t feel like an outdated chat line. It’s a leader in the industry and promotes everything from friendship to long-term relationships.

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$14.99105 minutes$29.99215 minutes$44.99

9. Phone and Flirt: 800-381-5455 – Best for quick, flirty phone chat

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★Customer service★★★

This safe and discreet chat line is used by people who want to laugh, flirt, and have a good time. When calling Phone and Flirt, there’s an underlying expectation that you are there to have a frisky good time. That doesn’t mean that all the callers are looking for erotic chat. Some are simply seeing who can give them those chat line butterflies. Phone and Flirt is very popular for this reason, saturated with younger flirters who love how unexpected and surprising this line can be.

Phone and Flirt has the same parent company as Local Hot Chat and, subsequently, also updated their prices effective February 2023:

Membership LengthPrice30 minutes$16.49105 minutes$32.99215 minutes$49.49425 minutes$87.991,130 minutes$219.99

10. Desires Chat: 888-598-8336 – Best for confessional

SpecificationRatingFree trial★★★★Real callers★★★★★Call quality★★★★★Customer service★★★★

Desires Chat is a leading chat line that operates solely for adults who want to share their secret desires with one another. Discretion is taken very seriously over at Desires Chat, so you should feel completely free to let your wild side out on the line. There’s a level of open-mindedness not seen on every chat line that attracts some of the most interesting callers. Get lost in conversation with one of these dreamers on the Desires Chat line. You will feel as sexy as you will liberated.

Membership LengthPrice90 minutes$25.00200 minutes$50.00215 minutes$95.00

How To Use a Chat Line

These toll-free numbers can be used to flirt or start a full-blown relationship with a hot local single. What’s more is that they all offer free trials, so you might even meet that special someone without paying a dime.

Rather than swiping through images on a vapid app, chat lines promote conversation and help you get to know your match on a deeper level. It’s also great for more sexual relationships too! Most chat lines follow a similar setup:

Call the number
Record a personal greeting in which you introduce yourself
Listen to other greetings to see who sounds most appealing
Send private messages through virtual mailboxes
Request to chat live with someone
Have an awesome phone chat experience

It’s as easy as that.

Chat Line Dating FAQHow did you judge these lines?We look at a lot of things when deciding which chat lines are best. The first are reliability and call volume. We don’t want you calling a chat line that gets little to no calls because that means your dating or chatting options are far too limited. We chose lines that get a lot of callers, even during non-peak hours of the day. They also have to have free trials so that you can enjoy a taste of their features before you even pull out your wallet. And finally, we judge these phone chat lines based on user experiences we’ve read about, like on Mr. Chat Line, heard about, or experienced ourselves.

What should I say in my chat line greeting?Your chat line greeting is what other callers will hear before they decide if they want to meet you. It’s an introduction and should sound like one. But remember, you are going after someone for a flirty or romantic relationship. You aren’t at a job interview. With that in mind, try to keep your greeting short, sweet, and interesting. Show your personality off without taking up too much time. And make sure you sound excited when you are speaking. This will attract others to you!

Are chat lines safe?Chat lines are one of the safest ways to flirt with a stranger. Again, you are virtually meeting a new friend from the comfort of your very own home. As far as physical safety, that’s pretty much taken care of! Chat lines also work very hard to make sure they are both safe and secure so that you’ll feel as comfortable as possible expressing yourself on the line. You can always change your name if you wish to remain anonymous, and no line will ever share identifying or sensitive information. Be wary of people on chat lines who try to coax information out of you that feels too personal.

What happens when the free trial is up?When your free trial is up on a chat line, we’d encourage you to try another trial! But if you love the line you’ve just called or want to spend more time with a certain phone date, you will need to purchase a time package. These are usually pretty affordable. If you want to have erotic chat, chat lines are far less expensive than traditional phone sex numbers with much longer free trials.

How likely am I to hook up because of a chat line?Calling a chat line is like going to a popular local bar. There are so many people who you’ll meet that live very close to you. Most chat line callers are calling so that they can eventually hang out in person. That common goal of connecting with new people in your area is what makes chat lines such a unique and reliable way to meet someone new to flirt with, hang out with, and hook up with.

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