The 2010 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced a short time ago and Chicago came home empty-handed in awards. However, congrats to the Tribune's John McCormick and Marie Dillon who were selected as finalists for the Editorial Writing award. Update: The Reader informs us of one U of C grad who did bring home a Pulitzer today. more ›

According to his NYT bio, Kristof is a fearless journalist who has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to more than 140 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. Along the way, he has had some terrifying experiences with malaria, mobs, and a plane crash. Needless to say, Kristof has a lot to say about a lot of things, but tonight he'll be focusing on the role of journalism in democracy, one of the recurring themes in his work. more ›

Tracy Letts’ epic August: Osage County will close its doors on Broadway this Sunday after 648 performances, making it one of the longest running plays in Broadway history. And while you might think we’re finally going to stop hearing about it now, you’re wrong. more ›

We’ve done and heard lots of complaining about the lack of new musical theater in Chicago and even on Broadway. But there are some glimmers of hope, and while they may not be in Chicago yet, one of them is coming to a television near you. more ›

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Just as the hullabaloo surrounding last year’s “it” play August: Osage County dies down, Chicago takes on the Great White Way for a second time with the Goodman Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. The show is scheduled to start performances on April 14 at the St. James Theatre with opening night on April 27, making the Tony Award eligibility cutoff by 3 days. more ›

The votes are in and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today. The Chicago Tribune and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production August: Osage County were among them. The Tribune staff was awarded the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for "its exposure of faulty governmental regulation of toys, car seats and cribs, resulting in the extensive recall of hazardous products and congressional action to tighten supervision." Meanwhile, in the drama category, Tracy Letts's play, August: Osage County, which has since made a successful jump from Steppenwolf to Broadway, was the Pulitzer winner. more ›

Several years ago, we read Philip Gourevitch's powerful book on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, We Wish To Inform You.... This led us to eventually pick up Samantha Power's brilliant A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Power's book is a riveting look at the United States' policies, approaches -- and more than occasional avoidance -- to genocide during the 20th Century, beginning with the Armenian Genocide during World War I and running through the Kosovo War of the late 1990's. With it, Power established herself as one of the leading experts and writers on U.S. Foreign Policy. more ›

We’re usually level-headed about other people’s opinions even if they don’t correlate with ours, and normally hold a live and let live attitude. But then something like this comes along so foam-at-the-mouth-inducing that our fingers tremble with all the rage we must type out. more ›

Author Jeffrey Eugenides is no stranger to lovers of both great fiction and fine cinema. His novel Virgin Suicides was adapted into the 1999 film by Sofia Coppela, and his follow-up novel Middlesex was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His work has also been featured in the likes of the New Yorker and the Yale Review, and he has received numerous other awards and recognition for his talents as an American writer … not too shabby, huh? Eugenides’ newest effort– My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro – is hot off the presses, and could be viewed as his personal love letter to the art. This anthology of 26 love stories is an amour-themed roundup of many tried and true literary masters, including James Joyce and William Faulkner. more ›

A request for a street named in honor of Chicago author Saul Bellow was denied due to controversial remarks and writing by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Bellow's University of Chicago colleague and friend, Richard Stern, made the request to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle. Stern told the Chicago Tribune that Preckwinkle sent him a letter saying she had heard Bellow made racist comments and so would not endorse a memorial to him. Raised in Humboldt Park from... more ›

It's been inspiring to see Roger Ebert slowly working his way back to writing movie reviews after his long illness. He's even gone so far as to give readers reviews of movies he missed while he was convalescing. Just don't expect to see the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" signs in upcoming episodes "Ebert & Roeper at the Movies." Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which produces the show, said that the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic has withdrawn... more ›

Consummate Chicagoan, supreme storyteller, raconteur, and the man who elevated the interview to high art, Studs Terkel turned 95 years old on Wednesday. Other media outlets can't seem to agree on what to call him: interviewer, author, activist, media pioneer, oral historian, blacklisted lefty. We prefer to think Studs wouldn't mind any of those labels as long as you didn't call him late for his daily scotch. During Studs' birthday celebration this week he bemoaned... more ›

Labeling young, successful artists as The Next [insert name of popular artist] is as common a practice as it is unfair. Few up-and-coming writers, directors or actors mind the attention and praise, but many hope to succeed on their own terms. Theatre Seven of Chicago’s Is Chicago, which presents Marisa Wegrzyn’s latest play alongside one of David Mamet’s earliest and most talked about scripts, prompts two reactions. It takes some chutzpah to invite comparisons to... more ›

At the after party at the Hideout for the 2007 Chiditarod, the teams that were beaten to a pulp by first-place winners the Corporate Dalliance knew one thing: This team cheated. They just didn't know how. One budding, future Pulitzer Prize-winning Northwestern student has posted a video expose of the ordeal that demonstrates the team's methodology, proving they always planned to play dirty. On a whim, Medill Journalism student Matthew Bigelow embedded himself with this... more ›

As playwrights age, their work may increasingly confront how they, or anyone, will be remembered after death. Their passing will command respectful obituaries and festivals in tribute, but it’s also the moment when they relinquish all control of their legacy. What a terrifying thought for someone who’s made a living playing God! This season, the Goodman and Shattered Globe pay tribute to Pulitzer Prize winners August Wilson (1945-2005) and Arthur Miller (1915-2005), respectfully, in productions... more ›

Suzan-Lori Parks has a lot of time on her hands. Four years ago, she started an ambitious project to write a play everyday for an entire year. Now she’s managed to convince more than a dozen U.S. cities and regions to perform them all over the next year. The Chicago theater community certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to present 365 plays by a Pulitzer Prize winner, and so 365 Days/365 Plays kicks off tonight... more ›

Note: “Behind the Scenes” is a new series exploring the arts as a business and a craft. For every playwright enjoying a production on a Chicago stage during this busy theater season, many more are waiting their turn. Rebecca Gilman knows both sensations well. Ms. Gilman is one of Chicago’s most acclaimed playwrights, her work has been produced at the Goodman Theatre, London’s Royal Court Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and regional theaters across the country.... more ›

Today the “One Book, One Chicago” book was announced, and honestly; this is the most excitement we’ve seen come out of the Harold Washington Library in a long time. more ›

We’ve traveled a bit, we’ve been to Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. We’ve acquired faint ideas of what living in a third world country must be like, but we still had cute REI backpacks and pretty, pink mosquito nets. more ›

This morning, as we lay in our beds, we wondered what it would feel like to know that we had written something amazing, deserving, intellectual and interesting. more ›

Chicagoist needs to pull its corduroy jacket out of the closet, our elbow pads are looking a little too new. Good thing it's Story Week so we can start rubbing some elbows. Story Week is Columbia College’s week of lectures, readings, panel discussions and performances, from authors large and small, local and from away. There’s way too much cool stuff to list here, so we’ll list some of the highlights, but make sure to check... more ›

The Goodman Theatre is welcoming David Mamet back home, throwing a party to celebrate the native son, his prolific career and versatile success. Mamet’s best known as the writer of such honest, bruising work as Glengarry Glen Ross, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo, where characters fight a soul-crushing world and deliver rapid-fire dialogue, spouting salty terms like f&*#^ng c#^>$*{(~#s. But the Pulitzer Prize winner has also written clever nostalgic s#’% like The Old... more ›

Irish Repertory of Chicago reminds us that there’s much more to the Emerald Isle than Guinness and cereal-chomping cartoon characters. The Irish and their American descendents gave the world some of its finest playwrights and literary figures, from Pulitzer Prize winners to brilliant contemporary writers deserving wider exposure. This week the company imports Donal O’Kelly, an actor-playwright in the latter category who probably wouldn’t mind joining the former, in a very limited engagement at Columbia College. more ›

One of the coolest things we love about The Lookingglass Theatre Company, besides its stage adaptation of Stuart Dybek’s The Coast of Chicago, is its new literary series Writers on Record. Every month or so, Victoria Lautman, a contributor at WBEZ, interviews authors in a free event at the still-newish Lookingglass space in the Water Tower. This month, Lautman will host Margo Jefferson to discuss her book On Michael Jackson. Jefferson, a Chicago native, is... more ›

Some around the Chicagoist offices today have been a little mopey today, what with the rather anti-climatic revelation that Deep Throat is none other than ... more ›

The Goodman Theatre (that's r-e 'cause they're fancy) has announced their 2005-6 season. In the Albert will be the musical Purlie, based on the play Purlie Victorious by the late Ossie Davis; Shakespeare's Pericles directed by Mary Zimmerman; 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist The Clean House; and The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, from Regina Taylor, the director of last year's sensation Crowns. In the Owen, it's Stephen Lang's one-man show Beyond Glory and Crumbs from the... more ›

Saul Bellow, the Nobel laureate whose life and characters were deeply associated with Chicago has died at the age of 89. Bellows won many awards - the National Book Award 3 times, even. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for a book called Humboldt's Gift, which reflected on the challenges of European immigrant life in Humboldt Park. That same year he won the Nobel Prize in literature. When he was just 9 years old,... more ›

Yesterday, Columbia University announced recipients of the 89th annual Pulitzer Prize. The Tribune's Julia Keller won in feature writing for a three-part series on a devastating tornado and its aftermath in Utica. The series ran in December 2004. more ›