The 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee is in the books (see what we did there?) and your Champion is not the adorable Rose Sloan. Despite an amazing effort, reaching the 11th round, Sloan misspelled "sheitel," dropping the 'i' and ending her fantastic run. Still, congrats are in order to Rose and all the Chicago-area contestants for an outstanding showing. We're proud. Keep up the diligent spelling work an one day, you could be correcting us......

The Scripps National Spelling Bee Quarterfinals are complete and the starting field of 288 has been whittled down to less than 50. Of the sixteen Illinois participants (including the seven Chicago-area spellers we listed earlier), only six made it to the elimination rounds. Of those, only three advanced as far as Round 4: Peoria's Kyle Mou and Chicago's Rose Sloan and Emily Temple-Wood. In that round, Mou ("virago") and Sloan ("ectrodactylism") advanced to the Semifinals......

Maybe we're nerds [Ed note: Maybe?], but we've always loved catching ESPN's coverage of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, not to mention we're huge fans of the outstanding documentary Spellbound. And we're not the only ones: for the third year in a row, the Championship Round is going prime-time on national television. The preliminary rounds have wrapped up and the quarterfinals are this afternoon from 1 - 4:30 p.m.(broadcast on ESPN360.com), while the semis will......

This is not a lie – we rock at Scrabble. We even played Scrabble using French words once; kind of a pretentious pursuit, but fun nonetheless. Here in Chicago, you can still get your Scrabble on even if you don’t own the game; lots of bars and coffee shops have Scrabble and other board games on their shelves, available for play. And in our opinion, there is no better way to impress a girl on......

About an hour after our post on Chicago theater coping with the theater of the gridiron, we discovered the Tribune’s list of Super Sunday alternatives. We won’t even pretend that any of these events are more momentous or worth your time than the biggest Bears game since MTV was cool. But we still think they’re better than hearing yet another story about South Beach “sabor.” Are frostbitten extremities worth saving $27.50? The Shedd Aquarium, rarely......

A study commissioned by Broadway in Chicago about Broadway in Chicago reveals — surprise! — Broadway in Chicago is injecting big bucks into the city. How big? Around $635 million in 2006, give or take a few hundred million. An article in today’s Sun Times blew a big sloppy kiss to the Live Nation/Clear Channel/Nederlander money machine, leading with that impressive figure which they concede is a tad inflated. Around half of it ($320 million)......

At last night’s Joseph Jefferson Awards gala, the Jeff Committee made a rather forceful argument for North Side theater fans to drag their cultured butts to the South Side. Hyde Park’s Court Theater dominated the proceedings, netting 10 total Jeffs for their highly acclaimed interpretations of Fences, August Wilson’s seminal play, and Man of La Mancha, Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh’s popular musical. The Quixotic musical racked up more awards than better-advertised contenders......

Jeff’s back and he’s a little less predictable this year. This morning, the Joseph Jefferson Committee announced its 2006 nominations for Equity theater professionals (a.k.a. the Jeff Equity Awards). Jeff showered the most praise (9 noms) on another musical revival: Drury Lane’s Grand Hotel. The perennially loved Goodman, Court, and Marriott each received 13 nominations, but the big story is about the musicals. This year, out of town shows like Urinetown and Spelling Bee and......

Kristen Romanowski, Fourth Annual Chipp Inn Spelling Bee Champion...

Chicagoist believes the only thing better than finding fun shows and exhibits for our readers is watching them develop. The arts and theater communities continue working long after their 15 minutes on the web expire, we just try to keep up. Consider this report a “Where Are They Now?” sans washed-up celebrities. The Snubfest ’06 lineup has been announced, and it looks good. Not Aspen Comedy Festival good, but that’s kind of the point. The......

Chicagowist wood like to congratchalate local stoodents Phillip Acevedo and Theodore Yuan. After scoring major victoreys at qualifying compatishins in Chicago and Lincolnshire yesturday, Acevedo and Yuan will head to Washington Joon 1 and 2 to reprezent the Chicagoland area in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Jesus, enough of that... that was totally exhausting. Seriously, the National Spelling Bee is a huge deal and one hell of an intense event, rife with fierce competition and......