117 stories by "Monica Reida"
By now you’ve probably seen videos of people having buckets of ice dumped on their heads, be it on the news, on Twitter or on Facebook. The challenge is part of an effort to raise awar…
A United States district court judge overturned Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage last Friday, which initially seemed like a really great thing. In various counties same-sex couples have a…
It’s now no longer recent, although it could qualify as semi-recent, but I appeared on WBEZ’s The Morning Shift back in February to talk about Edgewater Medical Center, a long-em…
Previously: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Cinderella Sleeping Beauty Beauty and the Beast Pocahontas Hercules Atlantis: The Lost Empire The Little Mermaid The Princess and the Frog Brave T…
Every year I write for Punching a Jayhawk about the worst music videos of a given year. Last year’s choice for the worst music video of the year, “Stupid Hoe,” was so delig…
I was a weird kid. When I was in high school, I discovered Harold Pinter and fell in love with his plays. When I auditioned to get in to Rockford College’s theater program I did the en…
It was evening and I decided to go to a bar in Milwaukee I had read on Yelp had a good karaoke night. The bar is located in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, home of the A…
“Why hospital architecture, in particular?” I looked at that question on my Blackberry as my train sped through middle-of-nowhere Michigan. The question came from Neil Steinberg,…
Among the more interesting things I’ve written in my life is a post for Punching a Jayhawk, the blog I write with my sister, entitled “A Review of Drinking a Non-Alcoholic Bevera…
This is the second part in a series of blog posts examining major works of theater that handled AIDS. The previous parts looked at "Angels in America” and “Falsettos.” The …
This is the second part in a series of blog posts examining major works of theater that handled AIDS. The previous part looked at “Angels in America.” Other blog posts will exami…
This is the first part in a series of blog posts examining major works of theater that handled AIDS. Other blog posts will examine “The Normal Heart,” “Rent” and R…
I decided to actually update my blog and since there is a new Disney film being released this month a Disney-related list felt appropriate. (Note: I’m still trying to figure out if I w…
My two main activities this weekend are reading plays and reading about Jane Byrne for a play I’m writing. Among the plays I checked out was “Red Angel” by Eric Bogosian. I…
After a couple of years of writing about bad music videos for Punching a Jayhawk, the blog I write with my sister, I have learned there are things people consistently do in music videos that…
WBEZ has an article on their website about a Kickstarter to create a geek bar in Chicago. (thanks to Anna Tarkov for tweeting about it.) This is a bar for “geeks” to enjoy geeky …
I went to Teavana on Thursday while at the mall and after trying tea I found a tea I wanted to get a cup of to go. Plus, Starbucks bought Teavana so my Starbucks card works there. I told the…
Previously: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Cinderella Sleeping Beauty Beauty and the Beast Pocahontas Hercules Atlantis: The Lost Empire The Little Mermaid The Princess and the Frog Brave T…
For a while there’s been talk on the internet of making Rahm Emanuel a mayor who only serves one term because people are displeased with what he’s done while mayor, most recently…
The Tony Awards are a week away and I’m more excited than usual for the Tony Awards because something I saw is nominated. (Well, I saw it in Chicago) As people who watch the Tony Award…
The Congress Plaza Hotel strike ended on Wednesday, almost ten years after it started. The strike is believed to be the longest strike in American history. The end of the strike is a bit of …
News broke yesterday that six have been arrested in an alleged kickback scheme at Sacred Heart Hospital on Chicago’s West Side. According to the Tribune, the hospital was performing un…
Good theater moves you. When I was a theater critic I always asked myself if the play moved me emotionally. (The last play to move me emotionally was “The Birthday Party” at Step…
(I read this at The Paper Machete on March 10, 2012. With the news of a new strain of bird flu, I felt the time was right to finally post this on my blog.) According to an article in Tuesday…
(All data for this post comes from the Illinois Department of Public Health.) The graph above looks at the amount of charity care given by teaching hospitals in Chicago during the 2011 Fisca…
