(Re)introducing: Storefront Rebellion
Commentary on Chicago theater, made for Chicagoans, from Kris Vire.
Commentary on Chicago theater, made for Chicagoans, from longtime critic Kris Vire. Delivered right to your inbox.
Hey there. My name’s Kris Vire. I’ve been writing about theater in Chicago for more than 15 years.
Nearly 11 of those years were on staff at Time Out Chicago, where you may have seen my reviews of hundreds of productions, or my interviews and profiles of folks like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy, and Tanya Saracho.
Since Time Out and I parted ways last spring, you may have seen my theater reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, or theater features in Chicago magazine. I’ve also written a number of pieces over the years for American Theatre magazine.
Over my career, I’ve watched theater reviews become a harder and harder sell, as digital media has begun to subsume print, and the quantifiable numbers of readers who drill down and click through to individual reviews at general-interest publications—a very different act from paging through a newspaper or magazine, where any grabby headline or photo might pique your interest—have stayed stubbornly small. Factor in the limited shelf life of reviews in a short-run city like Chicago, which might have a thousand shows opening in a given year but only five that run longer than two months, and it’s little wonder the bean counters are reallocating their shrinking resources away from theater reviews.
But I believe the incredible artistry produced in this city deserves coverage based not just on page views and advertising impressions but on the passion Chicago theaters inspire in their audiences. And that’s why I’m gearing up to launch an email newsletter where you can get theater reviews and commentary from me, delivered to your inbox.
Storefront Rebellion—which revives the name of a theater blog I wrote back in the mid-aughts—will have two membership tiers to start. Free subscribers will get a biweekly digest with commentary on theater news, my current show recommendations, upcoming openings and closings, and links to my work elsewhere and other vital reading.
Paid subscribers, those who sign up at a rate of $6 a month or $60 for a full year, will receive exclusive show reviews from me. I’m still just one guy (now more than ever), so I can’t review every opening, but I’ll be aiming for a mix of high-profile productions and smaller companies that can’t get the attention of the daily newspapers. (Those subscriber-only reviews will remain behind the paywall on the web until the show has closed, after which I’ll unlock them for posterity’s sake. But paid subscribers can forward their emails to as many people as they like.)
I’m trying this because I believe theatermakers in Chicago deserve a greater volume of smart, informed coverage than our local legacy publications are in a position to give, and avid theatergoers in Chicago are hungry for guidance from sources they can trust.
I hope you’ll sign up to join me for this new endeavor. Much like the practice of making theater in this ensemble-loving town, we’re going to be figuring all of this out together as we go.
Cheers,
Kris Vire