Latest news with #DrinkthePastDry
Chicago Tribune
25-04-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: A time travel story set in a Chicago bar
Good afternoon, Chicago. The federal government is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the U.S. after many filed court challenges against the Trump administration crackdown, a government lawyer said today. The records in a federal student database maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been terminated in recent weeks, often without the students or their schools being notified. More than 1,200 students nationwide suddenly lost their legal status or had visas revoked – including in Illinois – leaving them at risk for deportation. Some left the country while others have gone into hiding or stopped going to class. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Murder, arson charges in death of Chicago Fire Capt. David Meyer after funeral arrangements announced Chicago police announced murder charges today against an Austin man believed to have set the trash fire that led to the death of Capt. David Meyer, a veteran firefighter known as the 'rock' of his family. Read more here. Wisconsin judge accused of helping man avoid ICE arrested by FBI Thornton woman faces murder charge in Lincoln Park shooting death, police say Indiana passes $44 billion budget in final vote of 2025 session Life sciences startup secures $30 million and opens Fulton Market lab A biotech startup founded during the pandemic by Northwestern University researchers secured $30 million in financing, enough to open its own Fulton Market laboratory, where it will continue developing a new class of drugs to combat cancer and other diseases. Read more here. Chicago Bears have 3 picks on Day 2 of the NFL draft. Here are 24 prospects to watch. The first round is in the books. The Chicago Bears selected Michigan tight end Colston Loveland last night with the No. 10 pick in the NFL draft. The attention quickly turns to Day 2. Read more here. More top sports stories: Adrian Peterson faces DWI charge after arrest following Vikings' NFL draft party in Minnesota Shannon Sharpe is stepping away temporarily from ESPN amid sexual assault lawsuit 'Drink the Past Dry' by Ghostlight Ensemble is a time travel story set in a Chicago bar Written and directed by Maria Burnham, this world premiere puts a science fiction twist on the otherwise familiar setting of a Chicago bar: at this watering hole, if you sit on the right stool and order a particular drink, you can travel in time. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: So you saw 'Conclave' the movie. Here's what it got right – and wrong – about real-life conclaves. Black churches back embattled Smithsonian African American history museum after Trump's order Gov. JB Pritzker endorses Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton for US Senate Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker today endorsed his running mate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, for the U.S. Senate, a move that could serve as a politically powerful warning to the rest of an emerging field seeking to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
Chicago Tribune
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
‘Drink the Past Dry' by Ghostlight Ensemble is a time travel story set in a Chicago bar
Six years ago, the in-house pub at Chicago Shakespeare Theater moonlighted as a performance space for a touring production of Roddy Doyle's 'Two Pints' by Ireland's Abbey Theatre. Audience members — who sat at the pub's tables with drinks in hand — spent a couple of hours eavesdropping on two longtime friends at the bar, their conversations meandering between the mundane and the profound. This spring, the upstairs bar at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro in Chicago's North Center neighborhood will similarly transform into a theater venue for 'Drink the Past Dry' by Ghostlight Ensemble, a local company with a penchant for site-specific productions. Written and directed by Maria Burnham, this world premiere puts a science fiction twist on the otherwise familiar setting of a Chicago bar: at this watering hole, if you sit on the right stool and order a particular drink, you can travel in time. In an interview with the Tribune before a rehearsal at Mrs. Murphy's, Burnham explained that the play is structured as a series of vignettes, with the stories of three individual time travelers loosely tied together by the appearances of recurring characters and the overarching theme of familial relationships. 'I've always enjoyed science fiction and time-traveling (stories),' Burnham said. 'I particularly like when writers who aren't science fiction writers take the trappings of science fiction to tell very basic human stories.' Burnham mentioned several authors who have inspired her, such as Emma Straub, a contemporary fiction writer who ventures into sci-fi territory with 'This Time Tomorrow,' a 2022 novel about a woman who travels back to her 16th birthday and meets her younger, healthier father decades before his cancer diagnosis. Horror powerhouse Stephen King explores the possibilities of time travel changing history in his book '11/22/63,' named for the date of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. On the genre's more whimsical side, Burnham enjoys Japanese stories such as 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold,' Toshikazu Kawaguchi's international bestseller about a time portal in a Tokyo café. In 'Drink the Past Dry,' Burnham hopes audience members will connect with the characters' humanity and the universal elements of their stories, even if they don't relate to the exact circumstances. The play's time travelers have a variety of motivations, such as searching for a lost family recipe or hoping to reunite with a childhood pet, and they all make surprising discoveries along the way. 'I feel like the draw for time travel, especially in this piece, is deeply personal, and it is that desire to learn something new about the past or about the present and to learn something new about ourselves, too,' said Katharine Jordan, a cast member who plays Mica, a young adult acting as the caretaker for her elderly father. Why stage these family-centric stories in a bar? According to Burnham, the decision was part dramaturgical, part practical. Ghostlight Ensemble, founded in 2016 by a group of Chicago storefront theater veterans, often chooses immersive or site-specific settings for its productions. Currently in its first full season since the pandemic, the company staged a play about book banning in 1950s Alabama at two Chicago booksellers last fall, followed by a holiday production of Victorian ghost stories at the Driehaus Museum's 19th-century mansion. Before returning to fully staged productions, Ghostlight produced smaller events such as readings of movie scripts at a different bar in North Center, a partnership that sparked the idea for a play set in a bar. That venue has since closed, so the show has been transferred to Mrs. Murphy's, which previously hosted Ghostlight's holiday cabarets. For 'Drink the Past Dry,' audience members will be welcome to bring food and drinks from Mrs. Murphy's main bar into the upstairs performance space. Khnemu Menu-Ra, who plays the bartender in the show, feels that a neighborhood bar is a rich setting for the stories this play tells. By evoking a sense of nostalgia and familiarity, such places offer a way 'to perhaps stay frozen in time,' if not to literally time travel. 'Life is constantly changing, so memories provide a sort of comfort and a sort of safety when life becomes very difficult,' said Menu-Ra. 'I think this is a really interesting and unique piece,' Menu-Ra added. 'It seems such a simple concept, but I'm surprised that no one's ever come up with it before — the idea of time traveling inside of a pub like that. It has a lot of really moving and touching moments, and a lot of simple truths that'll really resonate with people, so I really hope that people are able to come out and make time to see it.' 'Drink the Past Dry' plays on Fridays and Sundays and select Thursdays and Saturdays from May 2 to June 1 at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro, 3905 N. Lincoln Ave.; tickets are pay-what-you-will, with an average donation of $25, at
