Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

The first Chicago International Latino Theater Festival features eleven plays from companies both local and international, in venues across Chicago. It presents a wide array of Latino perspectives and aims to achieve more visibility for Latino theater in Chicago.

The renowned Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall is painting a mural on the side of the Chicago Cultural Center that will honor twenty women "who've worked to shape the cultural landscape of the city, past and present."Who are they?

Celebrate the first day of fall on September 22 with a recipe for an airy pumpkin tart from Milk Street, the new global project from Christopher Kimball, formerly of America's Test Kitchen. Milk Street includes a TV and radio show, cooking school, and magazine.

The upcoming The Chicago River Tour with Geoffrey Baer explores the river today. But what was the waterway like thirty years ago, back when the city center was only just beginning to be revitalized? Watch a tour from a 1986 episode of Chicago Tonight.

A century ago, Mexicans first began settling in Chicago as laborers in the steel mills, packinghouses, and on the railroads. One South Chicago community eventually opened the first Mexican church in the city, first in an old army barracks right before the Depression.

In the upcoming The Chicago River Tour with Geoffrey Baer, Geoffrey boards six diverse vessels to explore Chicago's waterways by boat. From a canoe to a tugboat, discover the different boats and how each represents a different part of river traffic.

In its first year of production, around a decade ago, Half Acre Beer Company produced 600 barrels of beer. Last year, they hit 40,000, thanks to their expansion into a second brewery in 2014. Now, they've opened a taproom at that second space, featured on Check, Please! on January 11.

More than three million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and more than 58,000 American soldiers died in the Vietnam War. Nearly 3,000 American soldiers were from Illinois. What memorials, in various forms, exist near Chicago to honor them?

Hear excerpts from a 1977 Studs Terkel interview with Ron Kovic, the author of the best-selling memoir Born on the Fourth of July, which became an Oliver Stone film. "I know that the people of this country want to face up to the truth of that war," Kovic says.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn for thirteen years, gathering data about the planet, its many unique moons, and its mysterious rings. Now it is poised to make a final dive into the planet's atmosphere. What have scientists learned from this extraordinary mission?

In 2015, Abacus Federal Savings Bank was the 2,651st largest bank in the United States. It's also the only U.S. bank prosecuted for the 2008 financial crisis. Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams, discusses his Frontline documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.

A cold case is re-opened when a millennia-old body is discovered near a rural village. The juxtaposition of a controversial nuclear power plant and country people who still hold pagan beliefs provides a confusing backdrop for Morse and Thursday as they investigate. 

Even though they're the ones who create what you see and love in Disney films, animators, designers, and art directors aren't household names. Discover the people responsible for Fantasia, Jafar, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and more, and learn about their adventurous lives.

Phil Seymour promised a young Vietnamese boy a watch while he was serving as a Marine near the boy's village. He regretted his failure to follow through for forty years, until he reunited with Cam, forming a bond with him and his family, especially his daughter.

In 1980, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel looked back on the films that tackled the Vietnam War, reviewing Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Hair, and, the one pro-war film, John Wayne's The Green Berets, among others. Hear their takes on Hollywood's contributions.