Ted Hearne Uses the Baton As a Tool for Protest

Photo: Jen Rosenstein The 36-year-old composer, who sang with the Chicago Children’s Choir starting at age 5, credits the group’s social-justice focus for inspiring Sound From the Bench, his piece about corporate personhood that was a finalist for last year’s Pulitzer Prize in music. (It was beat out by Kendrick Lamar’s Damn.) The Museum of … Read more

How Lili-Anne Brown Found Success As a Director

In the mid-2000s, when the Pill Hill native decided to become a director, she had already spent a decade in theater, working as an actress by night and a talent agent by day. But the career change meant starting over again — namely, at Timber Lake Playhouse in tiny Mount Carroll, Illinois — before becoming artistic director of the … Read more

The Everyone Guide to Cantigny Park

Wheaton —How to spend an afternoon at the 500-acre estate if you’re bringing your … Army veteran grandpa The First Division Museum (admission is included in the park entrance fee: $5 per carload on weekdays, $10 on weekends) traces U.S. military history through the artifacts and artillery of a single infantry division. Most impressive: the … Read more

Rub Elbows With Literary Greats

Downers Grove/La Grange/Naperville —Anderson’s Bookshop hosts more than 400 events a year at its three locations. Known for boosting local luminaries in the making, as it did with Veronica Roth (Divergent) and former Chicagoan John Green (The Fault in Our Stars), the minichain is also a must-stop for international megastars: J.K. Rowling made one of … Read more