An aerial photo of Northwestern’s northern campus. To the right along the lakefront, Martin Stadium is north of Hutcheson Field. Credit: Lectrician2 / Wikimedia Northwestern University plans to add temporary bleachers accommodating up to 15,000 people to an existing lakefront field on the north end of campus to host football games while Ryan Field undergoes construction. Representatives from Northwestern presented a plan for the temporary venue to the Northwestern-City Committee on Wednesday. NU initially announced the plan in a press release on April 10, but gave a slightly expanded picture a ..read more

Following Monday’s agreement between activists and Northwestern administrators, students gathered on Wednesday to pressure the university for full divestment from Israel. The strike started at 9 a.m. with a group called NU Divestment Coalition urging students and teachers to skip classes. Students moved to Deering Meadow in the evening, saying they intended to spend the night on the lawn without tents. During the day, demonstrators chanted, painted the Rock and engaged in discussions and teach-ins. Flyer advertising a strike that was posted in a stairway in Kresge Centennial Hall. Credit: Ca ..read more

A class action lawsuit filed Thursday by three anonymous Northwestern University students, including one undergraduate and two pursuing graduate degrees, alleged the school chose “to facilitate, encourage, and coddle a dystopic cesspool of hate” at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow over the last week. The encampment largely dissipated Monday afternoon, April 29, after the university struck a deal with student protesters. In that agreement, Northwestern committed to answering questions from “any internal stakeholder” about how the university invests its endowment funds. The univer ..read more

Kiki Sikora (left) as Bird and Sadie Fridley as Jude in A Bird’s Song. In the online program of the 93rd annaul Waa-Mu show, Taken Away: A Musical Trilogy, director and choreographer Tommy Rapley explains the inspiration for this year’s show. It reads, “This year’s Waa-Mu show features three unique stories that started with a united prompt: Heist.” The three stories deal with “themes of love, grief, power, desire, and community.” On opening night, April 26, music supervisor Ryan T. Nelson, a veteran of 22 previous Waa-Mu shows, spoke to the audience briefly, explaining how Waa-Mu has evolved ..read more

The minute I recovered enough from back surgery I plopped my boomer butt on my e-bike and checked out the Free Palestine encampment on Northwestern’s Deering Meadow. The colors! The signs! The young people glowing with passion and purpose! My mind rewound to my first demonstration at Deering, in the spring of 1970, following the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. It was May Day, and I dressed the part: blue work shirt, red bandana and black Che beret. I chanted and held signs and had no doubt that the invasion was evil (I still do). My parents, bless their memories, had prepared me well for the barri ..read more

Coach Stacy Salgado (in sweatpants and jacket) poses in March with the ETHS girls soccer team. Credit: Courtesy Stacy Salgado Kanako Wagner didn’t get a chance to finish what she started Tuesday night in Glenview. But the opportunities in goal for Evanston’s girls soccer team will all be hers going forward. Wagner, a sophomore goalkeeper making just her second varsity start, helped the Wildkits earn a 1-0 victory over Glenbrook South in a battle of once-beaten teams. The victory assured the Kits of a second-place finish behind New Trier in the Central Suburban League South division. “It was a ..read more

Steve Rashid will perform at his venue Studio 5 on May 3. Credit: Daniel Zuchnik/FilmMagic While curating the music roundup for the past few months, I have sometimes felt like I was drinking from a firehose – there is so much music happening in our town, it is hard to decide how to spend my limited show attendance time. I’ve decided to change things up a bit and focus on 10 events this week that have caught my interest. One show that deserves special mention is jazz impresario Steve Rashid’s concert at his Studio 5 venue on Friday. Rashid is a very talented and energetic person, and his ..read more

Jill Wine-Banks Credit: Photo by Chris Vos Longtime Evanstonian Jill Wine-Banks is in the midst of an exciting new chapter in her storied career: podcast co-host for her participation in the Webby Award– winning #SistersInLaw. She, along with Joyce Vance, Kimberly Atkins Stohr and Barb McQuade “pull back the curtain on how our government actually works, take on the corrupt, share their wisdom and give us their rulings on the latest in politics, law, and culture,” according to Politicon, the show’s producer. The show launched in December 2021. Like a pep rally combined with a rock concert ..read more

Avery Jenkins, second grader at Dewey Elementary School, meets Mayor Daniel Biss at a City Council meeting where she was honored for donating haircare products to girls in foster care. She raised $4,000 in a Go Fund Me campaign and has given more than 100 beauty supply kits and tools for girls with highly textured hair at the Lydia Home in Evanston and Chicago, the Childcare Network of Evanston and to “wherever there is a need,” said her mother Petina Dixon-Jenkins. The kits contain shampoo, leave-in conditioner, condition spray and two hairbrushes. “This is a little unusual and extremely awe ..read more

Coriolis, a community a cappella group, announced their upcoming spring concert series to wrap up their season. The program includes a variety of accessible works, all of which were composed or arranged, or for which text was provided by women. The artists include Hildegard von Bingen, Emily Dickinson, Alice Parker, Florence Price, and Undine Smith Moore—the “Dean of Black Women Composers”—along with very highly regarded, relative newcomers, Jennifer Lucy Cook, Reena Esmail, Jocelyn Hagen and Sarah Quartel. Concert details are: 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 1 ..read more