The nostalgia of 90s television sitcoms has become prevalent in podcast form. Stars from beloved programs are either rewatching or watching their show for the first time, sharing never-before-heard stories of their time on set and insight as to what went into its creation. Boy Meets World stars Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong began Pod Meets World the summer of 2022 and have since expanded into live performances in theaters across the country. The Kids Wanna Jump Tour recently made a stop at the landmark Chicago Theatre to a crowd filled with television and podcast fans alike.

The Kids Wanna Jump - a reference to the 90s photography trend of snapping shots of teen actors in mid air - doesn’t dive into a specific episode of Boy Meets World or share the background of a specific cast or crew member as they do on a typical podcast episode. Instead, they acknowledge their fans on a more intimate level by interacting with them throughout the night.

The beginning of the show is much like the beginning of the podcast. The three engage in a seemingly off-topic conversation that brings back memories of where they were in their lives while they were filming the show. The Chicago audience got to hear how each of them had separate appearances on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee that left an impression: Friedle received a rather loud compliment about having a spark in his eyes, Fishel had an earpiece malfunction in the middle of a live segment and Strong was advised not to broach the subject of the newly announced cheating scandal that had affected one of the hosts. They joked that these instances were why no one requested interviews with them anymore. (For the record, we’d love to interview them!)

Audience participation was a crucial point of the show, from a Q&A session to a costume contest. They answered questions about the impact of the interracial relationship of Shawn and Angela, a narrative path they wish their character had gone on and the feeling of returning to these characters in the spin-off, Girl Meets World.

The Chicago crowd brought their creativity with their costumes. French Topanga from “The Grass is Always Greener”, 1950s Cory with chicken head mask from “I Was A Teenage Spy”, Mr. Feeny’s journal and wrist watch from “City Slackers”, Mr. Feeny and Morgan’s tea party from “It’s A Wonderful Night”, and the winner, a young boy dressed as Plays With Squirrels. The grand prize was a signed copy of the 1993 script, “The Father/Son Game”, and all other participants received signed enamel pins.

Several moments of the show are best left unsaid. No amount of description or discussion would do it justice, nor should it be spoiled for anyone who wants to experience the show on their own. Just know that Boy Meets World fans will laugh, cry and have solid evidence that Friedle truly does not get rid of anything.

The comedic timing of the trio, individually and together, is on a whole other level when witnessed in person. The inside jokes they’ve created through rewatching the show come to life on stage, calling out Shawn’s angst or Mr. Turner’s New York accent. Pod Meets World listeners get to hear this friendship twice a week in a one-sided format, but at a live show they get to express their appreciation both for the show and for the people who are allowing them to see a whole new side of it.

The audience received another special treat with special guest Anthony Tyler Quinn, who played teacher Jonathan Turner on seasons two through four and reappeared in episodes of Girl Meets World. The audience had a chance to interact with him during the Q&A, and it gave them the opportunity to again reciprocate that joy Mr. Turner gave them nearly 30 years ago.

Closing out the night is a special pre-recorded video from another beloved teacher: William Daniels, Mr. George Feeny.

“We love you all. Class dismissed.”

Upcoming The Kids Wanna Jump tour dates can be found here.

For those that have never had the luxury of being in the same room as Henry Winkler, his memoir, Being Henry: The Fonz… And Beyond, is the equivalent of gathering around his dining table and hearing his best stories firsthand.

In just under 250 pages, Winkler gives readers an intimate look into his life and career. He said he can’t remember not feeling an intense need to perform. What he never felt, however, was support. He shares anecdotes from his childhood, where unfortunately his parents did not understand or seem to care that their son had a learning challenge.

Winkler has been candid about his struggles with dyslexia, going so far as to create a children’s book series called Hank Zipzer. Along with writer Lin Oliver, the title character is a child that shares Winkler’s struggles and the powerful message of overcoming.

“I couldn’t read and everybody said that I was lazy, I was not living up to my potential,” he said during his book tour stop in Naperville, Ill. “I was told I would never achieve, I would never amount to much, and in my mind I was thinking, ‘How is that possible?’ But if all of these adults are saying the same thing then it must be true.”

“I think a heard child is a powerful child,” he continued. “It is so important to listen. I think that the ear is the center of the universe.”

It took a life of success and failure to fully comprehend who he was, and he makes sure the messages of the book are fully understood to his audience each night on his book tour.

“When I looked at the whole book, I finally realized it literally was the journey from where I started being who I thought I should be to becoming a more authentic me to being who I am,” he said.

During his conversation with Barry co-star D’Arcy Carden for the Chicago Humanities Festival, he acknowledged that while his reputation of being one of the nicest people in Hollywood still seems foreign to him, it took him years and the help of a therapist to accept love. Carden shared many instances where Winkler has been a wonderful friend: weekly phone calls, pep talks, congratulations gifts, just because flowers, a place to stay… She agrees that nice is not a strong enough word to describe him.

“He’s so much more than that,” she said. “Nice is pretty easy, actually.”

Most importantly, his memoir shows that he’s human. A surprising point of view in the book is of his wife, Stacey. She shares her honesty, much like Winkler does in the rest of the book, but her passages speak of topics that range from his immaturity to his anxieties. It’s refreshing to read her thoughts and understand a side of him that hasn’t been publicly expressed before.

Henry Winkler may not personally invite every reader to his dining room table this Thanksgiving, but Being Henry: The Fonz… And Beyond shares the same warm, personal touch. Yes, it is about the specific stories that have shaped his life. It is also about how anyone’s journey can be similar if they trust the process, and trust and believe in themselves.

“I am going to be presumptuous enough to tell you this,” he said each night. “Every single one of you is powerful. Every single one of you. Some have tasted your power, some of you are afraid of your power, some of you don’t know you have it yet. But I’m here to tell you that your head only knows some things. Your instinct knows everything… Your instinct is your guide to living and I am telling you that you don’t know what you can accomplish until you just listen to your instinct.”

The Chicago music scene in the late 90s and early 00s brought acts like Fall Out Boy and Plain White T’s to the forefront, but there’s another act that isn’t necessarily associated with Chicago: Hawthorne Heights.

In 2003, while the Ohio band was on the verge of breaking up, they drove to Chicago to play for a dozen different record executives. They played three songs that they had sent demos of, and received absolutely no indication that the execs were impressed. It was their first Chicago winter experience, and by the lack of feedback they received, it was also probably their last. Imagine their surprise the following Monday morning, at 9:03 a.m., when an email with a record contract was waiting in their inbox.

It may not be a well-known story from Hawthorne Heights’ history, but it was one of many stories told during their Chicagoland performance of Emo Orchestra.

Emo Orchestra founder Ben Mench-Thurlow has been booking artists since his own middle school band, and has been booking Hawthorne Heights for more than a decade. During a difficult time in their lives, he and his wife, Kristen, came up with the idea of the show and decided to approach the band with the idea.

“Booking bands can sometimes be redundant so Hawthorne Heights and I have found ways to keep fans guessing on what we will do next,” he said. “It was simple; take a band from the genre, ask them to play some of their songs and some of the songs that helped shape the genre, and add an orchestral element. We wanted the show to be family friendly and in a different environment than where fans have typically seen the band.”

Lead vocalist JT Woodruff told the audience that in some ways the show is an apology letter. Sorry for all those years of standing on hot pavement during Warped Tour, enjoy these cushioned seats and air conditioning as a peace offering. (“You’re welcome,” he said that night.)

While the concept of the show is simple, the final product and presentation is elaborate. Surrounding the band are bouquets of flowers and floral garland wrapped around their microphone stands. Behind them is a black backdrop with the Emo Orchestra logo, held high like a prideful flag. Throughout the night, two screens project images associated with the songs they perform: a boy with antlers, trophies, a chandelier, a snow-covered forest. The entire night is interactive, including a sing-along to the Emo national anthem.

The music of this genre holds strong memories to those that lived through it, and the same goes for those that wrote and played these songs. Throughout the night, Woodruff shared a personal memory before each song that related back to the artist. From playing Knights of Columbus halls to late night conversations with fans in parking lots, the show gave a never-before inside look at how this music changed the performer as much as it changed the listener.

Since this is an event for all ages, Mench-Thurlow sees the family attendees as the most rewarding experience.

“We’ve met so many kids who are just starting to play guitar or bass, and then kids who are playing violin or clarinet or upright bass,” he said. “We want to continue to encourage the next generation to be music makers and performers.”

The most challenging aspect of the tour is logistics. It is part of Mench-Thurlow’s job to bring seasoned and inexperienced performers together as well as an entire crew and make sure it is an enjoyable experience for everyone. This tour also came along just about a week after the Is For Lovers festivals, and only gave them a handful of days to prepare.

“I remember getting a call from the bass player, Matt Ridenour, two days before the first rehearsal,” Mench-Thurlow said. “He just said, ‘We are good. This is going to be great.’ It has been a blast to watch a band who I’ve been with for so long take on a major undertaking and completely knocking it out of the park.”

The orchestra, of course, was such an incredible addition to these songs. They brought a new appreciation to each one, and it was apparent that these songs meant something to conductor Evan Rogers as well. Watching him sing along and interact with each performer made the show that much more special. Woodruff shared that these musicians came from around the world to perform in this ensemble, including some from Chicago who just learned the music that day.

An Emo Orchestra show is all about looking back on an era that feels like it just happened yesterday but also feels like a lifetime ago. Hearing these songs reimagined creates a new memory to cherish, and seeing these talented musicians is a reminder that it was never a phase.

Poisonous plants, sharp tools, shady corners and ready-made burial sites are all mainstays in garden-themed mysteries, but what is it about a garden that entices authors to incorporate it into their plot? Marta McDowell explores this connection in her latest book, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, And Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers.

After a successful corporate career, McDowell took her love for gardening to the next level by taking continuing education courses at the New York Botanical Garden and eventually teaching there. In her landscape history and horticulture classes she said that she is able to share her love of gardening with so many different people.

Spending time gardening and writing about gardening led her to a fun fact: Emily Dickinson was a gardener. As an avid reader, this fact interested McDowell and led her to the parallels between writers and gardens.

With the advice of a family member who worked as a literary agent, McDowell knew she had to make her name known. She began pitching to magazines and booking public speaking events which ultimately led to a British garden journal called Hortus. They published a 4,000-word piece from McDowell titled “With Malus Aforethought”, which she calls a bad horticultural pun (Malus meaning apple in botanical Latin). Those 4,000 words ultimately led to Gardening Can Be Murder.

The first book in the genre she recalls reading is Mulch by Ann Ripley. Amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge has big plans for her family's new Sylvan Valley home, situated among the flower of suburban Washington, D.C., society. Some Japanese iris here, some skunk cabbage there… and her own cozy cabin for her horticultural writings. But barely has she turned the topsoil when her organic mulching unearths the unidentifiable remains of a murder victim. Suddenly her elegant garden is a crime scene blighted by garish yellow police tape.

It was the first in the genre that McDowell added to her shelf, and before long her bookcase needed more room for more garden murder mysteries. While the books continued to pile up, it wasn’t until the global pandemic that she began writing this book. Her previous books involved many hours researching archives, but with that off the table during lockdown, she researched murder mystery novels instead.

“This was a weird book for me because rather than writing about one author, I was writing about dozens of authors,” she said. “I decided because there it was staring at me, we’ve got detectives and suspects and motives, means, setting… I could use all of that. Then I just had to decide how much I wanted to talk about each thing, which was determined by how long it interested me.”

Gardening Can Be Murder is the first book to explore the many surprising horticultural connections in the mystery genre. McDowell introduces readers to the detectives and scene of the crime, then explores the motive, means and clues before gathering the suspects and solving the case of why gardening can be murder. She also shares her conversations with modern day writers such as Ruth Ware, Karen Hugg and Cynthia Riggs, who use their own gardens to find creativity.

She said that at one point she had devoured so many books in the genre that she wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested in the correlations. Thankfully, she has a wonderful group of friends who aren’t afraid to tell her if something is boring.

The last piece of the book was illustration, and McDowell’s frequent collaborator, Yolanda V. Fundora, was up for the challenge. After meeting at an art show, Fundora has illustrated many of McDowell’s books, usually a mix of period images and contemporary photographs. This time, she wanted an Edward Gorey-inspired style, with silhouette cutout art that reminded her of Highlights For Children magazine.

“I didn’t give her much direction other than that, and she skimmed the chapters,” McDowell said. “It was fun because I didn’t really need to tell her much. I think she can read my mind at this point or we’re like sisters separated at birth.”

Photo courtesy of Matty Vogel

Indie pop band MisterWives has always been a voice for confidence, courage and pushing boundaries. They’ve built their own house, colored outside the lines, came out the other side and walked the tightrope. While their latest album, Nosebleeds, has an attitude unlike their previous albums, the message of it is still powerful. Each member of the band puts their best foot forward on each track, and the same can be said for their live performances on The Don’t Look Down Tour.

During their Chicago stop with Bishop Briggs and Raffaella, their energy was felt from the front of the stage to the last row of the balcony. The band entered from the darkness, with vocalist Mandy Lee perched atop an elevated LED platform. The first track off Nosebleeds, “Out of Your Mind”, began just as strongly as it does on the album. As Lee made it down to the front of the stage, the crowd rejoiced. The real party was about to begin.

There is no doubt the band is well attuned with one another, as they’ve been performing together for a decade. It is the sheer happiness that was most palpable on stage, however. There was not a moment where at least one of them was smiling or staring out into the crowd with a look of awe. Multiple times Lee called out the audience’s energy and thanked them for reminding them that playing music was the best feeling ever.

Lee’s energy was just as dynamic. Her vocal range is impressive in its own right, but hearing it in person is unmatched. She not only brings what is heard in album form to life, but she is also acrobatic in her stage presence; bounding from stage left to stage right, with epic hair flips and high jumps in between. She never once stumbled, physically or vocally.

The rest of the band is impressively interactive with one another, crossing the stage to perform alongside them or smile up at them from their own smaller raised platforms. It is clear that despite everything they have been through since the beginning, they still appreciate each other.

The set list included nearly every song from Nosebleeds, minus “Flower Moon” and “Broken Glass”. The message of the album was heard tenfold that night, and the band gave the audience a safe space to feel any and all emotions.

“Thanks so much for helping us feel OK, Chicago,” Lee said.

MisterWives and The Don’t Look Down Tour is everything an audience wants in a live performance: interaction, entertainment and a sprinkling of encouragement. The partnership between fan and band is unlike any other, and this band knows how to give their fans a performance to remember.

Six years after announcing their indefinite hiatus, The Summer Set is back on the road promoting their 5th studio album, Blossom. The last leg of the tour focuses on the Midwest, including a night at House of Blues Chicago.

As the band entered from the side of the stage, the sound of a door closing made its way through the crowd. It immediately felt like they were playing a more intimate space, as if they were starting a basement show instead of playing to a large crowd as the headliner at the House of Blues.

Jess Bowen at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

John Gomez at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

Brian Dales at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.