The theater critic Jack Helbig was famous for withdrawing capsule theater reviews in publications such as New Hukti and Chicago Reader, which he was found in a pit. He called the famous forest show “the worst thing that had been in Chicago since St. Valentine’s Day Genocide” and, in an apocriphrifle story, which became mythical in the Chicago Theater Circle, and Helbig loved, a famous playwright Once instigated a ventilative insult. The crowded room compared Helbig to an equinate appendage.
“Who is Jack Helbig anyway?” In 1995, Pathak wrote an apoplactic reader. “Have they ever written a positive theater review for your paper? If he has it, I would love if you reproduce it to prove it.”
That letter writer was wrong; Halbig had to just like the work.
Helbig died on Tuesday at the age of 66 at the age of 66 at the Oak Park Hospital, after a heart attack on the big hearted critic. His death was confirmed by his wife Sheri Kent.
His work came with another side, his struggle for intensive intellectual curiosity and deep sympathy and excellence for Chicago artists. He was a decades -long attraction with risky theater and improvised comedy and with creative Chicago dwellers, who built such work here in the last quarter of a century.
And a profession was famous for its decision, competitive personality and long-held Grizes, Helbig was a journalism discrepancy: a generous, ego-free, warm soul who enjoyed artists and other writers and who often very much He becomes a friend with people, he does the work he may love or may be destroyed.
Helbig was sometimes a playwright and trained himself, so he considered the artist’s life the best. He showed the show after the show on the show after the show, which was always appreciated. He was a small and struggling undivided protector. And, a continuous appearance on his lips with a smile, he was fun to be around.
“Jack just wanted people to appreciate who he was,” Kent said.
In fact, many did it.
Helbig was also an English teacher, who eventually reached the head of a dear department in a 17 -year career at Holy Trinity High School in Chicago; Many students have written affectionate tributes on social media. Since 2022, he taught English at Rochelle Zel Jewish High School in Dearfield. Kent said, “He was a super-invested as a great teacher.” “And he was completely dedicated to teaching, even he wanted to go as a writer.”
“I think everyone at the Chicago Theater experienced a bad review from Jack Helbig,” Kelly Leonard, Vice President and a long -standing creative force in another city said. “This happens when you face a critic with integrity. By the same token, he was happy to sing your praise in the next review and follow with a feature to help you draw more attention to your work. The Jack Theater was full of honesty and joy within his role in the community, you could not help but wanted to be proud of him. ,
For some theaters who became highly impressive in American entertainment, Helbig’s early support was important in the 1990s. “Jack helped the theater on the map of the Chicago Theater,” said a early attire member Mark Sutton. “He was a fan of our theater, but he never let his reviews impress. He was always fair and practical. ,
“A halbig pan always had bite and humor,” wrote by Chicago Theater actor and writer Paul Slade Smith for a long time. “And a positive review of him felt like a win.”
Helbig also wrote for the journal Daily Herald and Oak Park for years. He was born in October 1958 at St. Louis, graduated from the University of Chicago in 1980 and later completed a master’s degree in education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. His real name was Edward Helbig III, but Jack was adopted, Kent said, probably to avoid confusion with his father and possibly a tribute to “Jack” Kennedy.
Kent said that she met the person who would become her husband when working on a guidebook, “Sweet Home Chicago” in the 1980s and engaged her to write about the theater. Things left from there. “Jack can massage any prose,” Kent said. “He was a true word doctor. And he was fantastic, creative and funny. ,
“Jack just wanted to help people succeed,” Brian Hiegelke said, the editor and the publisher by the publisher of the nousy. “He was never inspired by ambition or money, but by improving his share of the world.”
Just after the epidemic, in a review of the Chicago Reader of “Kinky Boots” at the Paramount Theater in Arora, Helbig wrote a lot about the return as that art, but that too was unknowingly self-respecting, accurately Used to describe himself as a “once-youth”. , Hip iconclast, which is known for reviewing sharp-tongs, which gradually decreased over the years of writing, well, young and eventually compared to his fan-bogling equality for younger and eventually George RR Martin Tej Rai was often identified. ,
Along with Kent, the remaining people include the couple’s daughter, Margaret Helbig and a sister, Jordan Kirk. A memorial service is planned.