Kris Vire (pronounced like “fire,” as he was always swift to add), was quick to become Chicago’s theatre keeper when he moved here from his hometown in Arkansas in the early 2000s. When I accidentally fell into arts journalism, Vire stood out as a disciplined voice, one committed to getting the facts right in one of the most subjective written forms: theatre criticism.
Vire’s writing would often make me laugh or gasp, even in his review of the first show I ever dramaturged professionally. I read in disbelief, moved by his writing as he deftly maneuvered between potential faults of the play (which I grew to agree with) and the constraints he could see us artists navigating.
Chicago is a theatre town that holds its critics to high, industry-pushing standards, and Vire was able to keep up and push right back in the most generous, smart, and funny ways. I admired his ability to balance the hearts of artists while sharing incisive thoughts full of history and care.
When Vire received his dual cancer diagnosis last year, he was adamant with his immediate family and close friends that he wanted the news to remain private. After his passing, his partner of nearly a decade, Joe Torres, shared the news on Facebook and an outpouring of tributes soon followed, a substantial number of them noting Vire’s merit and care as an arts and culture writer.
In an interview, Torres reflected, “You know, theatre was such a small part of our overall life. We were both nerds in a lot of similar ways, like comic books, music. We moved in together and both discovered a love of cooking, to the point where we actually kept a spreadsheet of every meal that we cooked.” The couple had met on dating apps (first Tinder, then Bumble) and had a first date at Broken Shaker, a River North bar.
Another date featured Torres’s first theatre experience, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill. “It was weird to be, like, on a second date, having this guy you just started dating, like, holding your hand while you’re watching this very dense play about family drama and alcoholism.” The couple would go on to see hundreds of shows, but always adhered to the “two-block rule”—i.e., they would not discuss the show until they were a reasonable distance away from the theatre.
In an interview, Vire’s father, Keith, shared, “He was a brilliant person and a great writer, but I’m just so proud of the friendships he developed.” Vire grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where his appreciation for theatre took root in high school when one of his best friends, Julie Cowden-Starbird, convinced him to audition for his first show in 1992, Arsenic and Old Lace. “His sense of humor always really stood out to me,” Cowden-Starbird recalled. “We took theatre classes together.” Their friendship grew through Drama I, II, and III. “I think he enjoyed thinking about things from different perspectives, as he always showed in his writing.”
Vire and Cowden-Starbird both ended up going to the University of Arkansas for college, where he majored in drama and dramatics/theatre arts. Cowden-Starbird recalls a meaningful full circle in a piece that followed them from high school scene study to their college production as seniors, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
“Kris got cast as Joe, the lead character, who is struggling with his homosexuality,” said Cowden-Starbrid. “I always remember how excited I was for him, because I knew how much he loved that material, that play, those words.”
After college, Vire grew into a self-proclaimed “naturalized Chicagoan.” He was a founder of the Chicago-centric web publication Gapers Block, where he worked as contributing staff writer from 2003 to 2007. During that time, he also freelanced around town, primarily with Time Out Chicago, where he clocked almost 14 years, working his way up from a contributor to a senior editor. In a Facebook tribute to Vire, his colleague, then-theatre editor Christopher Piatt, said, “He approached the theatre scene kind of like a park ranger; he wanted to do anything he could to protect and conserve the ecosystem, on behalf of anybody who might enter it, including (hopefully) long after he was gone.”
In 2018, recognizing a dearth of in-depth theatre coverage in Chicago, Vire relaunched his mid-aughts blog Storefront Rebellion into a Substack newsletter, which offered a before-its-time model of centering a writer’s agency in long-form craft. At its inception, Vire’s Storefront Rebellion featured primarily reviews, but as the pandemic rolled through our industry in 2020, he pivoted to incisive essays tracking show cancellations, the emergence of streamed theatre, and local and national conversations on anti-racism and equity.
Vire left behind an archive, not just across legacy papers, but in his self-published projects. In his (re)introduction of Storefront Rebellion, he noted, “I’m trying this because I believe theatremakers in Chicago deserve a greater volume of smart, informed coverage than our local legacy publications are in a position to give, and avid theatregoers in Chicago are hungry for guidance from sources they can trust.”
Vire understood the necessity of this work, but often downplayed his own role in the impact. In speaking to Vire’s father Keith, it becomes abundantly clear that Vire’s humility about his accomplishments started young. His father recalls getting a phone call when Vire was in elementary school informing the parents of the location of a spelling bee championship. They had no idea Vire had even been competing, let alone advanced to such a level. “Those things just didn’t register to him as being a big deal,” said Keith. “It’s just part of who he was.”
Despite his diagnosis, Vire’s commitment to his friends, family, and work continued, as he battled cancers and his loved ones battled over who would take him to doctor appointments. Vire was known “as a bit of a Renaissance man” for dominating trivia games (in pubs and at family gatherings), as his interests spanned music, baseball, cooking, and beyond. He wrote some of his final Chicago magazine articles from a hospital bed.
His father recalled an interaction with one of Vire’s nurses as she was checking him into intensive care. “She said to him, ‘I understand you used to be a writer.’ And he said, ‘Not used to be. I am a writer.’”
Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel (she/they) is a Chicago-based dramaturg, arts journalist, and cultural producer. Learn more at yasminzacaria.com and follow them on socials @yasminzacaria, a.k.a. dramaturgically it tracks.
