When Tony Adler retired, somewhat abruptly, as the senior theater critic of the Chicago Reader in 2018, the headline to writer Max Maller’s deeply admiring article read “Goodbye to Tony Adler, the best weekly theater critic Chicago’s ever had.”

Maller justified his praise with hard evidence. Adler was indeed a smart and thoughtful writer, morally focused but also embracing of independence over ideological conformity and fully willing to go out on all kinds of limbs as circumstances demanded. But the headline still was the cause of some amusement among Adler and his friends, being as it sounded like he had died.

Adler lived a good while longer, dying Tuesday morning after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71. His death was confirmed by Beth Herman Adler, his wife of some 41 years. “Tony died at 11:11 on the 11th of the 11th,” Beth Adler said. “That was just the kind of thing he liked.”

As a dapper and erudite longtime theater critic and arts editor, Adler certainly liked many of Chicago’s theatrical productions, and disliked plenty, too. Even among intellectually curious critics, he was especially intellectually curious and willing to engage in debate, as when in 2005 he took on one of the Reader’s readers who had taken objection to Adler’s discernment of antisemitism in the Jean Giraudoux play “The Madwoman of Chaillot.” The reader construed the review as an attack on the theater producing the play. Adler did not back down. “I did a little research,” he replied, “and turned up the information that went into my review. I can’t agree then that Giraudoux’s bigotry is ‘in no way … expressed within the text of this play.’ It was the text that brought his bigotry to my attention.”

Adler left theater criticism for the most part in 2018, at a time when older male critics were under considerable attack from the blogosphere, and he felt that the writing was on the wall, but he never abandoned his signature live Evanston event, held in concert with his wife. It was a rather eccentric and surely Adler-esque party dubbed Whitmanstide and most often held in December. Everyone therein joined in a reading of “Song of Myself,” arguably the most well-known poem in Walt Whitman’s epic “Leaves of Grass.”  By 2000, the event had become famous enough among the literati to spark a vivid Tribune story.

“It’s a cold, cold night as visitors arrive at Tony and Beth Adler’s house in Evanston on a quiet one-way street,” the story by Achy Obejas went. “They breathe frosty ghosts, trudge through the icy tire tracks on the street and snowy sidewalks, and enter the bustle and warmth of the Whitmanstide Celebration. There are tables of bread and fruit, veggie roll-ups and delicious potato pancakes.” And, of course, poetry.

“Tony identified as a poet,” Beth Adler said. “And he identified with Whitman. When he was dying and we were doing a recounting of our lives together, I told him that aside from the creation of our family, one of the things that made him a truly extraordinary person was that he created an event that lasted for 42 years, and what a beautiful thing to give his community. I think everyone I know now knows Walt Whitman’s poetry.”  (This writer was an attendee, back in the day.)

Adler’s work was not confined to the Reader; he also often wrote for the Tribune.

“I remember him as a skilled, very natural writer,” said Tribune arts editor Doug George. “One piece that stands out in memory was something he wrote in December 2006, not about any arts event, but about what it was like being Jewish in the city on Christmas Day: ‘Nobody shopping, almost nobody working. Only the rare city bus, chauffeuring nobody down the street. The morning hours will be uncanny. And who will be around to experience it? Just us — of Jewish faith, other faith, or non-faith. One of the great pleasures of Christmas Day, for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, is the deep silence it brings to the city.’”

BJ Jones, the artistic director of the Northlight Theatre, described Adler as “a thoughtful and insightful critic and a dedicated member of our community.”

Adler was born in Evanston in March 1954 and attended Evanston Township High School and at Carnegie Mellon University. He watched his sons graduate from the same schools as did he, and also was a co-founder of The Actors Gymnasium there. In 2020, he joined the board of directors of Theatre Y.

Adler spoke eloquently and most amusingly at the funeral of fellow writer and critic Jack Helbig earlier this year; Beth Adler said that was the last time that her husband truly was recognizable as himself.

“It has been a hard summer and fall,” she said. “Tony was smart, funny and just a really great companion. He always had funny things to say and he looked at the world in a funny and curious way.”

Beth Adler said she read some Whitman poetry to her husband as he was making his exit this past weekend. “Until he told me to stop,” she said. “I think those were almost his last words.”

Funeral services are planned for 11 a.m. Nov. 14 at the Beth Emmet Synagogue in Evanston. Survivors include Adler’s brother, David; the couple’s two sons, Max and Emmett; and three grandchildren.  Beth Adler says she plans “one more Whitmanstide” in its creator’s honor.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/11/tony-adler-obituary/