A scene from the play 'FML: How Carson McCullers Saved My Life'
MASKED AND ANONYMOUS A show featuring the Guerrilla Girls’ banners, videos,
and other feminist art and ephemera opens 3/1 at Columbia College.

THE FIVE

Don’t-miss picks for Wed 2.29.12 through Tue 3.6.12:

1

art Guerrilla Girls
For decades, these feminist avengers have taken the art world to task for its deficit of—and representations of—women and minorities. Guerrilla Girls: Not Ready to Make Nice fills two Columbia College gallery spaces with videos, posters, banners, and other ephemera featuring the artists in their signature gorilla masks. The curator Neysa Page-Lieberman leads a Q&A with Guerrilla Girls at the Conaway Art Center (1104 S Wabash) on 3/1 at 6.
GO: 3/1–4/21. Free. A+D Gallery, Columbia College, 619 S Wabash. colum.edu
2

concerts BÉla Fleck and The Original Flecktones
Years ago, Fleck and his banjo made an adventurous leap out of the folk genre and into jazz, classical, and new acoustic music. This tour reunites the original band that made the leap with him.
GO: 3/2: $68. North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie, Skokie. northshorecenter.org. 3/3: $70–$80. Wentz Concert Hall, North Central College, 171 E Chicago, Naperville. finearts.northcentralcollege.edu
3

art Nazafarin Lotfi
Lotfi uses salvaged materials such as metal fencing and fishing line to stencil patterns onto her minimalist black-and-white paintings, then reincorporates some of those same objects into sculptures that are shown with them. The process sounds messy but produces refined results.
GO: 3/2–4/14. Free. Tony Wight Gallery, 845 W Washington, tonywightgallery.com
4

theatre Camino Real
Don Quixote, Lord Byron, Casanova, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame’s Esmeralda all make appearances in Tennessee Williams’s Camino Real. But it’s not until a washed-up boxer arrives that things get really weird.
GO: 3/3–4/8. Previews through 3/11; $25–$65. Regular run $25–$79. Goodman Theatre, 170 N Dearborn. goodmantheatre.org
5

classical Four Score Festival
The Music Institute of Chicago gives its annual salute to contemporary music with concerts featuring compositions by American legends Aaron Copeland and Charles Ives—as well as younger composers who have been influenced by their work. On the bill this Sunday: Music by the modernist Ives and the New York-born, multi-genre composer Gunther Schuller.
GO: 3/4 at 3. $10–$25. Nichols Concert Hall, 1430 Chicago, Evanston. Festival schedule: musicinst.org

WHAT I’M DOING THIS WEEKEND

Zach Dodson
Zach Dodson

Up next in our series of weekend plans from notable, in-the-know locals—a.k.a. people we like: Zach Dodson, Associate Professor of Art and Design at Columbia College, co-host of The Show ‘n Tell Show, and the publisher of local indie press Featherproof Books. This Friday at 8, Dodson co-emcees Literature Party, a book-reading-slash-dance party at Lincoln Hall to benefit Young Chicago Authors.

All day Friday, I’ll be staffing the Featherproof table at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference at Palmer House Hilton. It’s a really fun, really huge literary meeting and book fair, and this year it’s in Chicago. Hundreds of small presses will be there, and we’re sharing a booth with the indie publisher Two Dollar Radio.

Friday night, I’m co-hosting Literary Party with Lindsay Hunter, a Featherproof author. There are tons of readings associated with the conference, but this one is unique in that it’s short on the readings and long on the dance party. Matt Roan is DJing, and [writer] Mary Miller, [poet] Dorothea Lasky, and [writer and musician] Tim Kinsella are doing readings. Jesse Ball [the author of The Way Through Doors] also is doing a reading, with shadow puppets by Jill Summers and Susie Kirkwood. Jesse rarely does public events—he’s sort of a mystery and a recluse—so I’m really looking forward to it.

On Saturday, I’ll be at the book fair, which is open to the public that day. The insider tip is that if you wait until the very last hour, you can get books and literary journals at fire-sale prices from the vendors, who don’t want to ship them home after it’s all over. Then that night, I’m heading to The Hideout for the LGBTQ dance party Chances. Gay or straight, pink or purple, it’s the best dance party in Chicago.

Sunday I’m going to decompress and read what I bought at the book fair—maybe the new issue of [the literary journal] Hobart, or My Only Wife, the new book by Jac Jemc.

FREEBIE OF THE WEEK

classical Rush Hour Concerts
This popular concert series recently expanded into more family-friendly territory. During Saturday’s installment, members of the wind ensemble Quintet Attacca compete by soloing, and kids vote for the winner.
GO: 3/3 at 10. Driehaus Museum, 40 E Erie. driehausmuseum.org

 

Photography: (GUERrILLA GIRLS) COURTESY TOM NOWAK KATHE; (DODSON) Jonathan Crawford