02/29/08
Go through the looking glass this weekend with imaginative, off-the-wall entertainment.
For starters, the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Ave.; 312-397-4010) plays host to a wacky rock show, Necessary Monsters, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s The Book of Imaginary Beings. Violinist Carla Kihlstedt and six other musicians don wild costumes for two dramatic concerts, 7:30 p.m. Friday the 29th and Saturday the 1st; a talk with the...
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02/22/08
The Hottest State In 1995 Chicago suffered a heat wave that killed 739 people. Now, Pegasus Players and Live Bait Theater have teamed up to adapt sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s book about the disaster, Heat Wave, for the stage. Heat Wave, the play, written by Steven Simoncic, examines responses to the catastrophe, from the mayor to the paramedics. Previews run Friday the 22nd through Sunday the 24th at Truman College’s O’Rourke Center (1145 W. Wilson Ave.; 773-878-9761); the play officially opens Monday the 25th and continues through April 6th. Tickets are $15 to $25. For more on the show, read associate editor Nora O’Donnell’s interview with Klinenberg and Simoncic and check...
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02/15/08
That whole line about love meaning you never have to say you’re sorry? Forget it. Guys who screwed up Valentine’s can make good by taking her to River North Chicago Dance Company’s passion-themed weekend engagement, featuring a world-première duet set to Etta James’s “At Last.” (FYI, dating illiterati: It doesn’t get much more romantic.) Shows run 8 p.m. Friday the 15th and Saturday the 16th at Harris Theater (205 E. Randolph Dr.; 312-334-7777). Tickets are...
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02/08/08
Savage Garden of Love When acerbic sex columnist—and Chicago native—Dan Savage (Savage Love) headlines a Valentine’s bill, you know not to expect the usual starry-eyed hearts-and-flowers tribute. In No Love for Love, local writers, musicians, and poets opine on a little thing called love—or the lack thereof. Performers include crime writer Kevin Guilfoile and singer/guitarist Naomi Ashley, who recently released the album Love and Other Crap. The show takes place 8 p.m. Monday the 11th at the Apollo Theater (2540 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-935-6100). Tickets run $20 to $50, and all proceeds benefit the Poetry Center of Chicago.
Best Bets for Things to Do This Week...
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02/01/08
Before the boys take the field on Sunday, women take centerstage in local productions featuring some seriously heavyweight talent. Patty Duke—yep, that Patty Duke—performs in Blue Yonder, a series of monologues about women from all walks of life, at the Theatre of Western Springs (4384 Hampton Ave., Western Springs; 708-246-3380). Shows run 8 p.m. Friday the 1st, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday the 2nd, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday the 3rd. Tickets are $55, plus an additional $25 for a post-show reception with Duke. On Monday the 4th at 7:30 p.m., the actress gets personal in An Evening with Patty Duke and talks about her career and struggles with...
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01/25/08
Tennesseein’ Is Believin’ A new play by Tennessee Williams—who’s been dead, remember, for nearly 25 years—doesn’t come around every day. Which makes the world première of The Day on Which a Man Dies a big deal. The show doesn’t open until next Friday, February 1st, but due to its limited six-performance run in the intimate Links Hall (3435 N. Sheffield Ave.; 800-838-3006), you might want to call for tickets now. (Full disclosure: A later version of the play circa 1970, significantly different but with the same title, has been produced once before, in 2001 at Connecticut’s White Barn Theater.) David Kaplan, director of the Links Hall run, has an ongoing relationship with the Williams estate, and he’s staging this production with precise fidelity to Williams’s words and notes. Completed in 1959 and inspired in part by the Japanese poet Yukio Mishima and in part by Jackson Pollock, the play includes elements of Japanese dance and...
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01/18/08
Arrested Developments
Chicago’s past and its seedy underbelly are more in tune than a mobster and his trigger finger—which goes a long way toward explaining our obsession with all things criminal. Get a dose of the dark side when the new exhibition Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots opens with a free reception, 5 to 8 p.m. Friday the 18th at Intuit (756 N. Milwaukee Ave.; 312-243-9088). Original mugshots from the 1870s through the 1960s make up the show, which represents only a fraction of New York–based graphic designer Mark Michaelson’s 10,000-strong collection. Get more of the history behind his striking...
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01/11/08
The Pocket Guide to Sex David Sedaris’s January shows at Steppenwolf sold out long ago, but seats are still available for the theatre’s funny, poignant Traffic Series, focusing on what it means to be an American. Next up: radio personality Sharon McGhee’s The PocketBook Monologues, an African American response to The Vagina Monologues, about sex and intimacy among women of color. (The show’s title refers not to a purse but to a polite euphemism for a certain part of the female anatomy.) Showtime is 7 p.m. Monday the 14th in Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theatre (1650 N. Halsted St.; 312-335-1650). Tickets are $35. Best Bets for Things to Do This Week...
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01/04/08
Outlook: Sketchy
The presents have been exchanged; the Champagne has been drained; all that remains on your holiday to-do list is embarking on those lofty New Year’s resolutions—to which we say, let the procrastination commence! One handy time filler: the seventh annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. Featuring 125 sketch-comedy acts from across North America, Sketchfest gives you plenty of excuses to put off until tomorrow what you could do today. Highlights include a musical bit, Sex, Cubs & Rock ’n’ Roll, from local pH productions, Friday the 4th at 8 p.m., and the no-holds-barred festival closers, Suspicious Clowns, Sunday the 13th at 7 p.m. Performances take place at Theatre Building Chicago (1225 W. Belmont Ave.; 773-327-5252); ticket prices vary, though most shows run about $12. Visit chicagosketchfest.com for...
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12/21/07
Marquee is packing its bags and taking a vacation, which means no newsletter the week of Friday, December 28th (we’ve included a few events below that take place through January 3rd). Marquee returns, Champagne hangover be damned, January 4th; in the meantime, visit Last Girl Standing for more last-minute New Year’s Eve ideas.
A Little Cheese is Good for You
At least once during the holidays, it’s permissible to abandon all cynicism and surrender to unabashed seasonal cheer. Do it up big-time with the 24th annual Christmas Sing-Along and Double Feature at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave.; 312-902-1500), a tradition as integral to Christmas in Chicago as Marshall Field’s windows once were. Back-to-back screenings of It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas sandwich organ-accompanied sing-along carols, with four showings a day between Friday the 21st and Sunday the 23rd, plus two showings on Christmas Eve. Tickets are...
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