Performing Arts Search
Rates of Reaction
Mon 2/8, 7:30 PMDance
Lisa Gonzales of the Architects and Bob Garrett lead this structured improvisation lab for movers and musicians, which will develop into a "free-form jam." $5 suggested donation
Under Ground and Coydog
Through 2/8: Mon 7 PM
773-508-0666Theater & Performance
I guess I can see the rationale behind pairing these two efforts. Both are more or less conventionally structured plays that deal in American types and mythology, and especially in American strangeness. Also, they’re both short. Beyond that, though, there’s no comparison. Nicely if a little roughly put over in Kate Brown’s production, Scott Barsotti’s Coydog is a smart, buoyant, compassionate exercise in the Mojave Cracked genre epitomized by Sam Shepard’s True West—not to mention The Hills Have Eyes—about three young women marooned in the desert with a nice old lady who may be criminally insane. Jessica Wright’s Under Ground, on the other hand, is a ponderous piece of work centered on a guy who lives in a 19th-century New England whaling town, works as a porter in a whorehouse, and listens to pewter beer mugs like they were seashells. The thing is so bogged down in earnest, inscrutable symbolism that it becomes unintentionally funny. —Tony Adler $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door
The Mourning Show
Tue 2/9, 7 PM, 312-742-8497Theater & Performance
DePaul philosophy professor H. Peter Steeves uses theater, dance, and more to explore the relationship between art and mourning.
Claymore Productions Streaming Sketch Project Fundraiser
Tue., Feb. 9, 10 p.m.Improv/Sketch
Coming Spring 2010, Claymore Productions will harness the power of live internet streaming to broadcast a monthly live sketch show from the greatest city in the world, Chicago. There are several talented writers and a production crew waiting in the wings, ready to flex their creative muscles, but this project will require large amounts of data intake, which in turn will require large amounts of processing power. Chicagoans are invited to join Claymore and Friends on February 9 from 10:00 – 11:30 PM to help raise funds for the technical equipment make this dream a reality with an evening of sketch comedy, stand-up and live music. The show will be broadcast live on UStream.com. The fundraiser event will include performances and sketches by Claymore Productions, On Tap, Brendan McGowan, Ken Barnard, and Dan Tedesco and The Long Haul along with a raffle for prizes and restaurant gift certificates.
Charity Never Began/Liz's Radio Script
Wed 2/10, 7 PM, 312-742-8497Theater & Performance
The AFTRA/SAG Senior Radio Players perform two radio scripts. In Charity Never Began, the D.A. takes on the operators of a retirement home; in Liz's Radio Script, chaos ensues when the female finalist of a script-writing contest broadcasts her entry on the local radio station.
F.A.T. People
Wed 2/3 and 2/10, 9:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Kimberly Franck and Natasha Hansen explore what it means to be "F.A.T." $10
Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing XI
Tue 2/9, 10 AM-8 PM, Wed 2/10, 10 AM-5 PM,Theater & Performance
Mumbai-based artist Nikhil Chopra inhabits the character of a Victorian-era figure inspired by his grandfather in this piece that combines theatrics and drawing.
Comedians You Should Lay
Thu 2/11, 9:30 PMStand-Up
Ryan Walker, Dean Carlson, Renee Schultz, and other comedians, with host Marty DeRosa. $4-$8
And Then It Burst
Through 2/11: Thu 9 PM 773-508-0666Theater & Performance
A man who can’t remember his name and carries his heart in his hand visits a friend who does unpaid janitorial work for fun, loves fizzy soda, and also can’t remember his name. The heart-in-hand man has a few dates with a woman who eats pizza. Then he goes to the zoo and inadvertently feeds his heart to a sea lion. This kind of overdetermined absurdism pervades Tympanic Theatre Company’s quadruple bill of short plays by Minnesota-based George McConnell. Reminiscent of Edward Albee’s early one-acts, the stiffly acted pieces purport to “examine the breakdown of communication in the most extraordinary of circumstances,” but the quirkiness itself doesn’t say much. —Justin Hayford $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door
Decline of Ballooning and Madame X Paints Haydn Red
Through 2/11: Thu 7 PM 773-508-0666Theater & Performance
If you think brainy, cryptic, nonlinear performance pieces can’t provide satisfying entertainment, rush to this exquisite double bill and prepare to be proved wrong. Brian Torrey Scott’s Decline of Ballooning offers a series of splintered, imagistic scenes about a pair of romantically semi-entwined aerial photographers—attended by a bored, kabuki-esque pop singer—whose attempts to map the Mariana Trench threaten to drain all the mystery from the seas. In Madame X Paints Haydn Red, Nick Butcher and Devin King perform a subtle, ambient soundscape using sampled instruments, taped voices, and tumbling live monologues about Haydn’s missing skull and RCA’s development of color-coded recording vinyl. Both pieces deploy puzzling elements in intriguing and often humorous ways, referencing everyone from Paul Eluard to Liza Minnelli, creating playful, enlivening imaginative realms. —Justin Hayford $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door
Remembrance of Things Pontiac
Through 2/11: Thu 7 PM 773-508-0666Theater & Performance
One of the remarkable aspects of this festival is its generational breadth. “Fringe” is usually a synonym for “fresh out of college,” but the lineup here includes seasoned vets as well as rambunctious youths. Kestutis Nakas is one of the vets. An associate professor of theater at Roosevelt University, the 56-year-old Nakas has been putting up work at places like LaMama since the 1980s. He lets both his age and chops show to powerful effect in this solo about a Michigan teen, class of ’71, who’s tormented by delayed puberty even as he engages the universe through LSD and the MC5. It’s astonishing how much Nakas gets right about pimply suburban “freaks” coming up just a frustrating hairsbreadth behind the Woodstock generation, how much reality he builds from a small vocabulary of gestures, and how much mortality he can put in a line reading. Pontiac is amiable, amusing, and—finally, unexpectedly, quietly—stunning. —Tony Adler $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door
Ha-Ha Hotties, Valentine's Day Edition
Fri 2/12, 9 PMStand-Up
An all-female line-up performs relationship-themed material. $12-$15
Shtick With Us
Fri 2/12, 8 PM,Theater & Performance
Vaudezilla presents vaudeville burlesque. $15-$20
