Performing Arts This Weekend
Chicago Dramatists Saturday Series
Open run: Sat 2 PM,
312-633-0630Theater & Performance
This near-weekly program features staged readings of works in progress. $5
CIC Saturday Comedy Showcase
Ongoing: Sat 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Counter Productive Lover headlines with a rotating line-up of comedy teams. $10
Delphic Arts Center
Open run: 2nd and 4th Sat of the month, 10 PM 773-701-8973Spoken Word/Poetry Slams/Open Mikes
Music, poetry, comedy, monologues, and more are welcome. $10
Saints & Sinners
Open run: Sat 5 PMTheater & Performance
This latest variation on Vicki Quade's long-running Late Nite Catechism is an occasionally amusing one-woman show in which a genially overbearing Mother Superior talks about the lives of various saints (Valentine, Patrick, Rose of Lima) and sinners (Judas, Pontius Pilate, sinner-turned-saint Augustine) and takes questions. The premise is that the audience is a fund-raising committee for a parish so financially strapped that--says Mother Superior, in a line that exemplifies the show's good-natured but not very clever humor--"we're down to six deadly sins." Viewers steeped in Catholic-school tradition may enjoy bantering with the bossy nun (played alternately by Quade's cowriters Lisa Buscani and Elaine Carlson), and the environmental set--a musty classroom adorned with out-of-date maps, portraits of President Kennedy and Pope Benedict XVI, student artwork, and a penmanship guide--is a treat. --Albert Williams $30
Skinprov
Open run: Sat midnightImprov/Sketch
Unlike its all-female sister production, Late Night Tit-Bits, this all-male combination improv and strip show features no burlesque. In fact, it's a stretch to say the guys even do striptease. Nonchalantly removing one piece of clothing at a time over the course of several quick, usually nonsexual two-person scenes, they get down to bare buns as unseductively as possible. Yet they're not going for man-boob or tighty-whitey laughs, either. Though these guys aren't the Chippendales, they're in pretty good shape, and a few are downright hunkish. The result is an awkward situation where the nakedness and comedy distract from each other, discouraging us from fully enjoying either one. --Ryan Hubbard $7
The Stand-Up Scene
Ongoing: Sat midnightImprov/Sketch
Stand-ups and improvisers take turns performing. $5
The Kates
Last Saturday of every month, 8 p.m.Improv/Sketch
Stories, monologues, and more by this all-female comedy troupe. $10 suggested donation
El Mari Chi Chi: A Latino Vengeance Burlesque
Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.Theater & Performance
A burlesque show with a south-of-the-border twist. $20
Tits and Bits
Open run: final Sat of each month, 8 PMTheater & Performance
One-woman cabaret starring Krystal LaFianza-Pitzen. $5
Whirled News Tonight Presents Newspeak
Open run: Sat 8 PMImprov/Sketch
The current incarnation of director Jason R. Chin's production is smart. On the night I attended this show, based on audience contributions of news stories, a sketch involving Bipedal Locomotion Enterprises would have taken a prize for vocabulary alone. The ten-member ensemble also made casual references to Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and William Golding. And how many twentysomethings can do an accurate Alfred Hitchcock impression extempore? Instead of going for the broad and vulgar, these folks more often opt for the microcosmic. A patriarchal defense of polygamy is transformed into a wife lamenting the responsibilities of having multiple husbands. A report about terrorists plotting via Internet cafes sparks visions of subversive activities impeded by spam, pop-ups, and IMing. The players exhibit a genuine rapport: articulate dialogue unfolds logically, swiftly, and concisely. --Mary Shen Barnidge $14
The Wild Party Variety Hour
Open run: every last Saturday of the month, 11 PM 312-533-8023Theater & Performance
Burlesque, vaudeville, shtick, and other types of performance, hosted by Silent Theatre. $10
The Improv Jam
Open run: Sat midnightImprov/Sketch
Hosted by Bretty Lyons and Nathan Jansen, audience members are invited to perform improv with some of iO's "best veterans."
Crash! Boom
Open run: Sun 8 PMImprov/Sketch
Improv show where two actors create sound effects for each scene. $10
