Performing Arts Search – Recommended
One-Minute Play Festival
Through 6/18: Mon-Tue 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
If you have a tough time sitting through an entire play, don't worry, Victory Gardens Theater is here for you. The One-Minute Play Festival presents about 60 plays that are—yes!—one minute long, and written by notable local playwrights. Check out our sidebar in Theater for the details.
$15
The Emigrants
Through 7/5: various times, see websiteTheater & Performance
Organic Theater is performing Caligula in rotating repertory with The Emigrants (1974), a bleak and often bitterly funny play by the Polish dramatist Slawomir Mrozek. It's not an obvious pairing, but it's an ingenious one. Both plays explore themes of power and freedom from the perspective of characters who have found that "men die; and they are not happy." The difference is that while Caligula enjoys the view from the penthouse, Mrozek's pair of penniless emigres are stuck in the basement. Their unnamed country of origin is some godforsaken place controlled by a brutal regime that rules by fear, suspicion, and sham justice. Known only as AA and XX, the two men now find themselves living in a shabby underground apartment in a large, ostensibly free capital of commerce like New York or London. Terrence McClellan's concrete-walled set is lined with clanking sewage and heating pipes, reinforcing AA's assertion that the anonymous duo are like microbes in the bowels of the metropolis. Continue reading >> $19
Baby Wants Candy: The Rock Musical
Open run: Fri 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Baby Wants Candy--a tight troupe now famous for its improvised musicals--began in 1997 as one of the dozens of ImprovOlympic teams formed every year. Somehow they've avoided the usual dissolution of such groups. More impressive, they've never experienced the artistic conservatism that paralyzes improvisers eager to "do it right"--and reap the reward, presumably, of a career in NYC or LA. Instead the troupe has become the very model of smart, physical, quick-thinking, and just plain silly long-form improvisers; they still play well together and manage to entertain. Inspired by the improbable suggestion "So this is it" at the show I saw, nine actors (backed by the five-member Yes Band) improvised a complicated, hilarious, tongue-in-cheek tale of three partnerships on the rocks--two marriages and a professional relationship--and the narrator who helps bring the couples back together. --Jack Helbig $15
The Magic Cabaret
Open run: Wed 8 PM,
773-404-7336Theater & Performance, Halloween
P.T. Murphy and David Parr's show continues to "take the 'ic' out of magic." Classic bits involving card tricks and swallowed needles blend with anecdotes about Chicago's history as a magic capital and Murphy and Parr's own youthful obsessions with the craft. The two deliver a bombast-free evening of chamber illusions, bantering easily with each other and the audience in a spare and intimate setting. A chilling interlude invoking H.H. Holmes, the serial killer immortalized as the "devil in the White City," reminds us that no amount of prestidigitation can reveal the motivations of monsters. --Kerry Reid $20, no one under 13 years old admitted
Late Nite Catechism
Open run: Thu and Sat 8 PM 312-988-9000Theater & Performance
A bona fide born-in-Chicago international hit, this simultaneously nostalgic and satirical comedy by Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan concerns a nun instructing her students—that's you—on the dos and don'ts of dogma. —Jack Helbig $30
Million Dollar Quartet
Open run: Wed 2 and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 5 and 8 PM, Sun 3:30 and 6:30 PMTheater & Performance
Re-creating a legendary 1956 jam session involving Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis, this crowd-pleaser is basically a vehicle for crackling renditions of classic tunes, including "Blue Suede Shoes," "That's All Right," and "Great Balls of Fire." The show's emotional center is Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, a man caught between competing personal and business pressures. —Albert Williams $25-$70
