Events Search – Recommended
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
Open run: Fri-Sat 11:30 PM, Sun 7 PM,
773-275-5255Theater & Performance
The Neo-Futurists perform 30 plays in 60 minutes in this "futurist evening in the grand Italian tradition." The fare changes weekly in this long-running production; between two and 12 new scripts are performed each week depending on the roll of a die. This is funny, wise, nakedly honest, sometimes unsettling, and invariably entertaining theater. âJennifer Vanasco $9 plus the roll of a die ($10-$15)
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
Bri-Ko
Open run: Sat 2 PMImprov/Sketch
How many bumbling buddies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Or juggle? Or deliver a meal in a water balloon? On Saturday afternoons at Stage 773, the answer is three—specifically the three members of Bri-Ko. The sketch-comedy troupe Rube Goldberg would've created if Rube Goldberg had created sketch-comedy troupes, Bri-Ko puts on a silent clown show for the sort of kid who'd appreciate British humor. The name suggests bricolage—i.e., art improvised from materials found at hand. But the many kooky props at hand here (Nerf darts, ping-pong balls, various foodstuffs) are used to make a great, big mess. Tim Soszko, Brian Peterlin, and Chicago Sketch Fest founder Brian Posen bop happily about like Beaker the Muppet, contriving difficult ways to accomplish routine tasks. High art it's not, but the slapstick is practiced and the dumb smiles on these bozos' faces are contagious. —Asher Klein $10-$20
The City Life Supplement
Ongoing: Last Sat of month, 8:30 PMTheater & Performance
A new Prairie Home Companion knockoff springs up every week or so, it seems. Not every set of overgrown kids hamming it up for a live audience and a hot mike lives up to the Keillor Standard, but Tthe City Life Supplement's first show was funny, lighthearted, and easy on the ears. The second installment in the saga of Chicago's "Raven's Park" continues Saturday with a love-themed show. —Asher Klein pay what you can
El Stories
Open run: Sat 11 PM,Theater & Performance
Waltzing Mechanics founders Zack Florent and Keely Leonard accompanied Englishman Adham Fisher last April, as he attempted to win a Guinness mention by circumlocomoting all 144 CTA el stations in record time. Their account of his quest runs like a local train on the express track, but it's the only disappointment in this bawdy, 60-minute collection of verbatim commuter stories. The other 16 quick-hit bits highlight the zaniest and sweetest moments in public transit, providing a reminder that no one knows how to enjoy an awful train ride more than Chicagoans. —Asher Klein $15
The iO Musical Featuring the Deltones
Open run: Sat 8 PMImprov/Sketch
Like the Cupid Players, another musical comedy act that performs at iO, the Deltones have a penchant for the nasty and the absurd. But unlike the Players, the Deltones improvise. Accompanied by veteran iO keyboardist Dave Asher, they create varied song structures and impressively catchy lyrics, and demonstrate a good feel for when to turn scenes into tunes, capitalizing on fortuitous openings in plot or character development. At the show I saw, the suggestion of "couch" led to an authentic long-form piece with intertwining characters--including a hilarious couch potato who fell onto a plumber, prompting her husband to beg, "Aw, don't pull tools out of your folds, hon!" (RH) $14
Holy Bouncing Boobies: A Batman Burlesque
Saturdays, 9 p.m.Theater & Performance
"Holy bi-curious moment, Batman!" says the Boy Wonder in this entertaining superhero burlesque from Gorilla Tango Theatre. Clothes are shed early and often as our hero(in)es deal out double entendres along with bams and pows in their battles against the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, and other villains. Marie Curieosity is full of silly self-importance and unbridled libido as the Caped Crusader, and Crystal Paradise makes a campy Robin. In fact, the whole cast show sexy confidence and solid comedic timing, creating a Gotham City that's a lot more fun than Christopher Nolan's. If you found The Dark Knight Rises too violent, you'll prefer the fight scene here in which Robin gives the Riddler a titty twister and gets motorboated in return. —Marissa Oberlander $35
A Nude Hope: A Star Wars Burlesque
Open run: Sat 7:30 and 9 PMTheater & Performance
Answering the prayers of nerdy straight guys everywhere, this Geek Girl Burlesque show features a bunch of scantily clad women reenacting the first Star Wars movie. The only character who isn't played by a woman, R2-D2, is represented by a trash can. M.C. Curran's script closely follows the plot of the original except that the action frequently pauses so cast members can strip down to pasties and panties. Even Chewbacca gets a turn. In the spirit of Minsky's, Timothy Bambara's staging is more suggestive than raunchy and as concerned with laughs and novelty as with titillation. It also offers the rare chance to see Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi perform a posthumous striptease to the Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke." —Zac Thompson $35
Cupid Has a Heart-on
Open run: Sat 10:30 PM 773-880-0199Improv/Sketch
I'm pretty sure I fall outside the Cupid Players' target demographic. Judging by this show's content, the troupe's ideal audience member is young enough to be weirded out by the thought of his parents having sex but old enough to worry that he's starting to act like his dad. He dreads romantic rejection almost as much as he fears commitment. And he's not above a hand of strip solitaire. A longtime married man with kids, I don't merely fail to fit the profile--I may be its antithesis. But I had a great time with Cupid Has a Heart On all the same. Directed by Brian Posen, who also plays piano and sings barbershop bass, this late-night show takes a standard element of improv revues--the satirical song--and makes it a raison d'etre. A charmingly goofy cast of ten performs no less than 15 original ditties, mostly keyed to the sensibility of the young, single, heterosexual urban male on the make. That this doesn't result in an unwatchable testosterone fest is testament to a wit that's always firmly based in character and in situations that remain truthful however far they get pushed. Also see this Reader's Choice review and video clip from the 2008 Best Of Chicago issue. --Tony Adler $20
Maxwell Street Market
7 AM - 3 PMIllinois
An international bargain hunt that goes on all year long. Free
Cascade Drive-In
OngoingIllinois
The drive-in theater is open seven nights a week in the summer, with first-run double features on weekends. Pets and children under 5 are free, and there is a deal of $14 per carload on Tuesdays. See website for showings. $5-$9, $14/carload on Tuesday
Chicagoland and Fish Nuts
Open run: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
At the start of each show an all-star ensemble creates a tableau onstage, then asks after a blackout, "Where in Chicago did that take place?" "Soccer practice" was the response the night I was there, and after an hour the improvisers--intensely alert and feisty--had crafted a veritable community, complete with idiosyncratic characters, unpredictable backstory, and tragicomic intrigue. Veteran T.J. Jagodowski, recognizable from a series of Sonic commercials he's done with quick-witted cast member Peter Grosz, played a thick-accented German coach. Abruptly launching a new scene by charging to the front of the stage, he squatted and gestured as he yelled at his coed youth team, "I will yank on your nuts like the Hunchback of Notre Dame working a bell!" --Ryan Hubbard $8
Blue Man Group
Open run: Thu 8 PM, Fri 7 PM, Sat 4, 7, and 10 PM, Sun 4 and 7 PM 773-348-4000Theater & Performance
Now in their 14th season at the Briar Street Theatre, the cobalt zanies have added wizard-worthy tricks to an already potent mix of visual puns, physical stunts, and cultural commentary. The latest edition conjures up a 2.5-D universe, giant "GiPads" that perform outsized multitasking, and Lady Gaga hat spin-offs. The same subversive spirit fuels the show's still-potent signature bits, including splatter-crazed "paint drumming." The secret of their cerulean success? Understanding that laughter and thought can be BFFs. --Lawrence Bommer $49-$59
ComedySportz Theatre
Open run: Thu 8 PM, Fri 8 and 10 PM, Sat 6, 8, and 10 PMImprov/Sketch
Part of a national chain of comedy clubs, this company is known for quick improv games (think Whose Line Is It Anyway?), but it also stages long-form improv. LCD screens and sophisticated lighting and sound systems amplify the sports-style improv of the company's eponymous production, ComedySportz. There's a snobbery in the Chicago improv community that looks up at the "art" of the long form, with its emphasis on story and characters, and down on the "entertainment" of the short, with its emphasis on games and punch lines. ComedySportz falls emphatically in the entertainment camp; its bottom line is laughter, and it gets plenty of it. The show is structured as a competition between two teams performing multiple games that require audience participation. A referee ensures that the players--a rotating roster from a company of about 50--work clean or they finish the game with a brown bag over their heads. The formula is practically foolproof: players may flash their quick wits in winning responses, but they're even funnier when they fail. In one game a team had to devise a pick-up line, each member contributing a word. Moving rapidly from player to player, the line developed: "Tonight-I'll-tango-with-your-face." Probably wouldn't work at a bar, but at ComedySportz it killed. --Ryan Hubbard
$19
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
