Performing Arts Search – Agenda
Story Club
Open run: Thu 8 PM
773-929-3680Spoken Word/Poetry Slams/Open Mikes
An open mike for storytellers.
Free
The Book of Mormon
Through 10/6: Tue-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
I know it'll seem incomprehensible to you fans of talking turds, but I've never paid Comedy Central's South Park much mind one way or another. And when New York fell all over itself last year appreciating The Book of Mormon, I wondered if there wasn't just a smidge of hyperbole in calling the musical by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (along with Robert Lopez) the best of the "century." Now that I've seen the Chicago production, however, I've been—well—converted. A wise mix of nasty satire and compassionate truth telling, Parker, Stone, and Lopez's tale of Mormon missionaries in Uganda is as entertaining—and, strangely, uplifting—a piece of work as anything in recent American theater. Although the book draws whole quivers full of big red arrows to everything that's ludicrous about the Mormon way, it also ends up making a case for the hope we all derive from silly myths. Meanwhile, playful as it is, it ranks up there with Lynn Nottage's Ruined in exposing the danger, dignity, and distortions of African life. The cast is uniformly and perfectly seductive. And is that Steppenwolf's famously earnest James Vincent Meredith, showing a new side of himself as the Ugandan village chief? Incredible. —Tony Adler
$65-$125
I Saw You
Open run: Wed 8 PM,Theater & Performance
Bruised Orange Theater Company's I Saw You is a charming theatrical interpretation of "I Saw You," "Matches," and "X-Matches" listings from the Reader. Performed in bars, each show features a rotating cast of three actors presenting ads published in the past year, the yearnings of their anonymous characters echoing the banter, flirting, and stares of the patrons. The material is naturally funny--"I backed up your toilet something fierce," "Do you like to churn butter?"--but the actors avoid the trap of easy "sexy" voices and imaginatively embellish the text with a wide range of accents and consistently surprising attitudes (shy to monstrous, robotic monotone to smarmy). —Ryan Hubbard
$5
3033
Open run: Sun 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
A comedy supergroup consisting mainly of former members of People of Earth, 3033 creates some of the liveliest, most consistently solid improv around. Members Andy St. Clair and Alex Fendrich have been highlights of recent Second City E.T.C. shows; Rush Howell, a lawyer by day, is one of the scene's wittiest performers; and Bill Arnett and Danny Mora are personable comedians with off-beat senses of humor. Unlike most troupes at iO, 3033 doesn't stick with the Harold improv format. Instead, they play it loose, letting an audience suggestion and Jason Chin's playful music and light effects steer them. At a recent show the topic of gangs inspired a hilarious 70s-era game show. --Ryan Hubbard
$5
Felt
Open run: Wed 8 PMImprov/Sketch
There's just something about cussing puppets--and this improvised puppet show by the Atticus Finch ensemble suggests bitter, rejected prototypes of Elmo, Chewbacca, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Crank Yankers/Muppets characters ganging up in a dark alley off Sesame Street. But the troupe's nine members exceed the old, easy laugh of vulgar-talking innocents: after tutorials from professional puppeteers and a few months of practice, they display sophisticated physical control as they wield the puppets from behind the curtains of a bilevel ministage. Seamlessly creating gestures and quick takes (hilariously deadpan on the perfectly blank cartoonish faces), they also smoothly execute difficult maneuvers like sliding a quarter across a bar or crossing the stage via motorized scooter. Sharp timing and self-mockery point to the performers' long experience together, though the motley mob of puppets takes center stage: Felt is improv cut from new cloth. --Ryan Hubbard
$5
The Best of Second City
Sat., June 22, 8 p.m. 773-445-3838Improv/Sketch
The troupe reprises some of its notable sketches.
$23-$26
Best Musical!
Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.Improv/Sketch
At the top of this highly entertaining show from Porchlight Music Theatre, cast members ad-lib five songs based on titles suggested by the audience. Then we vote for our favorite, and the winner serves as the foundation for a wholly improvised, hour-long musical comedy. On the night I saw the show, the winning number, "When Todd Met Michael," inspired Nativity My Way, an LGBT retelling of Christ's birth involving a carpenter and the burly gym owner he miraculously impregnates. It was hilarious, blasphemous, and heartwarming in equal measure. The charming, whip-smart cast are accompanied on piano by the show's creator and musical director, Matthew Loren Cohen, who churns out one catchy tune after another. —Zac Thompson
$10-$15
Cook County Social Club
Through 6/26: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
These four performers are as brazenly committed to improv's "affirm everything" mantra as any I've seen. Their dark, flamboyant comic sensibilities clearly aligned, they orchestrate black-comedy vignettes tethered to richly odd characters. But what most impressed me was how fluidly and creatively they transitioned between scenes, usually dangerous improv moments. The Frank Hayes 4 opens. --Ryan Hubbard
$12
Shame That Tune
Open run: the second Fri of each month, 6:30 PMImprov/Sketch
A monthly musical-comedy game show devised by Reader contributor and Outer Minds drummer Brian Costello and former Baby Teeth front man Abraham Levitan. Each episode features three local contestants telling embarrassing stories, being interviewed by Costello, and then standing helplessly by while Levitan turns their stories into warped covers of popular songs—and the audience gets to judge the whole thing. Costello is intentionally awkward, his straight-faced sarcasm shutting down anxious contestants hoping to yuk it up (which makes the whole thing even funnier), and the supremely talented Levitan uses the interview time to write his lyrics, which he sets to a piano rendition of a tune he's just been assigned by a spin of the great Wheel of Fortune-like "shame wheel." As if that weren't enough, Costello and Levitan also provide their own off-kilter commercials during the breaks between stories. The four-member cast also includes a bumbling intern (Jeanine O'Toole of Bare Mutants) and a stoic life coach (comedian and former Loose Dudes front man Nick Rouley), and they operate like a well-oiled circus sideshow, making quick work of diary-toting contestants who've been, say, devastated by a high school crush, who felt pretty OK stealing and wearing girls' panties, or who made out with Ke$ha. —Kevin Warwick
$5
Brass Chuckles: Comedy That Kicks Ass
Last Friday of every month, 10 p.m.Stand-Up
Local comics preform. $10
Cirque Shanghai: Dragon's Thunder
Through 9/2: various times, see websiteTheater & Performance
Navy Pier, that lively commercial forgery of the urban experience, makes the perfect stage for this Cirque du Soleil knockoff, which is produced by an unrelated Beverly Hills-based company. Shanghai is a much cheaper ticket than the real deal, and a cheaper production too. The set twinkles with Vegas glitz, speaker towers pipe canned music, and the acrobatics—stunning and skillful as they are—are choreographed to awe with displays of overt strength, instead of making the impossible seem effortless. The show has no soul, for the most part, but it's still fun. Like the Pier itself, you'll either savor its easy thrills in blissful ignorance, or pretend to be too jaded while you enjoy them all the same. —Keith Griffith $15.50-$29.50
Congrats On Your Success
First Thursday of every monthStand-Up
Rebecca O'Neil hosts this BYOB comedy show that features local stand-ups and is, curiously enough, operated out of a used book store.
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
