NOTE: Even though many businesses have begun re-opening, generally at reduced capacities and with many restrictions, music venues and theaters in particular are likely to remain closed for some time. We are maintaining a list of cancellations and making updates as events are rescheduled for later dates. We have also added new listings for streaming events including streaming theater and performing arts events and for streaming concerts and music events.
Events with The Short List (Theater)
Blue Man Group Recommended The Short List (Theater) Canceled
Open run: Wed-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2, 5, and 8 PM, Sun 4 PM
$49-$104
UPDATE Sunday, March 15: this event has suspended performances for the time being. Refunds available at point of purchase.
The long-running show (22 years and counting in Chicago) featuring performers in blue latex paint, drumming, video, comedy, and other assorted mayhem continues. 800-258-3626
Packing Recommended Closing (Theater and Galleries) The Short List (Theater)
6/19-7/12: available any time through ticketed remote streaming
About Face Theatre presents a recorded streaming version of Scott Bradley's semi-autobiographical solo play, directed by Chay Yew. A "genderqueer vagabond" from Iowa embarks on a three-decade odyssey across multiple identities and locations, where his journey intersects with the AIDS pandemic, addiction, and the fight for marriage equality. Reader critic Dan Jakes called the show "an important document of queer life only a decade or two in the past but a world away culturally."
Home/Land Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime through Vimeo
Albany Park Theater Project offers a streaming version of their critically lauded 2012 production about undocumented immigrants, written and performed by the teen ensemble and directed by APTP producing artistic director David Feiner.
The Infinite Wrench Goes Viral Recommended The Short List (Theater)
Available in streaming format through Patreon anytime.
The Neo-Futurists take their signature show, featuring 30 plays in 60 minutes, online during the COVID-19 crisis. The Neos offer five membership levels ranging from $3 ("Elbow Bump"), which comes with a link to a website where you can set your own timer for 60 minutes and watch all 30 plays, to $100 ("An Extended, Almost Uncomfortable Hug"), which brings a full array of perks including a customized play on a subject of your choosing. The menu includes older archival plays as well as new ones that are being created in quarantine by the ensemble.
Medusa Undone Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime through company website or YouTube channel
Otherworld Theatre offers a free streaming version of last spring's production of a play by Bella Poynton, directed by Tiffany Keane Schaefer, that retells the story of the legendary gorgon as a critique of rape culture, with Medusa caught in a love triangle between Athena and Poseidon. Reader critic Josh Flanders wrote "The god-human relationship here is a metaphor for celebrity idolatry and the lack of consequence so many with power have maintained, as well as the dangers of living for others versus ourselves."
. . . And I Am Not Afraid Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime through Prop Thtr website
Prop Thtr presents a free streaming version of this production from fall of 2019, presented then under the title I Am Going to Die Alone and I Am Not Afraid. Devised by the ensemble and directed by Anna Gelman, with music by Alec Phan, the play uses the Holocaust and its legacy as a lens for exploring bravery and tenacity in the face of violence and oppression. Reader critic Dmitry Samarov wrote "In a time when so many societal forces are hell-bent on dividing us along tribal lines, this powerful piece of theater shows how sharing the tribulations of one people must give all people pause."
Parched Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime through Vimeo
Free Street Theater offers a free streaming version of their 2019 show about the politics of water, pollution, and corporate theft of resources. Reader critic KT Hawbaker wrote of that production "Devised over the course of ten months by Free Street's youth ensemble, students aged 14-19, Parched is driven by vignettes drawn from interviews with researchers, activists, and community members. In that respect, it's a combo of journalism and performance, resulting in passionate storytelling that feels informed and brave."
The Harold Recommended Member Picks The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Wed-Thu 8 PM, Fri 8 and 10:30 PM, Sat 10:30 PM, Sun 8 PM, Mon 10:30 PM
Improv teams use an audience suggestion to create interweaving story lines that result in a connected long-form narrative.
Sexy Baby Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime on YouTube
Free
Hell in a Handbag offers up a free YouTube stream of their 2012 musical, a satire of child beauty queen pageants created by artistic director David Cerda and Scott Lamberty that former Reader critic Zac Thompson called "biting" and "hysterical." The show was chosen by the members of the company as one of their favorites and is presented free as a gift to the community during the COVID-19 shutdown, though donations to Hell in a Handbag are of course welcome.
The Happiest Place on Earth Recommended The Short List (Theater)
Available streaming anytime through website
Sideshow Theatre Company offers a streaming version of writer-performer Philip Dawkins's 2016 Jeff Award-winning autobiographical solo show, directed by Jonathan L. Green, about his family's history with tragedy while living in the shadow of Disneyland. The show is available on a pay-what-you-wish basis through Sideshow's website during the COVID-19 crisis.
Still/Here Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available online anytime through Vimeo
Free Street offers a free streaming version of this 2019 show (subtitled Manifestos for Joy and Survival), in which survivors of an apocalyptic event in Chicago provide memories of the struggles that defined their lives before the catastrophe, including fighting gentrification and racism. The narrative is drawn from interviews conducted with over 400 Chicago community members.
Feast Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available anytime on Vimeo
As a gift to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, Albany Park Theater Project offers a free streaming Vimeo version of this show, first created in 2010 and revived in 2015 at the Goodman about immigrant communities, food, and the politics surrounding those topics. Feast was created by the APTP youth ensemble and directed by artistic director David Feiner.
There Is a Happiness That Morning Is Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Available any time through YouTube
Houston's Catastrophic Theatre has had a long relationship with Chicago playwright and Theater Oobleck cofounder Mickle Maher. During the COVID-19 shutdown, they are sharing some past productions of his work through their YouTube channel. They kicked off with The Hunchback Variations, and now add their 2013 production of this play, originally staged by Oobleck in Chicago in 2011. Two William Blake scholars and longtime lovers, Ellen and Bernard, deliver lectures on the poet's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience and struggle with the demand by their dean that they apologize for having public sex on the quad.
Johnny Johnson Recommended Free The Short List (Theater)
Mondays-Sundays
Chicago Folks Operetta continues its "Operetta Delivered" series of free streaming archived performances with Kurt Weill and Paul Green's 1936 anti-war piece, presented by the company in its Chicago premiere in 2017. Reader critic Albert Williams wrote "Though not a success in its time, Johnny Johnson is a work of landmark historical significance. And despite some flaws, this production packs a real emotional impact with its quirky yet lyrical music, expressionistic visual design, and timeless theme of a common man caught up in the madness of war."
Cole's Virtual Open Mic Recommended Free 21+ The Short List (Theater)
Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m.
Cole's Bar's longtime comedy open mike night is continuing on Zoom. Performer sign-up information and Zoom meeting information updated each Wednesday at the Cole's website.
Cole's Comedy Open Mike Recommended Member Picks Free 21+ Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m.
UPDATE: as of Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 11:00 PM, this event has been canceled until further notice. A virtual open mike has been scheduled in its place.
Hosted by Carly Kane and Alex Kumin, this scrappy showcase boasts about 50 comics a week. 773-276-5802
Do You Feel Anger? Recommended The Short List (Theater) Canceled
1/23-3/15: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM
Previews 1/23-2/1, $15-$25; regular run 2/2-3/15, $30 Thu, $35 Fri and Sat matinee, $40 Sat eve and Sun matinee
UPDATE Friday, March 13: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase.
Sofia has been hired as an "empathy coach" at a debt collection agency, and finds that creating emotional connections in an environment of complicity is more difficult than she imagined. Jess McLeod directs Mara Nelson-Greenberg's absurdist comedy. 312-943-8722
Comedians You Should Know Recommended Member Picks Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Thu 9 PM
A mix of barflys and independent comedy fans flocks to this weekly showcase, one of the best in the city. The room is friendly, and if hecklers appear, they're shut down affably by Chicago's top stand-ups. It's not a place to try out new material, so the comedians hit jokes hard. And the audience, sitting close and around the stage like a big hug, welcomes the change of pace from the bar's drunk tomfoolery. CYSK is an appropriate name. 312-642-0700
The Improvised Shakespeare Company Recommended Member Picks Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Thu 8 PM, Fri-Sat 8 and 11 PM
Seven strapping men in swashbuckler shirts improvise a two-act Shakespearean play based on a title suggested by the audience. At the show I saw, "The Taming of the Jew" inspired the Bard's usual themes (religion, family, betrayal) and plot devices (murders, disguises, fortunes gained/lost) as well as an uncomfortably funny circumcision. Director-performer Blaine Swen, a veteran of long-form Shakespearean improv who swears they don't conspire during the intermission, has assembled a vigorous ensemble of actors and proven improvisers. Their experience doing Shakespeare flowers in the language: they relish iambic dialogue, execute perfectly timed asides, occasionally utter rhyming couplets (some hilariously forced: "Let us be quick-sa, and get to the bar mitzvah!"), and drop parodic phrases ("scurvenous knave," "midfortnight report") and well-placed anachronisms (the bar mitzvah had a DJ). Even the ending echoed the real plays: story lines resolved tidily—and uproariously. —Ryan Hubbard
ComedySportz Theatre Recommended Member Picks The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Thu 8 PM, Fri 8 and 10 PM, Sat 6, 8, and 10 PM
$19
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 773-549-8080 or 312-559-1212
The Magic Parlour Recommended Member Picks The Short List (Theater)
Through 7/1: Fri 7:30 and 9:30 PM, Sat 4:30, 7:30, and 9:30 PM
This magic show is exactly what it should be: funny, lively, intimate, and utterly baffling. House Theatre of Chicago member Dennis Watkins blends quick-witted improv and physical comedy with freewheeling patter as he performs classic illusions. Though his sleight of hand is impossibly subtle, it was the mind-reading tricks that seemed to have drawn several inquisitive skeptics back for another look on the night I attended. A curio-shop intimacy encourages audience participation, and Watkins, with his Eagle Scout looks, clearly takes a mischievous pleasure in the unexpected. Just let your cell phone go off during the show and see what kind of fun he has. Drinks (wine, beer, and soda) are included in the cost of admission. —Keith Griffith 312-726-7500
Wet Cash Recommended Member Picks Free Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Fri 8 PM
Stand-up with a very big twist. Each week, performers at this showcase can do anything they want. One time, they ran a show where everybody on the bill and in the audience was named Derek. Plus, all donations benefit the fishbowl they toss their money in—hence the title. Expect, well, everything. 773-654-1490
Riff Recommended Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Fri-Sat 10:30 PM
312-929-2401
Genrethon 2020
Fri-Sun 7/10-7/12: see website for complete schedule.
Free, but donations accepted
Otherworld Theatre offers an online "celebration of nerdom in comedy," featuring such diverse offerings as "Improvised Star Trek," Care for a Corpse (described as "a proper British murder mystery"), and other genre-related topics, streaming through the company's YouTube channel. The complete schedule is available at otherworldtheatre.org.
The Blackout Diaries Recommended Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Sat 10 PM
The gregarious Sean Flannery tells stories about adventures he's had inebriated out of his mind. He's joined each week by other comedians and the occasional layman—each with a drunken tale to tell. 773-251-1539
State vs. Natasha Banina Free Closing (Theater and Galleries) The Short List (Theater)
Sun 7/5 and 7/12, 7 PM CDT
The Cherry Orchard Festival presents a production by Boston's Arlekin Players of a new live interactive performance, directed by Igor Golyak and based on the play Natasha's Dream by contemporary Russian playwright Yaroslava Pulinovich. The conceit is that the play takes place inside a Zoom courtroom, where the audience serves as the jury, watching the 16-year-old Natasha (Darya Denisova) tell her story to the camera. Ultimately, the audience-jurors decide her fate. The presentations are free, but donations that benefit the Actors Fund are welcome.
Manic Mondays Recommended Free Agenda The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Mon 9 PM
Lauded stand-ups Taneshia “Just Nesh” Rice and Marlon Mitchell trade off the hosting for this weekly comedy showcase and open mike. 224-858-8304
The Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience & Hootennany Recommended Member Picks The Short List (Theater)
Open run: Mon 8 PM
An old standby, this weekly show transforms performer monologues (delivered by a different guest each time) into inspiration for a night of masterful long-form improv. The best-of-the-best iO talent typically make up the cast, so the show hops from literal moments from the story to abstract, playful scenes with aplomb.
The Wild Party Variety Hour Member Picks The Short List (Theater)
Open run: every last Saturday of the month, 11 PM
Burlesque, vaudeville, shtick, and other types of performance, hosted by Silent Theatre. 312-533-8023
Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre Recommended All Ages The Short List (Theater)
Thu., Sept. 3, 7 p.m.
773-728-6000