To the editors: In Renaldo Migaldi’s article on the appearance of butoh artist Natsu Nakajima at Randolph Street Gallery [“In Performance: dance of the empty dancer,” July 9], he states that this marked the occasion of the first Japanese butoh performance in Chicago. This information was provided in Randolph Street Gallery’s press material (I received […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 45
Issue of Aug. 19 – 25, 1993
Posted inArts & Culture
Ravinia Festival Orchestra
Richard Strauss’s incidental music for Moliere’s play Le bourgeois gentilhomme has a convoluted history. The project was first proposed to him in 1911 by his frequent librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who wanted to modernize the Baroque comedy about the pretensions of the nouveau riche for director Max Reinhardt to stage. Strauss, then fresh from the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Return of the Locationally Challenged Theater Festival/Angels in Chicago?/Annie Snubs Sugar Daddy
Conspicuously absent from the Broadway opening of Annie Warbucks: Marriot’s Lincolnshire producer Kary Walker, who footed the bill for the world premiere.
Posted inNews & Politics
Sparrow Attacks Pumpkin!
To the editors: The jazz, blues, new-music, and avant-garde sector has had its own private laugh for many years when wealthy rock icons discuss their newfound wealth, the horror of making money, and how hard it has been to become successful after playing the road and bars for 15 months. Billy Corgan, of sudden “Pumpkin” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Rhinoceros Theatre Festival
Inspired by surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s use of the term “rhinocerontic”–it means real big–this sprawl of avant-garde theater and performance in Chicago is coordinated this year (its fourth) by Michael Martin, Scott Turner, and Beau O’Reilly, who have endeavored to maintain the event’s broad scope and cutting-edge sensibility. Rhino Fest runs August 20 through 28 […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Drive My Car
The offices of Auto Driveaway, the company John Sohl founded in 1952, fill most of the 14th floor at 310 S. Michigan. Sohl’s company, the largest driveaway outfit in the world, is responsible for about 60,000 car deliveries a year. Some of those are made by truck, but the bulk of Auto Driveaway’s deliveries are […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Handicapped Humor
To the editors: I am writing in response to Ms. Barnidge’s recent review of our production, The Boys Next Door [July 2]. As this work was the most performed play in the world in 1991, I am confused by her interpretation of the playwright’s intent. One of our cast members has a mentally handicapped daughter. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In separate incidents this spring three men died in mishaps on bridges in Portland, Oregon, and two others survived long falls. One man was crushed as a drawbridge opened, three fell after apparently losing their balance walking across a bridge (one survived), and a 19-year-old attempted suicide by leaping off a bridge–but was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Every Man in His Humor
EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR Folio Theatre Company A huge hit 395 years ago, Every Man in His Humour is Ben Jonson’s comedy of temperaments, a work whose ancient stereotypes crop up in today’s sitcoms. Controlled by key organs, the four humors were the choleric (or splenetic), the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy–and these […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Is Marty Merel responsible for the decline of Rogers Park?
In early June, shortly after a drive-by shooting near Estes and Ridge, Rogers Park residents declared war on crime. But instead of targeting gang members or drug dealers they’ve gone after Marty Merel, a landlord who owns or manages about ten apartment buildings on the far north side. Residents blame Merel for everything from litter […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Ascetic Impulse
FOURTH ANNUAL CHANCE DANCE FEST at Link’s Hall, through August 31 To prepare for performing his new dance, Bus Tales, Bob Eisen tells us, he spends at least 15 minutes every day sitting in a dark closet. He implies that sitting in a closet puts him into the same frame of mind as the monthlong […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art People: is there life after art school?
It seemed like a good idea back in the 1980s: borrow a bunch of money, go to art school, pretend you’re preparing for a real job. Ben Pranger did it. Now, four years out of graduate school, with his art attracting plenty of attention, he’s living from hand to mouth, juggling a couple of part-time […]