KEVIN COLE In the year since Kevin Cole first presented his Gershwin Solo at the Ivanhoe Theater, his singing has gained noticeably in resonance and expressiveness, thanks in part to lessons from veteran songwriter (and sometime coach to Judy Garland) Hugh Martin. Still, Cole’s ace in the hole is his ebullient, dynamic piano playing, which […]
Tag: Vol. 29 No. 10
Issue of Dec. 9 – 15, 1999
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: Soju’s Michael Manning cooks to remember
Michael Manning, a bond trader, might never have gotten into the restaurant business if it hadn’t been for his sister. Lesli Doughty, known as Poni, worked in bars and restaurants, and about three years ago she convinced him that they should open a Korean place together. Their mother, Chung-koo Lee, came here from Seoul in […]
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Chicago Chamber Musicians
CHICAGO CHAMBER MUSICIANS Pierre Boulez is just the man to lead this Chicago Chamber Musicians concert, billed as a farewell to the 20th century. In the twilight of his career, the French composer has emerged as an avatar of new music, admired both for his own slim oeuvre and for the clarity and elegance of […]
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Room at the Top/South Loop: Now Open for Dinner/Dinah Make a Profit?
Room at the Top Jacqui Russell knows what she’s up against. “It could be a bit forbidding,” says the new managing director of Lookingglass Theatre Company. “They’ve all known each other for so long.” Formed a decade ago by a small circle of Northwestern University grads, the Lookingglass ensemble has seldom paid much attention to […]
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No Room to Move
Mordine & Company Dance Theatre at the Dance Center of Columbia College, December 2-4 By Terry Brennan Dancers of all kinds dream of improvising as naturally and well as jazz musicians. Many social dances, like the jitterbug and the waltz, are improvisations using a small number of set moves. And much of the pleasure of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Caught In the Net
Captured at www.brunching.com/ratings/rate-koreansnacks.html Korean Snack Foods by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg Fried Chicken Snack What a monumentally good idea! A cracker that tastes like fried chicken! As a fan of both Kentucky “For God’s Sake Don’t Say Fried” Chicken and Chicken in a Bisket, I was really looking forward to sampling these drumstick-shaped snack units. Too […]
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The Death of Socrates
THE DEATH OF SOCRATES, TinFish Productions. The worst failure of this purposeless new work by Chicago playwright Jeffrey D. Klein (who also, regrettably, directs) is that it’s about everything but its supposed subject. Yes, there are a few undramatic allusions to Socrates’ trial. Incongruously portrayed as a biker chick by Dana Hardy, Socrates spouts snippets […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Screen Savers
Supporters rally ’round when progress threatens the Davis theater.
Posted inNews & Politics
City File
The CHA’s new plan to demolish public housing “is a plan for wreaking havoc on the residents of the Taylor Homes, and destroying communities like Jeffery Manor,” according to Marian Byrnes, community coordinator for Jeffery Manor Crime Watch in a November 4 open letter. “The Taylor high rises were built in haste, with no reasonable […]
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Completely Mad
Two new anthologies try to recapture the insurgent mania of Mad magazine’s heyday.
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Naftule’s Dream
NAFTULE’S DREAM Naming your band after a musical genius, in this case pioneering American klezmer clarinetist Naftule Brandwein, is asking for belittlement. But Naftule’s Dream–and in particular Glenn Dickson, the group’s own licorice-stick whiz, and David Harris, its double-jointed trombonist–have the chops to warrant the moniker. The Boston-based sextet has already infiltrated New York’s trendy […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Of course we all know you’re the world’s smartest human. However, I’ve heard about this guy, William James Sidis, who might have been the world’s smartest person when he was alive. Harvard’s youngest graduate, he was a lightning calculator and a linguistic genius, supposedly publishing papers anticipating the existence of black holes and other astronomical […]
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The Green Mile
In this epic drama, which suffuses dark themes with humor and a grand spiritual agenda, the head guard at a southern prison in 1935 comes to doubt the guilt of a convicted child murderer newly arrived on death row. Much of the three-hour movie takes place in the prison, but the resonant characterization, expansive plotting, […]
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The Old Settler
The Old Settler, Organic Theater Company, at McGaw YMCA Child Care Center. In the 1940s Harlem setting of this play, “old settler” means a woman 40 or over with no husband and no prospects. John Henry Redwood’s award-winning drama centers around African-American spinster Elizabeth (Valarie Tekosky) and her sister Quilly (La Donna Tittle). To help […]
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Calendar
Friday 12/10 – Thursday 12/16 DECEMBER By Cara Jepsen 10 FRIDAY What would Karl Marx make of modern Manhattan? That’s what historian Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States) explores in his one-man, one-act play Marx in Soho, in which the old radical decries contemporary capitalism and attempts to show that his theories […]