The National Poetry Slam sputtered without founder Marc Smith. Now he’s back on board and bringing it home to Chicago.
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 44
Issue of Jul. 31 – Aug. 6, 2003
Posted inArts & Culture
Simon
Simon, Everyman Theatre Company, at Bailiwick Arts Center. The title character in Jack Rucker’s new 70-minute drama believes he has the ability to cause terrible things to happen to people just by having evil thoughts about them. In an attempt to save society from harm, he’s lived in isolation since he was a child, but […]
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Indiefest Film Festival
“The world’s first completely liberated film market,” also a festival for the public, runs Friday, August 1, through Sunday, August 10, at Water Tower. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $10. Following is the schedule through August 7; a complete schedule is available on/line at www.chicagoreader.com. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1 Opening Night Welcome Scheduled to last five […]
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Filet of Solo
Live Bait Theater’s eighth annual showcase of one-person performances features old and new work by a slew of fringe artists. The fest runs August 1-30 at Live Bait Theater, 3914 N. Clark; performances take place in the theater’s Bucket space. Tickets are $10 per show; a festival pass to all shows costs $30. Call 773-871-1212 […]
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Skinny Williams & Erwin Helfer
Watching Chicago’s Erwin Helfer charm a packed room at JazzFest Berlin last year, I saw him in a new light: as a successor to Art Hodes, another white conservator of pre-bop African-American piano styles that would be lost if someone hadn’t made a point of fixing them in mind and under the fingers. Helfer long […]
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Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia!, Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. Last seen here in the spring of 2001, this Broadway-bound musical delivered an ABBA retrospective by stringing 23 of the Swedish songsters’ sugarcoated classics through Catherine Johnson’s serviceable story about a daughter learning to accept her free-spirited mother and the three possible fathers she never […]
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Freaky Friday
The classic kids’ book by Mary Rodgers about a mother and daughter who magically trade bodies for a day first hit the big screen in 1976 as a Disney comedy starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster. In this update, directed by Mark Waters (The House of Yes) and again produced by Disney, mom (Jamie Lee […]
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Active Cultures: it’s hip to be square dancing
Annie Coleman came out as a square-dance caller last August, when she threw a hoedown for her 29th birthday. Before that, few of her guests knew she’d been calling dances since she was 14, and she was a little worried about what they might think of an activity often associated with eighth-grade gym and frilly […]
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, Etc. Concerts ALEBRIJE, ZAMANDOQUE TARAHUM, MISERIA URBANA, SFUMATO, MONOSPIT, NANUCO, PSYCHOWARD, QUITTERS, DESOLATE SKY & others; 18 & over. Sat 8/9, 1 PM, Congress Theater, 2135 N. Milwaukee. 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212. TORI AMOS, BEN FOLDS Sold out. Sun 8/10, 7 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress. 312-922-2110 or 312-559-1212. KARL ANTHONY Fri 8/1, […]
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Brian Gage
Satirist Brian Gage–who once described himself as Luke Skywalker to Noam Chomsky’s Yoda–and illustrator Tom Ellsworth just released The Amazing Snox Box (Soft Skull), the second of their collaborative “children’s books for adults.” Like their first, Snark Inc.: A Corporate Fable, Snox seems written for overeducated and underpaid office, service, and media workers who lack […]
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Sidestepper
British producer Richard Blair–the brains behind Sidestepper–got his start as a producer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios, but a 1992 trip to Colombia changed his trajectory. Producing music for pop stars like Carlos Vives and Aterciopelados as well as traditionalists Toto la Momposina, Blair got sucked in by the local sounds. As Sidestepper he […]
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Gorge: Films About Food by Independent Mediamakers
Most of the eight video shorts on this program are compelling and amusing portraits of individuals whose lives are defined by their obsession with food. The protagonist of Michelle Lewis’s De*fat*ing (2000) compares herself to a junkie as she feeds on ice cream right at the freezer, a dark image that captures the power of […]
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Tabitha Toodlemeyer, Your Pants Are on Fire
Tabitha Toodlemeyer, Your Pants Are on Fire, Giving Tree Theatre Company. Tabitha Toodlemeyer hasn’t mastered her multiplication tables, but she’s racked with indecision. Should she play with her borrowed Space Alien video game or study for her math test? Should she steal a precious toy when the opportunity arises? Having done so, should she lie […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories On the heels of a scientific report about the rise in posthumous sperm extraction (which makes it possible for dead men to sire children) comes a June report that an Israeli researcher has succeeded in extracting ovarian tissue from aborted fetuses, keeping it alive in a petri dish, and getting it to develop […]