Me Tarzan, You Jane, Emerald City Theatre Company, at the Apollo Theater. This appealing musical will amuse youngsters and oldsters alike with its simultaneously smart and silly riffs on the classic Tarzan movies. Packed with goofy sight gags and pratfalls as well as clever one-liners and sly allusions, it gently lampoons the films’ familiar formula, […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 5
Issue of Oct. 31 – Nov. 6, 2002
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, etc. concerts ALUMINUM GROUP Free in-store performance. Sat 11/2, 2 PM, Reckless Records, 3157 N. Broadway. 773-404-5080. AMERICAN ENGLISH Beatles tribute. Fri 11/8, 8 PM, Saint Patrick Performing Arts Center, 5900 W. Belmont. 773-282-8844, ext. 277. ASCAP CABARET: HER TURN with Babbie Green, Karen Mason, Sharon McNight, Lindy Robbins & Adryan Russ; Chicago […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Australian Dance Theatre
Birdbrain is an odd duck. Though the title of this evening-length deconstruction of Swan Lake suggests comedy, it’s not really funny–but it’s not tragic either, since all the Sturm und Drang of the movement produces no emotion whatsoever. Presumably that irony was intended by choreographer Garry Stewart, artistic director since 2000 of the 37-year-old Australian […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Djelimady Tounkara
Under the leadership of guitarist Djelimady Tounkara, the Super Rail Band revolutionized Malian music in the 70s, incorporating electric instruments and nurturing future stars such as Salif Keita and Mory Kante, but by the mid-90s its pioneering fusions had grown stale, and younger Malians considered it a nostalgia act. So Tounkara began to strip away […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Elements of Style: vintage vendors converge on Oak Park
In the winter of 1975, Jeanne Friedell, an art student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, stopped in at the local Ragstock outlet in search of something unusual to wear to an opening. Picking through the racks, she found a 50s-era black satin slip for three dollars. “I decided to wear it as a dress,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Future Bible Heroes
Claudia Gonson is the not-so-secret weapon of Stephin Merritt’s songwriting empire. She’s Merritt’s manager, as well as the pianist and occasional vocalist in the Magnetic Fields; in the latter role she’s responsible for some of the most moving moments on the band’s epic 1999 set 69 Love Songs. So it’s about time she got to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
An Evening With Donna McKechnie: My Musical Comedy Life!
It was apparent when she appeared in State Fair at the Shubert Theatre in 1995 that legendary dancer Donna McKechnie no longer had the dazzling moves that made her a Broadway favorite in the 60s and 70s. But she still embodies the musical-theater “triple threat” ideal: she can belt and warble with the best of […]
Posted inMusic
Sound and Vision
Film Music of Akira Kurosawa: The Complete Edition Toho Studios In the opening moments of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo, a mangy dog scurries across an empty road with a severed human hand in its teeth while a tattered ronin, a wandering warrior played by Toshiro Mifune, looks on in horror. Although the image is […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories In September veterinarians at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that they had learned to detect illegal udder enhancements (sometimes called “boob jobs”) on show cows at dairy expositions. A smooth, full, symmetrical udder means good milk production, and makes the cow and her offspring more valuable–accordingly, 40 percent of a dairy cow’s grade […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Blasters
Formed on the cusp of the 80s by brothers Phil and Dave Alvin, the Blasters played a major role in turning punk rockers and other underground musicians on to American roots music. Dave, the primary songwriter, left the band following 1985’s Hard Line, but the Blasters continued to perform live, with a string of replacement […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Franz Jackson
Von Freeman celebrated his 80th birthday amid much-deserved hoopla, but another great Chicago tenor man will reach an even more significant milestone under a virtual cone of silence this week. Rock Island native Franz Jackson turns 90 on November 1 with his skills still remarkably intact–for evidence, check out his most recent disc, Yellow Fire […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Annie
Annie, Drury Lane Oakbrook. The first Christmas special comes early this year: Charles Strouse’s irresistible 1977 heart-warmer, the tale of a plucky Depression-era orphan with an equally scrappy dog, Sandy. Annie never finds her parents, but she does settle into a life of unimaginable wealth with Daddy Warbucks and a surrogate mother, aptly named Grace. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Polish Film Festival in America
The 14th annual Polish Film Festival in America, produced by the Society for Arts, runs Saturday, November 2, through Saturday, November 30. Screenings this week are at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence, and unless otherwise noted, tickets are $9. Passes, available for $40 (five screenings) and $80 (twelve screenings), are good for all programs […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Boston Camerata, Camerata Mediterranea, Sharq Arab-American Ensemble
Although he was Catholic, King Alfonso X of Spain (1221-’84) demanded tolerance of Islam and Judaism–earning him the epithet “King of the Three Religions”–and he went so far as to encourage artistic and musical cross-pollination. One fruit of this cultural exchange was the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a collection of more than 400 sacred songs […]