Events on Thursday, March 19

THAW: Melting Point

Special Event: Benefit

THAW

Thursday 3/19 @ Sonotheque

Thaw out for spring with this high-energy, 30th-anniversary celebration of Links Hall's non-profit performing-arts programming. Held at Sonotheque, this benefit abounds... 

The Onion and the Decider present March Madness Tip-Off

Sports

March Madness Tip-Off

Thursday 3/19 @ Piece

It's hard to believe that any event hosted by The Onion/Decider would result in a roast of its own patrons:... 

Norm Macdonald

Comedy

Norm Macdonald

Thursday 3/19 @ Zanies Comedy Nightclub

Let's put Norm Macdonald next to Mad Max and cockroaches as sure-bet apocalypse survivors. Among the wreckage of sitcom cancellations, a... 

Ongoing Events

Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary

City Gems

Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary

Thursday 3/19 @ Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary

If nothing else, taking up birdwatching gives you a convenient excuse to bring terms like "Magnificent Frigatebird" and "Purple Gallinule" into... 

Von Kommanivanh: <em>You Are Ugly</em>

Art

Von Kommanivanh

Thursday 3/19 @ Walsh Gallery

In large mixed-media paintings, Von Kommanivanh skewers the lurking evils and cultural convulsions of the 21st century like a hopped-up shish-kabob... 

Anne Chu

Art

Anne Chu

Thursday 3/19 @ Donald Young Gallery

New York-based artist Anne Chu's drawings, prints, and sculptures conjure mythology reminiscent of Kiki Smith. Bear Head (all works 2008), cast... 

Graceland Cemetery

City Gems

Graceland Cemetery

Thursday 3/19 @ Graceland Cemetery

Hidden away on Chicago's north side, this secret memento of the city's architectural history is a large, rambling Victorian-style cemetery. Filled... 

<em>The End of Analog</em>

Art

The End of Analog

Thursday 3/19 @ Roots & Culture

(Broadcast) television is dead. Long live (digital) television. Curator Eric Fleischauer has assembled The End of Analog, an exhibition at Roots... 

<em>Milk</em>

Film

Milk

Thursday 3/19 @ Various locations

Gus van Sant's highly anticipated biopic of Harvey Milk — the nation's first openly gay man to hold a major elected... 

Sigmar Polke: <em>Lens Paintings</em>

Art

Sigmar Polke

Thursday 3/19 @ The Arts Club of Chicago

One of the giants of post-war painting, Sigmar Polke is an irreverant experimentalist — an artist of many moves whose work... 

<em>Polaroids: Mapplethorpe</em>

Art: Photography

Polaroids: Mapplethorpe

Thursday 3/19 @ Block Museum, Northwestern University

The name Robert Mapplethorpe might bring to mind formal photographs of flowers or homoerotic figure studies — or more likely, the... 

<em>Altogether Mutable: The Work of Mary Lou Zelazny</em>

Art

Mary Lou Zelazny

Thursday 3/19 @ Hyde Park Art Center

Spanning nearly 30 years, the skillful paintings in Mary Lou Zelazny's mid-career retrospective center on a cast of weird creatures, shapely... 

Steppenwolf presents <em>Art</em>

Theatre

Steppenwolf presents Art

Thursday 3/19 @ Steppenwolf Theatre Company

If your best friend spent a fortune on an all-white painting you hated, could you bite your tongue and praise it,... 

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool

City Gems

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool

Thursday 3/19 @ Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool

Escape the roaring cars on Lake Shore Drive and the crowds at Lincoln Park Zoo by slipping through the unobtrusive entrance... 

Prairie Avenue House Museums

Get Social

Prairie Avenue House Museums

Thursday 3/19 @ Glessner House Museum

Chicago's historic Prairie Avenue district — the site of the 1812 Fort Dearborn Massacre — became known after the Great Chicago... 

<em>Tokyo!</em>

Film

Tokyo!

Thursday 3/19 @ AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4

An imaginative ode to Japan's capital told in three parts, Tokyo! is cleverly linked by themes of alienation, identity, and destiny.... 

<em>Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth</em>

Art

Becoming Edvard Munch

Thursday 3/19 @ The Art Institute of Chicago

Although blockbuster exhibitions often reaffirm melodramatic clichés about tragic artists, the Art Institute of Chicago attempts a "myth-busting" show with Becoming... 

<em>Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum</em>

Special Event

Chic Chicago

Thursday 3/19 @ Chicago History Museum

In this glittering costume exhibition, the Chicago History Museum presents a rarely seen collection of haute couture fashions designed for the... 

<em>Loaded: Hunting Culture in America</em>

Art

Loaded: Hunting Culture in America

Thursday 3/19 @ Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College Chicago

Hunting is one of our country's semi-submerged traditions, stretching well beyond the red states. Gathering a varied group of insiders, outside... 

<em>The Arab-Israeli Cookbook</em>

Theatre

The Arab-Israeli Cookbook

Thursday 3/19 @ Storefront Theater

Interweaving the diverse voices of more than 40 characters, this stage production of playwright Robin Soans's The Arab-Israeli Cookbook offers an... 

<em>Revolutionary Road</em>

Film

Revolutionary Road

Thursday 3/19 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema

Despite his apparent disdain for American suburbs, British director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999) has revisited them — in mid-'50s Connecticut,... 

Coats for Cubs

Special Event: Benefit

Coats for Cubs

Thursday 3/19 @ Buffalo Exchange locations

Feeling guilty about the fur-lined gloves, vintage mink stole, or old chinchilla coat hanging in your closet? Fret not, all will... 

Paul Chan

Art

Paul Chan

Thursday 3/19 @ The Renaissance Society

Artist Paul Chan may well be one of the wittiest and most astute political commentators of our time. The Renaissance Society... 

<em>Abandoned Demolition</em>: New Painting by Andy Paczos

Art

Abandoned Demolition: New Painting by Andy Paczos

Thursday 3/19 @ Hyde Park Art Center

Once a heavy-industry mecca, now a service-industry hub, Chicago has a changing industrial history that's ripe for artistic examination. Painter Andy... 

<em>America: All Better!</em>

Comedy

America: All Better!

Thursday 3/19 @ The Second City

The 2008 election may have delivered a ray of hope, but storm clouds still hang above us. That's the uneasy premise... 

Robert Davis and Michael Langlois: <em>House of the Rising Sun</em>

Art

Robert Davis and Michael Langlois

Thursday 3/19 @ Chicago Cultural Center

Collaborative artists Robert Davis and Michael Langlois reconfigure their LA show of the same name for a three-month stint in the... 

Richard Colman: Opera Pink

Art

Richard Colman

Thursday 3/19 @ Phaiz

Richard Colman's star is on the rise, thanks in part to eye-catching exhibitions with fellow artists who grew up on graffiti... 

<em>Gomorrah</em>

Film

Gomorrah

Thursday 3/19 @ Music Box Theatre

Complex mob-flick Gomorrah shows the realities and ironies that many conventional mafia films only romanticize. The drama, based on Robert Saviano's... 

Marvin E. Newman & Yasuhiro Ishimito

Art: Photography

Marvin E. Newman & Yasuhiro Ishimito

Thursday 3/19 @ Stephen Daiter Gallery

In adjacent exhibitions, Stephen Daiter Gallery reunites Marvin Newman and Yasuhiro Ishimoto, two master photographers who became friends in the early... 

<em>PhotoDimensional</em>

Art

PhotoDimensional

Thursday 3/19 @ Museum of Contemporary Photography

In PhotoDimensional, photography becomes sculptural through Heather Mekkelson's recreations of disaster photographs; lifelike in Bettina Hoffmann's video rotating around a still... 

<em>For a Limited Time Only</em>

Art

For a Limited Time Only

Thursday 3/19 @ The Art Center in Highland Park

Curated by Olga Stefan, former Executive Director of the Chicago Artists' Coalition, this group exhibition focuses on the fleeting nature of... 

<em>Wait Until Dark</em>

Theatre

Wait Until Dark

Thursday 3/19 @ Court Theatre at the University of Chicago

In a time of creeping horrors like war, recession, terrorism and Bernie Madoff, there's perverse satisfaction to be gleaned from a... 

<em>Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe</em>

Art

Buckminster Fuller

Thursday 3/19 @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Buckminster Fuller was a man of vision and contradiction. The twentieth-century architect and inventor was well ahead of his time, yet... 

The Picture Tells the Story: The Drawings of Joseph E. Yoakum

Art

The Picture Tells the Story: The Drawings of Joseph E. Yoakum

Thursday 3/19 @ Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art

An exhibition of Joseph Yoakum’s visionary landscapes, curated by Mark Pascale, caretaker of Whitney Halstead’s collection bequeathed to the Art Institute...