Events on Thursday, February 2

Radical Light: Stories Untold

Film: Experimental

Radical Light: Stories Untold

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and Block Cinema

In conjunction with the book Radical Light: Alternative Film And Video In The San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, the multi-venue Radical... 

<em>Rock 'n' Roll High School</em> (1979)

Film

Rock 'n' Roll High School

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Doc Films

Presenters at Doc Films might have a tough time bettering Rock 'n' Roll High School's perfectly stupid-smart introduction ("I'm Riff Randell,... 

Ongoing Events

Charlie Murphy

Comedy: Stand up

Charlie Murphy

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Improv

One of Charlie Murphy's first jobs was acting as bodyguard for his younger brother, comedian Eddie. He ended up following his... 

Cathy Wilkes: <em>I Gave You All My Money</em>

Art: Installation

Cathy Wilkes

Thursday 2/ 2 @ The Renaissance Society

What Cathy Wilkes says about her work might ultimately be true, that the separation between herself as artist and the viewer... 

Veronica Corzo-Duchardt: <em>Neche Collection</em>

Art: Photography

Veronica Corzo-Duchardt

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Public Works Gallery

Artist Veronica Corzo-Duchardt's Neche Collection is a set of minimal, atmospheric prints and print/photo diptychs that retell the story of her... 

Cannonball Press: <em>Turnin' the Tip: Simp Heisters, Flukum, & the Put'nTake</em>

Art: Design

Cannonball Press

Thursday 2/ 2 @ A + D Gallery

It's a total freak show at Columbia College's A + D Gallery, where Cannonball Press is exhibiting a series of prints... 

<em>Write Now: Artists & Letterforms</em>

Art: Group Show

Write Now: Artists & Letterforms

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Cultural Center

Save some time to read through the packed exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, Write Now: Artists & Letterforms. Featuring many... 

LiveWire Chicago: <em>Oohrah!</em>

Theatre: Drama

Oohrah!

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Steppenwolf Garage Theatre

As part of Steppenwolf's Garage Rep series, LiveWire Chicago's production of Bekah Brunstetter's Oohrah! offers a witty but complicated look at... 

<em>The World Finder: A Pocket Guide to Hell</em>

Art

The World Finder: A Pocket Guide to Hell

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Gallery 400

A logical complement to Global Cities, Model Worlds, the Pocket Guide to Hell collective has created a multimedia exploration for the... 

<em>A Separation</em>

Film: Independent

A Separation

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Music Box Theatre

Iran's entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar and winner of Berlin's Golden Bear, A Separation is a complex family drama that... 

<em>Letters/X</em>

Theatre: Comedy

Letters/X

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Apollo Theater

Holiday irreverence can feel as trite and de rigueur as the gooey sentimentality it supposedly sends up. Not so with Letters/X,... 

<em>MCA DNA: Gordon Matta-Clark</em>

Art: Multimedia

Gordon Matta-Clark

Thursday 2/ 2 @ MCA Chicago

In February of 1978, Gordon Matta-Clark created "Circus, or the Carribean Orange" in what would be his last major work before... 

<em>Shame</em>

Film

Shame

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema

Brandon (Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method and Jane Eyre) is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his... 

TimeLine Theatre: <em>Enron</em>

Theatre: Drama

Enron

Thursday 2/ 2 @ TimeLine Theatre

There's something strangely haunting about Enron in TimeLine's intimate space, closely surrounded by its jet-black walls, and on three sides, glaring... 

<em>Limits of Photography</em>

Art: Photography

Limits of Photography

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Museum of Contemporary Photography

Even though we can easily manipulate images with Photoshop or create entire alien worlds, like that in Avatar, the photographic image... 

<em>Race</em>

Theatre: Drama

Race

Thursday 2/ 2 @ The Goodman Theatre

The Chicago premiere of David Mamet's crackling new play, Race, gives 2009's Broadway production a serious run for its money in the... 

<em>Prison: Photographs by Lloyd DeGrane</em>

Art: Photography

Lloyd DeGrane

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Gage Gallery of Roosevelt University

While the holiday season has come and gone and the New Year just begun, Lloyd DeGrane's photographs of maximum-security prisons at... 

<em>Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964&ndash;1977</em>

Art: Photography

Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964–1977

Thursday 2/ 2 @ The Art Institute of Chicago

Among its many accomplishments, the pioneering movement known broadly as Conceptual Art succeeded in bringing photography definitively into the mainstream of... 

<em>Penelope</em>

Theatre: Drama

Penelope

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Steppenwolf Theatre Company

What seems at first like a modern story with some classical references — whiskey, Speedos, and a copy of Homer —... 

Theater Oobleck: <em>The Hunchback Variations Opera</em>

Theatre

The Hunchback Variations Opera

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Victory Gardens Biograph Theater

Mickle Maher's play is premised on such an inherently absurd concept — a set of 11 short scenes, all variations on... 

<em>Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe</em>

Art

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and Block Cinema

Currently scientists must be highly specialized in their own respective fields, so much so that it is becoming a problem since... 

<em>The Descendants</em>

Film

The Descendants

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Various Chicago theaters

After directing two brilliant, barbed satires, Citizen Ruth and the Preston Sturges-worthy Election, Alexander Payne became American film's poet laureate of... 

The Hypocrites: <em>Six Characters in Search of an Author</em>

Theatre: Drama

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chopin Theatre

The Hypocrites take on a play as metatheatrical as they are, with some mixed but generally entertaining results. Luigi Pirandello's early-1920s... 

<em>The Language of Less (Then)</em>

Art: Group Show

The Language of Less (Then)

Thursday 2/ 2 @ MCA Chicago

Split into two exhibitions (with two different closing dates, take note), The Language of Less (Then and Now) looks at the... 

<em>Carnage</em>

Film

Carnage

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Various Chicago theaters

Roman Polanski doesn't make bad films. He may be known for his bad decisions off set, but on set, he remains... 

<em>Long Gone Lonesome</em>

Theatre: Musical

Long Gone Lonesome

Thursday 2/ 2 @ The Hideout

One of the key narratives in modern music is the transatlantic volley between America and Europe, each side reinterpreting and lobbing... 

Andr&eacute; Butzer

Art: Painting & Drawing

André Butzer

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Raw paint occasionally squeezed right from the tube onto canvas marks the debut exhibition of André Butzer's work in the Midwest.... 

The 23rd Annual Rhinofest

Theatre: Festival

Rhinofest

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Prop Thtr

Last year's 22nd annual Rhinofest celebrated its history by looking back to over two decades of fringe theatre, reviving some original... 

David Leggett: <em>It's getting to the point where nobody respects the dead. Fresh to death</em>

Art: Painting & Drawing

David Leggett

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Western Exhibitions

On view concurrently with his drawing exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center, this David Leggett exhibit at Western Exhibitions presents... 

<em>The MeMo Organization Cabinet</em>

Art: Multimedia

The MeMo Organization Cabinet

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Cultural Center

A companion exhibition to the death-themed Morbid Curiosity, "speculative designer" Jessica Charlesworth presents The MeMo Organization Cabinet, "MeMo" being short for... 

<em>Death and Harry Houdini</em>

Theatre: Drama

Death and Harry Houdini

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chopin Theatre

A ringmaster takes the stage and promises magic, mystery, and death. Director/playwright Nathan Allen, along with his talented cast and production... 

<em>The Artist</em>

Film

The Artist

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Various Chicago theaters

This black-and-white, near-silent throwback by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (OSS 117) delivers film-geek kicks in both form (gleefully antiquated transitions, early-cinema... 

Chicago Dramatists: <em>Blizzard '67</em>

Theatre: Drama

Blizzard '67

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Dramatists

Playwright Jon Steinhagen takes you to the unusual days preceding the largest snowfall in Chicago history and then sharply dives into... 

David Leggett: <em>Coco River Fudge Street</em>

Art: Painting & Drawing

David Leggett: Coco River Fudge Street

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Hyde Park Art Center

Pulled from his yearlong drawing-a-day blog Coco River Fudge Street, the Hyde Park Art Center presents the work of David Leggett.... 

<em>My Week with Marilyn</em>

Film

My Week with Marilyn

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Various Chicago theaters

Michelle Williams is the best thing in My Week with Marilyn, which is not a great film, but is worth seeing... 

Albany Park Theatre Project: <em>Home/Land</em>

Theatre: Drama

Home/Land

Thursday 2/ 2 @ The Laura Wiley Theater

Some theatre is timely, some striking — and some vital. Tackling the increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate in the United States —... 

MCA Screen: David Hartt

Art: Multimedia

David Hartt

Thursday 2/ 2 @ MCA Chicago

With new curators, new approaches to regionalism, and new methods of stagecraft, the MCA has a serious (and commendable) case of... 

<em>The Feast: an intimate Tempest</em>

Theatre

The Feast: an intimate Tempest

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Shakespeare Theater

This taut, streamlined Tempest hurtles through CST with gale-force creative energy. Condensing Shakespeare's play to an hour-long romp through a fragmented... 

<em>My Reincarnation</em>

Film: Documentary

My Reincarnation

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Facets Cinémathèque

Filmed over the span of 20 years, My Reincarnation follows the lives of a high Tibetan Buddhist master, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu,... 

The New Navy Pier

Art: Architecture

The New Navy Pier

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Architecture Foundation

Navy Pier. Beloved by tourists, rarely visited by Chicagoans unless dragged there by said tourist friends/relatives. But once you are there... 

<em>Re: Chicago</em>

Art: Group Show

Re: Chicago

Thursday 2/ 2 @ DePaul Art Museum

The DePaul Art Museum opens their brand new building with Re: Chicago, an exhibition that is crowd-sourced from the experts: Chicago's... 

<em>Disgraced</em>

Theatre: Drama

Disgraced

Thursday 2/ 2 @ American Theater Company

Like each of the play's enlightened, well-meaning young professionals, all ideological systems prove desperately flawed in Ayad Akhtar's bold, searing look... 

Collaboraction: <em>dark play or stories for boys</em>

Theatre: Drama

dark play or stories for boys

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Flat Iron Arts Building

"I make shit up," the protagonist of Carlos Murillo's indubitably dark play announces in its opening moments; the rest of dark... 

<em>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</em>

Film

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Various Chicago theaters

Former MI6 agent John le Carré brought the spy novel into the modern era with the rich literary prose and ethically... 

<em>The Gingerbread House</em>

Theatre: Comedy

The Gingerbread House

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Red Tape Theatre

A dark comedy, emphasis on the "dark," about a couple who sells their children in an attempt to rejuvenate their relationship... 

<em>MCA DNA: Dieter Roth</em>

Art: Multimedia

Dieter Roth

Thursday 2/ 2 @ MCA Chicago

Still craving text art or book art after Write Now at the Cultural Center? Head to the MCA's exhibition of Dieter... 

<em>Tomboy</em>

Film: Independent

Tomboy

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Music Box Theatre

In Tomboy, filmmaker Céline Sciamma's (Water Lilies) second feature, a family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure (Zoé Heran) and 6-year-old Jeanne... 

Vitalist Theatre: <em>The Ghost Is Here</em>

Theatre: Drama

The Ghost Is Here

Thursday 2/ 2 @ DCA Theater

In Kōbō Abe's darkly comedic drama, tormented ex-soldier Fukagawa and grifter Oba partner in business during Japan's still-reeling early postwar years.... 

<em>Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection</em>

Art: Group Show

Morbid Curiosity

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Cultural Center

Morbid Curiosity looks death straight in the eye in the sprawling exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center that includes about 1,000... 

<em>Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting</em>

Theatre: Drama

Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Lookingglass Theatre

This entertaining piece of historical fiction posits a secret 1947 summit meeting in which Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey seeks... 

Paul Erschen: <em>West Plaza Portraits</em>

Art: Installation

Paul Erschen

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Document

One of the newest galleries in Chicago, having opened on January 6th, Document is run by an experienced hand in Chicago's... 

<em>Black Gossamer</em>

Art: Group Show

Black Gossamer

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College Chicago

An anxiousness exists among people of color because there is still an expectation to "perform," explain and react to one's Blackness... 

<em>Global Cities, Model Worlds</em>

Art: Design

Global Cities, Model Worlds

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Gallery 400

With all the pageantry and pride accompanying major world events like the Olympics it's easy to overlook the long process and... 

<em>Bachelorette</em>

Theatre: Comedy

Bachelorette

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Profiles Theatre

Leslye Headland's runaway off-Broadway hit makes its Midwest premiere at Profiles Theatre in a brazen production helmed by Artistic Director Darrell... 

<em>Motion</em>

Theatre: Theatre

Motion

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Signal Ensemble Theatre

In the finest Law & Order tradition, Ronan Marra's Motion draws inspiration from recent sports headlines. A hotshot NFL agent named... 

<em>General Economy Exquisite Exchange (GEEE)</em>

Art: Multimedia

General Economy Exquisite Exchange (GEEE)

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Hyde Park Art Center

The so-called new reality of the post-recession era has been in full effect at Cream Co.'s GEEE, on exhibition at the... 

<em>Pina</em>

Film: Documentary

Pina

Thursday 2/ 2 @ AMC River East 21

Wim Wenders pays poetic tribute to friend and influential German choreographer Pina Bausch using 3D technology. On the surface, it seems... 

<em>Ameriville</em>

Theatre: Musical

Ameriville

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Victory Gardens Biograph Theater

How to create a performance about social problems without becoming mired in lament? Hip-hop theatre quartet Universes covers the gamut of... 

<em>The Language of Less (Now)</em>

Art: Group Show

The Language of Less (Now)

Thursday 2/ 2 @ MCA Chicago

The contemporary complement to Minimalist art-focused exhibition The Language of Less (Then and Now), the titular Now galleries feature work from... 

<em>Time Stands Still</em>

Theatre: Drama

Time Stands Still

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre

In Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still, a harrowing and personal look at the difficult ethics of war journalism, Sarah, a talented... 

Northwestern Student Docent Exhibition Tours

Art

Northwestern Student Docent Exhibition Tours

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and Block Cinema

How could a folded piece of paper tell the time in multiple countries in 1512? Find out the amazing answer to... 

Limits of Photography

Art: Photography

Limits of Photography

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Columbia College Chicago

Limits of Photography explores the area where the viewer loses faith in the veracity of photography.  ... 

ASCENT

Art: Installation

ASCENT

Thursday 2/ 2 @ Chicago Artists' Coalition

Homa Shojaie presents ASCENT, an installation that investigates the material space of canvas to explore archetypal personas. Shojaie's new work creates...