Terrible art coming to a CTA Red Line station near you
Bad art, good walls. The CTA today released renderings of artwork that will be permanently installed at seven rehabbed North Side Red Line stations. It's the kind of stuff you'd normally see being sold for insanely optimistic prices at a coffee shop: cartoonish grass intertwined with a painter's palette, a bright urban landscape, abstract flowery globs. And the agency got it all from Target! Just kidding. The CTA paid $621,000, using Federal Transit Administration funds.
Stage Left, Theatre Seven announce 2013–14 seasons
Theatre Seven of Chicago and Stage Left Theatre announced their upcoming production seasons today, including a co-produced world premiere by Chicago playwright Joe Zarrow.
Zarrow's Principal Principle, a dark comedy about teachers'-lounge intrigue at a Chicago public high school, will make its debut April 12–May 18 at Theater Wit.
Theatre Seven's season will also include the previously announced Unwilling and Hostile Instruments: 100 Years of Extraordinary Chicago Women, comprising eight short pieces about notable Chicago ladies of the past century to mark the 100th anniversary of suffrage in Illinois. Though the eight playwrights on the project remain to be announced, it's set for a September opening at American Theater Company. Theatre Seven will also continue its Shikaakwa monthly reading series.
Stage Left's 32nd season opens with Barbara Lhota's Warped, about a woman accusing two police officers of raping her after escorting her home drunk. The world premiere, presumably inspired by the highly publicized 2011 court case in New York in which the cops were acquitted, runs August 31–October 6. A revival of Peter Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg follows in the new year, running January 11–February 16. Both shows will be staged at Theater Wit. Stage Left's 11th annual LeapFest slate of new works will take place in summer 2014 at a venue to be determined.
Check out the 606, the newly branded Bloomingdale Trail
The Bloomingdale Trail project finally has a name. Well, sort of. It's really more of a number: the 606, as in the the first three digits of all Chicago zip codes. The trail of the 2.7-mile elevated park, set to open next year on a former rail line, will still be known as the Bloomingdale Trail; the entirety of the project is the 606, a name befitting a vintage drum machine or a Lake Shore Drive condo building. ("Lux living at the 606" sounds arguably more natural than "Let's take a walk on the 606.") It is also the area code for eastern Kentucky.
Initially, Rahmbo's Deputy Mayor Steve Koch was puzzled by the 606 branding: "I have to confess, I didn't immediately get it."
"When it was first presented, we all sort of went, 'huh?'" Beth White, who has overseen the plan for the nonprofit Trust for the Public Land, told Chicago Tonight.
The numeric designation is the brainchild of Matt Gordon, who has one of those jobs you didn't know was a job: director of naming and writing in the Chicago office of the creative agency Landor Associates. "Through his naming work," Gordon's bio says, "he develops compelling names that help brands articulate their positioning to prospects, customers, employees, and shareholders." He has done work for Charles Schwab, Coors, FedEx, Microsoft and Frito-Lay.
Corn chips, a new Chicago park—same dif. Gordon's ultimate goal was to generate a name generic enough to appeal to all potential donors. On that task, he succeeded. But the 606 brand carries at least one depressing inevitability: that people are going to call it "The Six."
Album of the week | Kanye West - Yeezus
As we were just walking down State Street to lunch, we overheard a man behind us ask his friend, "Have you heard that new Kanye out today? Man, I heard it was weak." Certainly, the Chicagoan's sixth album is entertaining. Yeezy always has something funny to say—intentionally or not. However, for all the hype of this being the rapper's "punk" record, it turns out to be frustratingly juvenile and cock-centric. Tough Daft Punk beats and clever mash-ups go to waste underneath more Auto-Tune emoting and Lil Wayne–like sex talk. While the new musical directions are appreciated, Kanye West the lyricist of old is sorely missed. The MC is a smart marketer, but his mic skills are, well, weak, like the man on the street said. Read my full review.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer coming to Broadway Playhouse
Chicago's Emerald City Theatre will join forces with Broadway in Chicago and Milwaukee children's theater First Stage to mount a stage adaptation of the iconic TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer this holiday season at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place.
The adaptation, penned by First Stage artistic director Jeff Frank and first mounted in Milwaukee last winter, appears to be quite faithful to the 1964 Rankin/Bass stop-motion special in both its visuals and its plotting. The stage show reportedly includes all of the songs from the original, including "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "The Island of Misfit Toys." (It's not to be confused with Hell in a Handbag Productions' long-running drag parody Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer, which isn't expected to return this year.)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is scheduled to run November 14 to December 29. Emerald City Theatre's The Cat in the Hat is currently onstage at the Broadway Playhouse. See emeraldcitytheatre.com and broadwayinchicago.com for more information.
Lollapalooza 2013: Food vendors announced
Graham Elliot
By now, Lollapalooza ticket holders have the lineup memorized and have probably figured out which bands they're seeing. But do you know what you'll be eating at the fest? Lollapalooza officials just announced the lineup of this year's Chow Town, the restaurant village within the fest grounds. Once again, MasterChef star Graham Elliot had a hand in curating the restaurants serving up the offerings. You'll see some familiar booths (grahamwich, The Smoke Daddy, Burrito Beach) alongside a few newbies such as Bar Toma and Glazed & Infused. There'll also be Lolla farmers' market and stations from La Colombe Coffee Roasters set up around the fest. Check out the full food lineup here.
Another new Lolla foodie event this year: the Lolla-Late Night Supper Club. This dinner, hosted by Esquire Magazine, takes place Saturday, August 3 at Tavernita at 10:30pm. In addition to food prepared by Tavernita chef Ryan Poli, other chefs such as Jason Vincent (Nightwood) and Sarah Grueneberg (Spiaggia) will also contribute to the menu. The $100 prix fixe also includes cocktail and wine pairings. Who says Lollapalooza after-parties have to be just about bands?
5 things to do today: Tuesday, June 18
Photo by Charlie Simokaitis.
AROUND TOWN
Lakefront Neighborhoods Tour This bike tour makes lots of best-of lists and with good reason: It showcases some of Chicago's hidden (at least to tourists) gems: the charming, tree-lined streets of the North Side, Gold Coast mansions, the Playboy Mansion, Oprah's digs, the Old Town Historic District and more (including, of course, the lakefront). See Chicago as the locals see it. Bobby's Bike Hike, River East Docks at Ogden Slip. 9am, 1pm. $35, students/seniors (65+), kids under 12 $20, kids under 4 $10.
BOOKS
Nathan Rabin The former head writer of the A.V. Club delved into two very specific music fan cultures for his latest memoir, You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me: Juggalos and Phishheads (fans of Phish). Spoiler alert: While exploring these oft-maligned communities, Rabin learns things about himself. Anderson's Bookshop. 7pm.
Chief Keef rap sheet: the arrest record of the notorious Chicago emcee
Chief Keef has more arrests on his record than he has proper records.
Before we could digest the infamous Chicago rapper's appearance on "Hold My Liquor" from Kanye West's new Yeezus, the 17-year-old, whose legal name is Keith Cozart, pled guilty today to a speeding violation. The authorities took the opportunity to slap Cozart with his second paternity suit and to arrest him on a misdemeanor trespassing charge just minutes after the emcee exited the Skokie courthouse. These are the latest additions to the growing rap sheet of a teen who's had way more run-ins with the law than run-ins with the singles chart.
Double Door is turning its basement into a speakeasy
Double Door
We know a lot of about Double Door's history. Example: The famed Wicker Park music venue has hosted everyone from the Rolling Stones to Liz Phair and Smashing Pumpkins to Wilco, and had a nice cameo in the movie High Fidelity. And here's a fun fact that dates back even further than the '90s: During the Prohibition days, the space was a speakeasy. Current co-owner Sean Mulroney tells me it housed a furniture store in the front and a speakeasy in the back...and possibly a brothel upstairs. And now Mulroney is taking the space back to its roots. (Well, minus the furniture store and brothel.)
In about three weeks, Double Door's basement will reopen as Door No. 3, a speakeasy-type lounge with its own secret entrance under the El tracks near Damen Avenue. Mulroney says the space will be DJ-driven (think ambient music) and, unlike upstairs, cocktails will be served in glassware (as opposed to plastic cups) from servers. "Ten years ago, our most loyal customer was the hip bike messenger type who would come in with $20 and get a bunch of PBRs," Mulroney says. "Now those guys are a little more grown up, have better jobs, but are still cool. This will be the place for them."
A drink menu is still being mapped out, but Mulroney says Door No. 3 will have a large beer selection (just like the concert venue upstairs) and he's working with a cocktail expert to create a stellar drink list.
10 best things to do this week
"A Sight Unlike Any Other: The Civil War and the Colored Soldier" Marking the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, the DuSable hosts a pair of battle reenactments. Not just rad historical sights to behold, these pieces of military theater serve to show that African Americans certainly were anything but passive observers in what's often seen as a white man's war. The afternoon also includes Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln impersonators, a Civil War costume booth and horse rides for kids. DuSable Museum of African American History. Jun 23, noon–5pm. Free.
"Caleb Charland: Fathom and Fray" In his captivating images, Charland brings to light the unseen and manipulates the seen via multiple and long exposures, as well as exploiting certain malfunctions in typical photographic processes. The results are often fantastical and poetic, with titles that emphasize the science-experiment vibe of his practice: e.g., Apple Trees and LEDs and Black Dots on My Palms Anywhere Lines Cross, Scanned and Inverted to Look Like Stars. Schneider Gallery. Jun 18–21, 10:30am–5pm. Jun 22, 11am–5pm. Through Jun 29.
It's okay to be a show-off.
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