Funny Girls
FUNNY GIRLS The Chicago-based duo takes the stage during Sketchfest 2013

THE FIVE

Don’t-miss picks for Wed 1.2.13 through Tue 1.8.13:

1

comedy Sketchfest
Chicago comedy is sizzling hot! With the addition of three Chicago comedians to Saturday Night Live this year, there’s no better time to check out the city’s annual funny fest.
GO: 1/3–1/13. Stage 773, 1225 W Belmont. Details: stage773.com

2

theatre Allotment Annie
With a dashing pilot, a sex-crazed paratrooper, and—of course—a pair of Nazi-stabbing barmaids, this 1940s-set story is not your typical wartime drama.
GO: 1/3–2/3; $12.50–$25. Infusion Theatre at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N Broadway. infusiontheatre.com

3

festivals Stranger Than Fiction
Exhausted by the onslaught of Oscar-mania? The Gene Siskel Film Center boasts a month-long documentary festival including the Chicago premieres of the critically acclaimed Honor Flight and The Waiting Room.
GO: 1/4–1/31; $11. Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N State. siskelfilmcenter.org/strangerthanfiction2013

4

theatre Drinking & Writing
Barnstormers is a show for theatre enthusiasts and imbibers alike. Appropriately staged at a downtown bar, the play takes (literal) shots at the sports business.
GO: 1/2–2/23; $15. Drinking & Writing Theater at Haymarket Pub & Brewery. 737 W Randolph. drinkingandwriting.com

5

performance Shatner’s World
Beam him up, Scotty! The octogenarian still best known for Star Trek’s Captain Kirk heads to Aurora to reprise his one man show where he talks Hollywood, outer space, and life lessons.
GO: 1/4; $65–85. Paramount Theatre, 23 E Galena. paramountaurora.com

WHAT I’M DOING THIS WEEKEND

Joshua Rubin
Joshua Rubin

Up next in our series of weekend plans from notable, in-the-know locals—a.k.a. people we like: Joshua Rubin, the program director and founding clarinetist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Rubin and seven other ICE members will play pieces by the composers Franz Schubert and George Lewis at the Cultural Center on 1/6 at 3 p.m.

“Friday I'll be kicking off the first weekend of the 20-teens at Taxim in Wicker Park. Every vegetable there is amazing, but the eggplant is particularly good. Each time I'm there it's an immersive slice of the Mediterranean.

“Saturday will be a practice day for me, in the proverbial woodshed with my clarinet and a metronome. I’ll eventually tire and head out for a spicy dinner at El Barco Mariscos. Their plate of shellfish is unbeatable. I might need a michelada too.

“Sunday I'll head to the Chicago Cultural Center where seven of my ICE colleagues and I will be playing Franz Schubert's Octet, a piece with bigger-than-symphonic emotions, in a pocket-sized eight-player package. We’re inserting pieces by jazz and computer music pioneer (and Chicago native) George Lewis between the different octet movements. This concert will be a fun and unique listening experience and I'm excited to play it. Then, Sunday night will be party time. Beginning at 7 ICE is hosting a bowling party for our 10th anniversary season at Fireside Bowl. I'm a terrible bowler, but I have insanely good beginner's luck, so don't challenge me in the first game.” —As told to Elly Fishman

FREEBIE OF THE WEEK

art Memory Palaces
Chicago’s queer underground has an unofficial historian, Edie Fake. Fake’s drawings reimagine forgotten hot spots as colorful facades in a decidedly Chicago architectural idiom.
GO: 1/4 at 6. Thomas Robertello Gallery, 27 N Morgan. thomasrobertello.com

 

Photography: (Puterbaugh Sisters) Courtesy of Stage 773; (Rubin) Luke Batten and Jonathan Sadler