Demi Lovato plays North Avenue Beach this Friday
In what might be the strangest radio promo of the summer, Kiss FM announced yesterday that Demi Lovato will play a free show at North Avenue Beach bar Castaways this Friday. On top of that weirdness, it's at 11 o'clock in the morning. Enter to win VIP tickets and a chance to meet Demi here. I guess.
Eddie Vedder is playing a Cubs fundraiser at Metro next week
If Demi at a beach bar wasn't incongruent enough, Eddie Vedder has joined the Cubs's fourth annual Hot Stove Cool Music fundraiser at Metro on July 9. Also appearing are baseball writer Peter Gammons, broadcaster Len Kasper, and Cubs boss Theo Epstein. General admission tickets went on sale yesterday and promptly crashed Metro's website before selling out. Resale tickets, the inflated price of which unfortunately won't benefit Epstein's youth-focused Foundation To Be Named Later, are priced at $418 on StubHub. VIP tickets are still available from Metro for $750.
Fall Out Boy is playing the Illinois State Fair
Completing this week's weird-concerts triple play are Wilmette natives Fall Out Boy, who recently announced a set at the Illinois State Fair on August 15. Also performing are The Fray, Sammy Hagar, Collective Soul, Rascal Flatts, Styx, and Tesla, which maybe doesn't bode well for the once pop-punk band's trajectory. Tickets went on sale yesterday for $40 to $62 at Ticketmaster and the Grandstand box office.
The Obama date movie starts filming in Chicago next month
The Tribune reports that Southside With You, Richard Tanne's indie film about Michelle and Barack Obama's first date in 1989, will begin filming in Chicago on July 13. The film will feature Parker Sawyers (Zero Dark Thirty, Snowden) as Barack and Tika Sumpter (One Life to Live, Gossip Girl) as Michelle on a date to the Art Institute and Do The Right Thing (the story is plucked from The Audacity of Hope).
Pitchfork Saturday passes have sold out
As of Thursday, Saturday passes to Pitchfork Music Festival officially sold out. Three day passes sold out back in March, which means fans of Sleater-Kinney, Vic Mensa, Kurt Vile, New Pornographers, A$AP Ferg, and more should pray for an afterparty.
Opening
July 4: All Our Tragic, Sean Graney's bloody 12-hour mashup of all 32 Greek tragedies. The Hypocrites at the Den Theatre (1333 N. Milwaukee)
July 4: Jihad: A look at Israel's struggle with Hamas from the lens of two opposing families who each lose a daughter to violence. Genesis Theatrical Productions at Theater Wit (1229 W. Belmont)
Open Now: Bent: Martin Sherman's 1979 look at the Nazis treatment of queer-identifying people. The Other Theater Company at Strawdog Theatre (3829 N. Broadway)
Open Now: Moby Dick: David Catlin's mondo take on a mondo book about a mondo, mondo fish. Lookingglass Theatre (821 N. Michigan)
Open Now: The Who and the What: A pair of conservative Muslim parents find a manuscript of their daughter's book on women and Islam. Victory Gardens Biograph Theater (2433 N. Lincoln)
Open Now: A Marvin Hamlisch Songbook: All the harmless '70s kitsch its name implies. No Exit Cafe (6970 N. Glenwood)
Open Now: Inana: An Iraqi museum curator and his bride salvage relics on the eve of the U.S.'s invasion of Baghdad. Kimberly Senior directs. TimeLine Theatre (615 W. Wellington)
Open Now: The Diary of Anne Frank, directed by the unerring Kimberly Senior. Writers Theatre at Books on Vernon (664 Vernon, Glencoe)
Open Now: Game of Thongs: A Game of Thrones Burlesque. Breasteros. Yep. Gorilla Tango Theatre (1919 N. Milwaukee)
Closing
July 1: There Might Be. . . Stumble: 10 short plays by Richard Paro inspired by the first two Belle and Sebastian albums. Indie Boots at the Side Project Theatre (1439 W. Jarvis)
July 2: Ruth: A group show of work from the Horwich Collection. Carl Hammer Gallery (740 N. Wells)
July 3: Biophilia: A solo show by painter Jaime Foster. Elephant Room, Inc. (704 S. Wabash)
July 3: A Night at the Opera: Pastels by Robert Barnes. Printworks (311 W. Superior)
July 3: Wonders: Solo show by photographer Ysabel LeMay. Catherine Edelman Gallery (300 W. Superior)
July 5: On Your Feet!, a big-box bio-musical about Cuban-American singers Gloria and Emilio Estefan. Oriental Theatre (24 W. Randolph)
July 5: Abraham Lincoln was a Faggot, in which a gay high-school senior bores into Honest Abe's sexual past. About Face at the Greenhouse Theater Center (2257 N. Lincoln)
July 5: Stick Fly: Windy City Playhouse's second show, in which an acid-tongued family on a weekend getaway duke it out over race, class, and politics. Windy City Playhouse (3014 W. Irving Park)