BEST Things To Do In Chicago Tomorrow
Friday, April 19, 2019

The Event Oracle knows ALL the fun things to do in Chicago. Select your date above then scroll down for all the Arts, Entertainment, and Events in my crystal ball...

• Chicago Water Taxi

  Wendella Tours & Cruises
  400 N. Michigan Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60611
  

  Chicago Water Taxi is Chicago's river transportation service with seven stops located on all three branches of the Chicago River. Hop on/ hop off at all your favorite river locations with a Chicago Water Taxi All Day Pass. Water taxi stops include, but are not limited to; Michigan Avenue, Chinatown, The Chicago Riverwalk, Ogilvie/Union Train Stations, and more. All Day Passes are valid for unlimited rides for one person for 24 hours on Chicago Water Taxi.

• ALL WELL AND GOOD

  Circle Contemporary
  2010 W. Carroll
  Chicago, IL 606022
  

  I heartily doubt there is anything new that I could say about color in art. I’m open to it; but, I humbly admit that my experience of colorful form is often subjective and ineffable. No surprises there, I’m sure.
  What I can say about color in this exhibition though, and how that color is manifested through each chosen material, is that I’m frequently struck silent (in all those good ways that one wants to be struck silent) when in the presence of it. Not a somber silence by any means, but more a silence where you notice your heartbeat is in sync with your sight.
  During one of the planning meetings with the Curatorial Committee at Arts of Life, Susan Pasowicz told me, “Color is all well and good, but what about a grey show? Lots of color gets really busy, but grey and black are calming and they let you stop and breathe and think.”
  In selecting works for this show, I’ve tried to pay attention to when color lets me stop and breathe and think. No doubt this is a colorful, seemingly busy exhibition. But I think it might also be a grey place. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.

• Chicago Works: Jessica Campbell

  Museum of Contemporary Art
  220 E. Chicago Ave.,
  Chicago, IL 60611
  

  The satirical drawings, comics, and textiles by Chicago-based artist Jessica Campbell (Canadian, b. 1985) take aim at everyday experiences that reveal the sexism women face in the 21st century. Drawing from a wide range of influences including science fiction, art-world politics, and her Evangelical upbringing, she infuses her work with humor and vulnerability. Her recently published graphic novels include Hot or Not: 20th-Century Male Artists (2016) and XTC69 (2018).

   

• Andrew Bearnot: Fruiting Bodies

  Leather Archives and Museum
  6418 N Greenview Ave,
  Chicago, IL 60626
  

  The Leather Archives and Museum (LA&M) is pleased to present FRUITING BODIES, a solo exhibition by Andrew Bearnot in the Guest Artist Gallery (GAG). The exhibition will include new artworks by Bearnot shown alongside archival objects from the LA&M collection, including important artifacts from Chuck Renslow and Sam Steward, as well as the personal erotic correspondence collection of Robert Gaylor, recently acquired by the LA&M.

• Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera

  Museum of Contemporary Art
  220 E. Chicago Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60611
  

  This exhibition showcases four decades of work by Laurie Simmons, a pioneer of new directions in art photography. Since the late 1970s, when she began to develop her mature style using props and dolls as stand-ins for people and places, Simmons has explored archetypal gender roles, especially women in domestic settings. The exhibition follows her work and continues to use the theme of the doll and costume play, making her early ideas about private life and public presentation as poignant today as they were in her early career. Often isolating the dolls and photographing them situated in tiny, austere settings, Simmons uses fictional scenes to make observations about real life. These works are now iconic of her career. In addition to her photography, there is a small selection of sculpture and two films: The Music of Regret (2006), starring Meryl Streep interacting with vintage puppets; and My Art (2016), written and directed by Simmons playing the role of an artist who is frustrated with her work and lack of recognition. Simmons’s more recent series, such as The Love Doll, feature life-size Japanese dolls in day-to-day scenarios, and How We See, where Simmons hired make-up artists to paint open eyes on her sitters’ closed eyelids, examines cultural trends of masking in everyday online interactions. Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

• THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion

  Fashion Outlets of Chicago
  5520 Fashion Outlets Way
  Rosemont, IL 60018
  

  THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion, the multifaceted contemporary art program of Fashion Outlets of Chicago, will welcome a rotating exhibition by 2018 Olympic costume designer Dr. Keysook Geum to the shopping center this February. Dr. Keysook Geum’s rotating exhibition will feature three life-sized sculptural forms, entitled Enlightenment III, Nirvana in Red IV and NIGHTINGALE. Dr. Geum is an author and professor of Textile Art and Fashion Design at Hong Ik University in Seoul, Korea, and recently served as the Artistic Director for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in 2018, designing both the uniforms and dresses worn in the opening ceremony. Dr. Geum’s dramatic sculptures of elegantly posed forms embody the fusion of timeless Asian aesthetics and philosophy with contemporary air. They are constructed of paper-wrapped or enamel coated wires, gems, beads and silk. Starting with a central focal point, Dr. Geum works outwardly in a concentric manner reminiscent of a spider. As the artist weaves, twists and bends wire two-dimensionally, intricate forms and unintentional patterns emerge. The natural tensions of interlacing wire push and pulls out until ¬-figurative shapes begin to take form.

• Indigenous Entrepreneurship: Tribal Enterprises & Co-ops

  Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
  3001 Central St
  Evanston, IL 60201
  

  As there are no reservations in Illinois, most tribal based businesses are not well known in this area. While many people are familiar with the arts, crafts, and casinos, there are many other products and services offered by Indigenous businesses today.

  The Mitchell Museum is proud to present the latest exhibit showcasing Indigenous-owned businesses, tribal co-ops and enterprises; Indigenous Entrepreneurship: Tribal Enterprises & Entrepreneurs about the expansion of tribal initiatives that support tribal sustainability and the incorporation of tribal values into business models.

  The exhibit also covers the challenges that many tribal entrepreneurs face, their unique opportunities based on their sovereign nation status, and the programs that offer them support. Learn about the various products and services offered by tribal enterprises and Indigenous entrepreneurs, from Ioway Honey to buffalo meat Tanka Bars!

• LOOP

  Navy Pier
  600 E. Grand Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60611
  

  Experience Loop, a free, interactive art installation for all ages, in Polk Bros Park!
  Members of the public are invited to sit down inside and activate the illuminated musical mechanism, causing beautiful images inspired by 13 fairy tales to come to life. Loop is sure to spark children’s imagination and revive their parents’ childhood memories.

• Morning Glories

  Garfield Park Conservatory
  300 N. Central Park Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60624
  

  Enjoy learning together with your little one during this weekly drop-in session. Activities are fun, interactive, and encourage children’s curiosity about the natural world. Children and their care-givers rotate to different stations around the Children’s Garden. Stations include planting projects, soil digging stations, tours, story-time, and more. Participation is free, but donations for material costs are appreciated.

  Please note that while all children 5 years old and under are welcome to take part in Morning Glories with adult supervision, some projects are designed specifically for children ages 3-5 years old. Younger children are welcome to participate in all stations with the support of their care-givers. Adult supervision is required for participation in the Morning Glories Program.

• Pop América, 1965–1975

  Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University
  40 Arts Cir Dr
  Evanston, IL 60208
  

  Pop América, 1965–1975 challenges and reframes familiar notions of Pop Art by bringing together artists from North, Central, and South America, as well as the United States and the Caribbean. Pop América is the first exhibition to unify Latin American expressions of Pop and explore how its bold and colorful imagery, references to mass culture, and representations of everyday objects, signs, and symbols were embraced by artists working across the hemisphere. The exhibition makes a timely and critical contribution to a deeper understanding of this period and the impulses behind Pop Art from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s.

• Frederick Douglass AGITATOR

  American Writers Museum
  180 N. Michigan Ave., 2nd floor
  Chicago, IL 60601
  

  Frederick Douglass was passionate about the written word. In his first memoir, he called learning to read his “pathway from slavery to freedom.” Denied access to words during the first part of his life, he spent the rest of his life crafting them. Over the course of his long life, he wrote three memoirs, one novella, and thousands of essays and speeches (not to mention countless letters and poems). Frederick Douglass AGITATOR highlights excerpts from his speeches and writings, some recorded by students from Young Chicago Authors. Other excerpts include Douglass’ speech on Haiti at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and The Reason Why pamphlet he and Ida B. Wells distributed to protest African-American exclusion from the fair.

  Douglass was an early adopter of photography. He immediately recognized its potential to present an image of black people different from that of the slave. Between 1841 and his death in 1895, Douglass sat for dozens of portraits, becoming the most photographed American of the 19th century. A large photo mosaic of Frederick Douglass made out of dozens of his portraits welcomes visitors to the exhibit.

  Artifacts in the exhibit include Frederick Douglass’ inkwell and glasses, on loan from the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, an AWM Author Home Affiliate.

• The Photographs of Edward S. Curtis

  Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
  3001 Central St
  Evanston, IL 60201
  

  Between 1900 and 1930, Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) traveled from Mexico to the Arctic, compiling a vast store of information covering more than Indian tribes, in the form of 40,000 photographs, 10,000 recordings of songs and stories, and several volumes of field notes. The published result, The North American Indian (1907), spanned 20 volumes of illustrated text, accompanied by 20 photo portfolios.

  Most critics agree that the work is an impressive achievement, and that Curtis overcame many obstacles, including difficult field conditions and a chronic shortage of funds, to complete such a comprehensive project. However, opinions diverge about the value and integrity of his undertaking. Do these photos have merit beyond the world of art? In his quest to preserve “vanishing” tribes, Curtis promoted, and helped to shape, the public’s view of Indians as “noble savages.” Because he staged many of his scenes with overly fancy accessories or culturally inaccurate details, some scholars have criticized his work. However, others praise Curtis’ genuine interest in the Native people he photographed, in an era when tribes had been forced onto reservations and children sent to government-run boarding schools that stripped them of their language and traditions.

• Bob Dylan: Electric

  American Writers Museum
  180 N. Michigan Ave.,
  Chicago, IL 60601
  

  Bob Dylan: Electric spotlights Dylan’s writing – song, poetry, and prose – between his 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance and 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Items on display include Bob Dylan’s personal copy of Catcher in the Rye and an original 1965 Newport Folk Festival program autographed by Dylan. The exhibit’s keystone piece is the electric guitar Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The performance, referred to as “The Newport Incident”, is his first ever live performance with a full, electric band and marked a dramatic shift in his writing and popularity.

• PURCHASED LIVES: THE AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE FROM 1808 TO 1865

  Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
  9603 Woods Dr
  Skokie, IL 60077
  

  urchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 to 1865  illustrates the pain and injustice of the American domestic slave trade, illuminating just how widespread the practice of slavery was in American life, as well as its impact on enslaved families across the country.

  This exhibition, originally curated by The Historic New Orleans Collection, showcases more than 75 original artifacts, slave narratives, and oral histories. Through interactive displays, visitors engage directly with historical records by tracking the shipment of more than 70,000 people to New Orleans. Purchased Lives also contains a collection of “Lost Friends” ads placed after the Civil War by newly freed people attempting to locate Illinois family members.

  Illinois Holocaust Museum consistently uses special exhibitions to tell stories of inhumanity and resilience, both historical and present-day. Purchased Lives, combined with its related programming, facilitates a broader conversation about the legacies of the American slave trade and their manifestations in today’s world.

• Rembrandt Portraits

  Art Institute of Chicago
  111 S. Michigan Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60603
  

  Rembrandt complicated the genre, constructing identities through props, lighting, and ambiguous settings—leaving us to ask, “What is a portrait?” This spring, two portraits by Rembrandt van Rijn are visiting the Art Institute from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. The paintings, Portrait of a Boy and Self-Portrait, join the Art Institute’s own Old Man with a Gold Chain and Young Woman at an Open Half-Door for a look at Rembrandt’s approach to portraiture—one that is decidedly more complex than it may first appear.

• Susan Te Kahurangi King: 1958-2018

  Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
  756 N Milwaukee Ave
  Chicago, IL 60642
  

  Organized by Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Susan Te Kahurangi King: 1958-2018 presents a survey of the living, New Zealand-based artist’s work. This major exhibition brings together more than 60 of her drawings, along with memorabilia from the personal archive of her sister, Petita Cole. The exhibition includes drawings that span her output from her early colorful mashups of Donald Duck and cartoon imagery to her detailed graphite abstractions to her most recent brush work created during a summer residency at the Elaine de Kooning House in East Hampton, N.Y. The exhibition will be the first major presentation of King’s work at Intuit and the first museum exhibition to include personal objects.

• Creative Impulse: Works by Robert Johnson and E. Nix

  Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
  756 N Milwaukee Ave
  Chicago, IL 60642
  

  The rarely-exhibited works of Chicago-based artists Robert Johnson and E. Nix are at once extraordinary, challenging and filled with moments of great beauty. Despite each artist working in disparate mediums--Johnson is best known for his reverse glass paintings on discarded windows and Nix’s background is in blacksmithing--their art is similarly informed by personal struggles and their daily efforts to overcome trauma and addiction. Johnson and Nix both have devoted followings among primarily African-American collectors in Chicago, but are largely unknown outside these circles, keeping with Intuit’s dedication to highlighting undervalued artists overlooked by the mainstream art world.

• This Stillness

  Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
  756 N Milwaukee Ave
  Chicago, IL 60642
  

  This Stillness is an exploration into the complexities of Black girlhood and womanhood and the quiet reflections of self that arise from these circumstances. The exhibition goes beyond the contemporary use of a traditional Black American art form—assemblage—and delves into themes of autonomy, self-reflection, and the dehumanization of Black women and girls. At the same time, the exhibition serves as an archive of personal, familial and cultural identity. This Stillness explores mediums often found in the practice of Black American female artists who are re-piecing histories, narratives and memories that were not allowed to flourish in the past. The practices of these artists are the manifestation of the contradictions of living in America while Black and female. Artists Judy Bowman, Tracy Crump and Vanessa German work in drastically different practices—though each evokes strong emotion, displays an understanding of the self and community, and provides a space to examine the fiercely personal narratives that are created.

• The Murder Mystery Company

  Salvatore's
  525 W. Arlington Pl.
  Chicago, IL 60614
  

  The Experts in Mystery Entertainment are now performing live public and private interactive murder mystery dinner shows in Chicago and surrounding areas throughout Illinois. Join us for a night of intrigue, deception, and delicious food in this comedic thriller!

• The Neo-Futurists' Remember the Alamo

  Neo-Futurist Theater
  5153 N. Ashland Ave., 2nd fl.
  Chicago, IL 60640
  

  Continuing their 30th Anniversary Season, The Neo-Futurists present the world premiere mainstage production Remember the Alamo from March 4 to April 27, 2019 every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at The Neo-Futurist Theater. In this new show created by Neo-Futurist Ensemble Member Nick Hart and directed by Artistic Director Kurt Chiang, an ensemble takes over The Neo-Futurist Theater, refuses to leave and obstructs all production in the theater until the audience and actors work to recreate the Battle of the Alamo in its entirety—through the inevitable "death" of the audience. Hart assumes the role of William B. Travis, chief commander of the Texas army at the Alamo, with the audience as his faithful and willing soldiers during the siege. Remember the Alamo expands on the grand American traditional of historical reenactment with the meta-theatrical style, honest narratives and personal takes that have defined The Neo-Futurists for 30 years.

• Small World

  The Den Theatre
  1331 N. Milwaukee Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60622
  

  The New Colony presents the world premiere of SMALL WORLD. It’s the end of the world…maybe? There’s no way to confirm for three cast members trapped inside their attraction at the happiest place on earth. The music won’t stop, there’s a body in the moat and one of the group is impaled under a smiling animatronic. Can they force their way off the ride? And what waits for them on the other side? It’s a world of hopes, it’s a world of fears. It’s a small world, after all.

• Two Days in Court

  City Lit Theater Company
  1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60660
  

  A double-bill of two acts. In THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, adapted for the stage by Stephen Vincent Benet from his 1936 short story, a New Hampshire farmer sells his soul to the Devil and when he seeks to get out of the deal is defended in “court” by Daniel Webster, a fictional version of the famous statesman, lawyer, and orator.. TRIAL BY JURY a 30-minute comic opera, was Gilbert & Sullivan’s first hit, leading to a career for their partnership that produced the classics THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, HMS PINAFORE, THE MIKADO and many others. Come for the greatest orator of early America arguing contract law with Satan, stay for the riotous musical farce with a plot too ridiculous to summarize.

• Dein Perry’s Tap Dogs

  James M. Nederlander Theatre
  24 W. Randolph St.
  Chicago, IL 60601
  

  This is not just tap. Experience high voltage, rugged, raw talent in the tap dance phenomenon which has taken the world by storm.

  Dein Perry’s TAP DOGS returns to the stage with its trademark blend of live music and tap dance as you’ve never seen before. The New York Observer called it “positively electrifying.”

  Part theatre, part dance, part rock concert and part construction site, the show is crammed with high-energy dance, theatrical performance, and music performed by the cast and live musicians in this unstoppable spectacular. Whether in water, upside-down or jumping through scaffolding, the Tap Dogs have been performing to the beat of their own drum for over 20 years.

• Yan Duyvendak and Omar Ghayatt: Still in Paradise

  Museum of Contemporary Art
  220 E. Chicago Ave
  Chicago, IL 60611
  

  Still in Paradise by Yan Duyvendak and Omar Ghayatt—the prologue to Made in Paradise (2008)—was conceived in the swelling tide since 9/11 in which the Arab world as a whole has become suspect and, for many Westerners, neoliberal values are the only guarantee of a functioning society.

  Ghayatt, who is from Egypt and resides in Bern, envisioned his works with Duyvendak, who is from the Netherlands, to stage their encounters, their doubts, and their differences through a series of scenes that audiences vote for each night. Shared space, time, and dialogue gradually undo preconceived cultural and ideological notions that feed fear and negation.

  Still in Paradise is a show of the history of their project itself that reflects, in its own small way, history at large. Since the end of the Arab Spring, nations have degenerated into either stifling dictatorship or war and disintegration. Europe seems to answer only with fear and the erecting of both inner and outer barriers. Unlike its fragments, Still in Paradise’s finale cannot be voted for; it is imposed.

  Copresented with the Chicago Humanities Festival

• The Bridges of Madison County

  Howard Street Theatre
  721 Howard St.
  Evanston, IL 60202
  

  A musical based on the novel by Robert James Waller. Francesca Johnson, a beautiful Italian woman who married an American soldier to flee war-ravaged Italy, looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm when her family heads to the 1965 State Fair. When a ruggedly handsome NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC photographer, Robert Kincaid, pulls into her driveway seeking directions, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca's life.

• Bye Bye Liver: The Chicago Drinking Play

  Stage 773
  1225 W. Belmont Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60657
  

  2 Parts Comedy, 1 Part Drinking Game, it's the show that blends Chicago's two favorite past times...drinking and laughing. Now in it's 10th Year!
  Whether it’s the girl that should never, ever drink liquor, that one guy that confuses courage with shots of Jameson, or a boozy time-traveller shooting down a bad date in every century, we’ve all known them…or been them. This is the hilarious romp that satirizes all of those fun times and f*ck ups we’ve all had when we had just one too many. Interspersed with hilarious, interactive drinking games, you’ll laugh until you cry at “Bye Bye Liver: The Chicago Drinking Play.”

• Pinocchio

  The Chopin Theatre upstairs theatre
  1543 W. Division
  Chicago, IL 60642
  

  The House brings to life this tall tale about telling the truth. Carved from an enchanted stump in a charred forest, toyshop owner Geppeto's small puppet child flourishes. The growing Pinocchio devours books and the complex worlds they reveal. He relishes musicals and the emotional ride they offer. And he longs to sink his adolescent teeth into real relationships and conversations beyond the walls of his storefront home. But his protective father keeps Pinocchio's wild branches trimmed back, and forbids venturing out. A method sure to inspire rebellion in this precocious, curious not-quite-real young man.

• The Mushroom Cure

  Greenhouse Theater Center
  2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60614
  

  The Greenhouse Theater Center, in association with The Marsh, is pleased to present the Chicago premiere of the off-Broadway hit THE MUSHROOM CURE, the true story of one man's attempt to treat his severe OCD with psychedelics.

  Inspired by a scientific study showing that hallucinogenic mushrooms may cure obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Adam Strauss embarked on a program of vigilante psychopharmacology. The true tale of Strauss’ hilarious, harrowing and heartrending attempts to treat his debilitating OCD with psychedelics, THE MUSHROOM CURE was named a Critics’ Pick by Time Out New York, which praised it as “riveting… true-life tour de force” and hailed by The New York Times as “mining a great deal of laughter from disabling pain.”

• Hannah and Martin

  Theater Wit
  1229 W. Belmont Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60657
  

  Shattered Globe Theatre presents Kate Fodor’s drama HANNAH AND MARTIN, directed by Louis Contey.

  Based on the tumultuous love affair between German-Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt and her mentor, the celebrated German philosopher Martin Heidegger, this emotionally intense drama focuses on the crisis that erupts when Arendt discovers that her former teacher is using his brilliance and fame to help further the goals of the Nazi Party. HANNAH AND MARTIN is a provocative exploration into the activity of thinking and its relation to passion, love, and politics

• Magic & Mystery

  The Den Theatre
  1331 N. Milwaukee Avenue
  Chicago, IL 60622
  

  Experience a miraculous world of magic, mind reading, and hypnosis from world class ‘Astonishment Artist’ Mat LaVore.

  Is it possible to change someone's memories? Read minds? Predict the future? Magic & Mystery showcases 90-minutes of the most spellbinding and revolutionary magic and hypnosis ever performed on stage.

  Witness LaVore swallow needles, hypnotize people to forget their own names, and even predict the future in this amazing showcase of mystery arts that is guaranteed to leave even the most discerning audiences astonished.

• A Chorus Line

  Ruth Page Center for the Arts
  1016 N. Dearborn St.,
  Chicago, IL 60610
  

  Winner of nine Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, this landmark work has electrified audiences around the world. In an empty theatre, on a bare stage, casting for a new Broadway musical is almost complete. For seventeen dancers, this audition is the chance of a lifetime. It’s what they’ve worked for with every drop of sweat and every hour or training, putting their lives on the line for the opportunity to do what they’ve always dreamed of doing: to dance. This singular sensation features an incomparable score including “What I Did for Love,” “One” and “Dance Ten, Looks Three.”

• The Second City After Hours: A Late Night Improv Show

  The Second City
  230 W. North Ave.
  Chicago, IL 60614
  

  Stay up late with The Second City as we bring you our latest and greatest. It’s interactive. It’s hyperactive. It’s the most fun you’ve had past bedtime. Come see an entirely improvised, entirely ridiculous 60 minutes that’ll leave you with a full-fledged comedy hangover. Suggested Rating: R