Marla Forbes grew up steeped in the operas that her mother, a trained singer, played at home. But for practical reasons, Anne Forbes discouraged her daughter from pursuing a career as a vocalist. Instead, with a Kellogg MBA in hand, Forbes spent five years at Towers Perrin, an international management consulting firm. Then came marriage, two babies, and a move to Highland Park, where she opted to be a stay-at-home mom....

Agamemnon 02 Lookingglass Theatre Company Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Staged with the utmost simplicity and earnestness in the intimate surroundings of the Syndicate, Agamemnon 02 never quite finds the horror at the heart of this epic tale of rape, revenge, and desolation. The four young actors in Cullen’s ensemble are passionate but not technically proficient enough to move smoothly between their roles or to bring out the shadings in Mee’s language....

First there’s the name. Kamys. Or, in the preferred form, KAMYS. Clipped, capped, and standing alone, like Liberace or Shostakovich. Then there’s the voice: all sax and drums and whiskey and smoke–a been-there-for-the-good-times croak that sounds as much like Janis Joplin as it does like Joe Cocker. And then there’s the music: the sacred works, the industrial rock, the irresistible bebop jazz, the lyrical Latin that won him a Jeff Award in ’98....

Like most violinists, Regina Carter started out playing classical music. But she grew up black in Detroit in the 60s, making it almost inevitable that she would also internalize the Motown sound, and she gravitated to jazz while studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. She’s since worked with artists as different as jazz pianist Kenny Barron, R & B star Mary J. Blige, and the chamber jazz group the String Trio of New York; in all cases, her appealing mix of street and satin has served her well....

On the Rye Coalition’s first two albums, they sound like a cross between Fugazi–particularly in the intense vocal style of Ralph Cuseglio–and the Jesus Lizard, but once you get past the din, there isn’t much else. On the brand-new On Top (Tiger Style), though, the Jersey boys have discovered classic rock, and that’s what seems to have saved them from the emo scrap heap. Engineer Steve Albini highlights the meaty, hard-charging guitars as they trace out the sort of ageless licks AC/DC have built a career on, and the fearsome rhythm section fires out a Bonham-esque wallop....

Sketchbook ‘One Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Sketchbook ‘One takes place at the Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western, with shows nightly at 8 PM from February 21 through March 3; each night features a different program of nine sketches. A closing-night marathon performance of all 16 entries will begin at 6 PM on Sunday, March 4; at this show, the sketches will be judged by a panel of dramaturgs, agents, casting directors, and other industry professionals as well as artists in various media....

The moment that convinced me the Bears were for real this season no doubt prompted many fans to abandon all reservations. It was, of course, the fake field goal against the Washington Redskins two Sundays ago, so beautifully designed and executed it plays again and again in the mind’s eye. Brian Urlacher, the young middle linebacker who has come to epitomize the Bears’ new can-do excellence, tipped the team’s hand by going in motion from left to right as Paul Edinger prepared a 46-yard field-goal attempt....

I mostly understand how cell phones work. What I don’t get is how my cell phone (or more precisely, my cell phone provider) knows where I am when I’m far from home–“roaming,” in cell-phone parlance. Is someone or something continually tracking my whereabouts, no matter where I am on the face of the earth? This thought manages to be comforting and scary at the same time. –Tony C., via the Internet...

There’s a Girl in My Hammerlock, Griffin Theatre Company. This awkwardly moralistic after-school special of a play is interesting for the feeling of abject dread it engenders rather than what it says about teenage savagery. The truest moments in William Massolia’s adaptation of Jerry Spinelli’s young-adult novel seem to unfold in slow motion, one excruciating moment after another–a pitch-perfect recapitulation of the junior high stew of fear and angst. But though There’s a Girl in My Hammerlock rages softly against the patriarchy, it offers some rather mixed messages about gender roles....

“Reason and Imagination” is the theme of the University of Chicago’s 24th annual humanities open house, a celebration of arts and letters consisting of lectures, discussions, and tours by faculty and staff. It takes place Saturday, October 25, and is free and open to the public. Registration is required (limited registration will be available on-site on Saturday at 8 AM at Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th). Events will be held at these campus locations: Bartlett Hall, 5640 S....

For four years a two-story metal shed covered much of Lorado Taft’s masterpiece Fountain of Time, the massive cast-concrete sculpture that’s occupied the west end of the Midway Plaisance in Hyde Park since 1922. But this fall the huge shed was finally torn down, and the public could see the results of the most extensive artwork renovation in the city’s history. Lorado Taft is known primarily for his monumental heroic sculptures....

The second annual edition of this showcase of sketch comedy, presented by Posin’ at the Bar, features more than 50 local and out-of-town ensembles–some well established, some new to the scene–representing a remarkable range of styles and viewpoints. The festival runs through January 25 at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont. Performances are Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 and 9 PM; Fridays-Saturdays at 7, 8, 9, and 10 PM; and Sundays at 4, 5:30, 7, and 8:30 PM....

DFA Compilation #2 (DFA) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » So it’s a little weird that the label’s bands come off so cynical about success. Their Williamsburg scenemates the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio are a few rungs higher on the music-biz ladder already and don’t seem to be sweating it. Maybe this don’t-give-a-fuck detachment is actually one of the team’s marketing strategies....

Julie Farstad: More More More! Farstad’s eight large doll paintings are the strongest pieces in her show at Zolla/Lieberman, which also includes 21 other works: smaller paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, an installation, and a sound piece. All eight depict the same baby doll, based on photographs Farstad took of it in many poses. The dolls enact little scenarios related to childhood or motherhood, many of them kinky or nasty, against backgrounds of solid colors: red, blue, purple, yellow....

The first Festival of Cinema for the Deaf continues Friday through Monday, March 1 through 4, at Pipers Alley, City North 14, and Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton. Some films are captioned; the other screenings will feature interpreters of both spoken English and American Sign Language. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $5. For more information call 847-922-0767. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Short videos, program two...

Shadow’s Child Melissa Thodos & Dancers Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Urban Bush Women previewed Shadow’s Child, a collaboration with the National Company of Song and Dance of Mozambique commissioned in part by the Dance Center of Columbia College. This story dance follows Xiomara, who finds herself on the outside looking in when her family moves from southeastern Africa to the southeastern United States....

Claudia Gonson is the not-so-secret weapon of Stephin Merritt’s songwriting empire. She’s Merritt’s manager, as well as the pianist and occasional vocalist in the Magnetic Fields; in the latter role she’s responsible for some of the most moving moments on the band’s epic 1999 set 69 Love Songs. So it’s about time she got to sing an entire disc herself. On the new Eternal Youth (Merge), the Future Bible Heroes’ second album, Gonson and Merritt’s trio with programmer Christopher Ewen, her sweet deadpan voice floats atop Ewen’s cheesy drum-machine beats and twinkling synths in a fond simulacrum of 80s synth pop at its most deliciously artificial: “Doris Daytheearthstoodstill” recalls Book of Love’s “I Touch Roses....

Angela Willcocks: Walldrawings Our culture is preoccupied with objects and their consumption. Possessing things, we’re told, enhances the self–and advertising images offer the kind of instantly apparent “perfection” that invites ownership. Artists opposing this ethos often create notably “imperfect” works, seeking to disturb rather than satisfy. And with their references to internal organs, Angela Willcocks’s nine creepy installations at Artemisia almost literally get under one’s skin. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

In adapting Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books for young audiences, Edward Mast transposes the action from a rain forest to a modern city. Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther thus become denizens of an urban jungle where only harsh tribal justice prevents complete mayhem. It’s one thing for wild animals to argue over a kill, but when city folks do it you know you’re in a rough neighborhood. Adam D....

Artistic director Molly Shanahan sometimes seems a mad scientist, testing the fiendish products of her imagination on the stage. For her new evening-length piece, The Waiting Room (and Everything After), she created four sections of 15 to 20 minutes each–a solo, a duet, a trio, and a quartet–three of which will be performed each night (except for the last, which will include all four) in a different order. The visual and aural backdrops will remain the same: a video Shanahan shot of the dancers plus other footage–the grid of a window screen, tulips in her yard–and Kevin O’Donnell’s score, in which a piano is played the usual way as well as by striking various objects against its guts....