Friday 5/3 – Thursday 5/9
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Who’s that girl? Between acts at the seventh annual benefit for the Howard Brown Health Center–which bills itself as “an outrageously seductive evening with Chicago’s most innovative and talented female impersonators”–organizers will auction off a drag makeover; the lucky winner will be whisked backstage to get dolled up by the pros, then appear with the rest of the girls in the final production number. The Brown center provides health care to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and operates the Brown Elephant resale shops. The event will also include a raffle featuring prizes like a trip to Fire Island and a Halsted Street shopping spree. The show runs both tonight and tomorrow, May 4, at the Park West, 322 W. Armitage. Doors open at 7; the action starts an hour later. Tickets range from $40 to $100 and can be purchased at Unabridged Bookstore, 3251 N. Broadway; the Suntan Club, 5353 N. Clark; Borderline Records, 3333 N. Broadway; or by calling 773-388-8997. Raffle tickets are $5 each or $25 for six.
It’s kind of weird, I guess, but one of my first crushes was on primatologist and activist Jane Goodall, inspired by her 1971 book In the Shadow of Man. Goodall, recently appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace, will talk about the Jane Goodall Institute’s environmental and humanitarian programs today at 1 and 2 PM at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Dr. She’ll sign copies of her new book, Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart, at 2:30 PM. It’s free with museum admission, which is $7 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and $4 for kids ages 3 to 12 (Chicago residents get a $1 discount). Advance tickets are available on-line at www.museumtix.com; call 773-755-5100 for more.
7 TUESDAY Tibetan nuns Choeying Kunsang and Pasang Lhamo were incarcerated by the Chinese government in 1994 and 1995, respectively, for “endangering state security.” They were both released in 1999, and will talk about their experiences today as part of an ongoing program on torture in the contemporary world hosted by the Evanston/Rogers Park chapter of Amnesty International. The nuns are on a U.S. tour to raise awareness of human rights abuses in Tibet. They’ll speak at 7 PM in Northwestern University’s Parkes Hall, room 122, at the southeast corner of Chicago and Sheridan in Evanston. Call 773-338-6020.
