Friday 12/7 – Thursday 12/13
Tonight at 7:30 the Wicker Park Anti-War Committee hosts a benefit performance and open mike with local poets, musicians, writers, and others to further the group’s three-pronged mission: stopping the war in Afghanistan, preventing attacks on Arab-Americans, and defending civil liberties in the homeland. It’s at Center Portion, an “artists’ resource space” at 28501/2 W. Fullerton; a $5 donation is requested, and refreshments will be provided. Call 773-227-7316 for more.
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11 TUESDAY Charles Dickens acted out his novels as he wrote them, and he also performed a wildly popular stage show that often concluded with his rendition of the murder scene from Oliver Twist–after which he had to be carried offstage. “It was some sort of psychodrama, a cathartic event,” is how veteran British stage actor Simon Callow recently explained it to Chicago magazine. Callow portrays Dickens–a depressive genius who disliked his parents, cheated on his wife, and neglected his children–in the one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens, which was written by Dickens scholar Peter Ackroyd. Like Dickens’s own show, it knocked ’em dead in London. Callow performs tonight at 7:30 (the show runs through December 23) at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E. Grand (312-595-5600). Tickets are $40.
