Friday 11/29 – Thursday 12/5
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
30 SATURDAY Dan Decker, founder of the Center for Script Development and author of the writing handbook Anatomy of a Screenplay, spent four years researching his first play, An Evening With Will Shakespeare. In addition to discovering that the Bard contracted syphilis at age 24–hence all those references to poxes on houses (“pox” being popular slang for the disease, which at the time was incurable)–he also claims to have figured out whom all those sonnets were written for and why. All is revealed in Decker’s one-man show (performed by Jason Grubbe and directed by Tom Lenane), which is set on Shakespeare’s 52nd birthday–the day he died. It opened last week and runs through December 22. Performances are daily at 8 PM (except Mondays) and Saturdays and Sundays at 3 at the Heartland Cafe’s Studio Theatre, 7006 N. Glenwood. Tickets are $20; call 773-665-9882.
DECEMBER
What North Central College history professor Anne Keating refers to as Chicago’s “American era” began not long after the Revolutionary War and took off in the 1830s and ’40s, after the Blackhawk War drove Native Americans out of the region and “people were moving in to stay,” building frame houses with windows and Greek revival features on the land around the confluence of the north and south branches of the Chicago River. She’ll discuss these dwellings, and North Central College history professor emeritus B. Pierre Lebeau will talk about those of the preceding “French era,” at tonight’s slide presentation From Checagou to Chicago: The Story of a Great Lakes Settlement. There’s a reception at 5:30 and the event starts at 6 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton (312-255-3510). Admission is $12 and includes refreshments.
