Friday 10/17 – Thursday 10/23
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“It was kind of a no-brainer,” says artist and promoter Myke Adams about this weekend’s Camp CHGO festival of music, film, and art. “A lot of bands are going to be on tour and headed to New York for [the CMJ music conference] next week, and we decided to put together an event for bands that need a show in Chicago and could hang out here for the weekend.” A coproduction of the artist-run Fleet Collective and the online magazine Divine Nation (which launches November 15), Camp CHGO is loosely modeled after the defunct Independent Label Festival, which Adams helped program. It kicks off tonight at 7 at Transmission Gallery, 840 W. Washington, second floor. There’s a suggested donation of $5 and you must be 18 or older. It continues at different locations through Monday, October 20. K Records labelmates the Blow and VVRSSNN play Saturday and Sunday, respectively, en route to NYC. For more information see the Fairs & Festivals listings in Music, call 312-502-0198, or go to www.badonpurpose.com.
18 SATURDAY The relationship between Grant Wiggins, a burned-out schoolteacher in 1940s Louisiana, and Jefferson, the death row inmate he tries to counsel, is what got Edward Sobel interested in directing Steppenwolf’s production of Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. But when he discovered that the novel had been adapted for the stage by Romulus Linney–the Obie-winning playwright Sobel once studied under at the University of Pennsylvania–he was sold on the project. “Most of what I understand about how a play is put together comes from his classes,” Sobel explains. “It’s gratifying to be continuing that circle.” Linney will be on hand today for a free postshow discussion of the play, which opened last Saturday and runs today and Saturday, October 25, at 11 AM in the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted. Tickets are $10; call 312-335-1650.
20 MONDAY “They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down,” wrote Tim O’Brien in his 1990 Vietnam war tale, The Things They Carried. “It required perfect balance and perfect posture.” The book, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, is now the city’s pick for this year’s One Book, One Chicago program. Tonight at 6 a group of Vietnam-vet writers and scholars of Vietnam war literature will discuss it on a panel moderated by DePaul English professor James Fairhall in room 120 of the DePaul Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield; call 773-325-7840. O’Brien will give a free reading Thursday, October 30, at 6 at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State; call 312-747-1194.
