OCTOBER
David Nelson’s controversial 1988 painting Mirth & Girth, which depicted the late Harold Washington in women’s lingerie, won’t be on display at the Chicago Histor-ical Society today, but just about anything else you can think of related to Chicago’s first black mayor will be. The new exhibit, Harold Washington: The Man and the Movement, includes, among other things, a recreation of Washington’s Hyde Park apartment, a desk used by him during his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the 1,245-page stack of petitions he submitted to the city clerk’s office to get on the ballot in 1982, and a wall of 500-odd campaign buttons–both official and homemade–whose messages range from “Honkies for Harold” to “Bigots for Bernie.” The exhibit runs through May 31, 2004, at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark. There’ll be a free opening celebration today from 10 to 2 that includes readings of Washington’s speeches plus live theater, music, and dance. Call 312-642-4600 for more. i A $300,000 donation from the Village of Rosemont last winter provided the seed money for the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra. In the nine months since, conductor Lloyd Butler has put together an 80-piece group of Chicago-based professional musicians and developed a five-program inaugural season. For tonight’s kickoff concert, What a Movie! What a Show!, vocalist Karen Mason and the Chicago Children’s Choir will join the orchestra to perform movie music by everyone from Gershwin to John Williams. It starts at 8 at the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Rd. in Rosemont. Tickets range from $30 to $60 and can be purchased in person at the theater box office (847-671-5100) or through Ticketmaster (312-559-1212).
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“Feminine writing is a place which is not economically or politically indebted to all the vileness and compromise; that is not obliged to reproduce the system. That is writing.” French philosopher and literary critic Helene Cixous is perhaps best known for the concept of l’ecriture feminine, but she’s also a novelist and a playwright; her 1999 play Tambours sur la digue (“Drums on the Dyke”) was developed in conjunction with Europe’s radical Theatre du Soleil. Based on a 15th-century Chinese folktale and performed by actors dressed as Japanese Bunraku puppets and puppeteers, the piece addresses the class conflict that results when a river threatens to flood the surrounding villages. Filmed excerpts from the stage production–which was described as “visually stunning” by New York magazine in 2000–will be screened tonight at 6 as part of a program that includes an introduction to Theatre du Soleil by Northwestern University theater professor Craig Kinzer and a discussion with Cixous and actress Myriam Azencot. It’s at the university’s Annie May Swift Auditorium, 1920 Campus Dr. in Evanston. On Tuesday, October 7, at 6 PM, Cixous will give a lecture called “The Book I Do Not Write: Discovering the Interior Stage–Books and Plays at War With the Author” at the McCormick Tribune Center, 1870 Campus Dr. in Evanston. She’ll give a second talk (also at 6) on Thursday, October 9, titled “Evening at the Corner of the Two Worlds: A Chronicle of Creation With the Theatre du Soleil” in Lincoln Hall at Northwestern’s School of Law, 357 E. Chicago in Chicago. All events are free. For more information see www.communication.northwestern.edu or call 847-491-5490.
9 THURSDAY
