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Trojan Women Zimmerman originally planned to use her slot in the Goodman’s small Owen Theatre to remount (for the fourth time) The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Her decision to substitute Seneca is a good one. For one thing the play isn’t nearly as well known as Euripides’ tragedy of the same name, and though Seneca greatly influenced many Elizabethan playwrights, his work is seldom performed. But the academic interest of the play–translated here by David Slavitt, who also translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses for Zimmerman’s Tony-winning production last year–is superseded by its resonance with current events....

The seventh annual Asian American Showcase, presented by the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media and the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, runs Friday, April 5, through Sunday, April 14. Screenings will be at the Film Center, 164 N. State. Tickets are $8, $4 for Film Center members; for more information call 312-846-2600. Films marked with an * are highly recommended. Better Luck Tomorrow...

“I’m a sucker for romantic stuff–dark romantic,” says Breakbone DanceCo. artistic director Atalee Judy. You can tell. Her new 75-minute piece, One, is set in a castle and features maidens in bloodred corset tops and long skirts. What’s fascinating is not the melodramatic conceit, however, but Judy’s invention: she carves up the cavernous second floor of the Hamlin Park field house, giving each solo or duet its own space, and uses video projections to set the scenes and augment the points she wants to make....

16 FRIDAY “Contrary to what the FDA and Monsanto say, genetically engineered milk is an entirely different product from natural milk,” says Dr. Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition (and emeritus professor of environmental medicine at UIC). He says research has proven that drinking milk from cows treated with rBGH increases the risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancer and that it can be linked to the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics in the general population....

One can only imagine what Frank Loesser (composer of Guys and Dolls, among other works) was thinking when he penned the lyric to “That Sentimental Sandwich.” Get something written by lunch, most likely, although “I’m hungry for something but it seems so far away / That sentimental sandwich that we shared one day” may speak to some deeper emotion. Justin Hayford, who will sing it at Davenport’s Piano Bar and Cabaret the first four Saturdays in March, says, “There are always a few songs [in the show]…that I throw in because they’re so delightfully terrible....

On most of his own recordings, versatile Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez attempts to connect traditions from Latin America, Africa, and Spain within a jazz context. Though consistently interesting, this process hasn’t always resulted in his best work. His last album, Motherland (Verve, 2000), performed by a diverse cast of 17, sounded overstuffed, as if Perez hoped to cram a single disc full of every idea he’s had about the way music mutates when influenced by new cultures....

Ask an artist to describe the creative process and you’ll likely get a blank, if not downright hostile, stare. Press the point and you might get a dull recitation of technical details or a tortuous explanation of what the work is supposed to make you think or feel–the kind of thing that’s often dubbed an artist’s statement. But sometimes, if you ask the question right, you can catch a glimpse of what was really in an artist’s head....

GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER, Steep Theatre Company, at Profiles Theatre. Sam Shepard’s 1974 play about gangsters, gamblers, and the corruption of the Wild West receives an uneven revival under the direction of Sergi Bosch. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » An occasionally amusing if dated parable about the freedom due artistic genius and its co-option by capitalistic greed, the piece is rife with opportunities for scenery chewing....

J.D. Crowe was just 15 when joined up with bluegrass great Jimmy Martin in 1954, but now he’s a legend in his own right–a bandleader and banjo master who’s justly revered as a keeper of the tradition and who’s brought along such important players as Doyle Lawson, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, and Jerry Douglas. But he’s also done plenty to challenge the conventions bluegrass holds sacred, as you can hear on My Home Ain’t in the Hall of Fame, an album Crowe cut back in 1979 with a young singer named Keith Whitley, reissued last month on Rounder....

Just Rewards Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In the case of Bronzeville’s Metropolitan Community Church, at 41st and King Drive, it also took a 72-year-old woman with a can of pepper spray. Church members were shocked two years ago to learn that their pastor was planning to demolish the Romanesque building, erected in 1889, and replace it with a modern structure. They were particularly surprised since they’d raised more than $150,000 for renovations, the building was structurally sound, and it had been the site of historic speeches and events, including the founding of the Pullman porters’ union....

For the past few weeks preservationists have been frantically working the phones, trying to raise the estimated $5 million it will take to buy the Farnsworth House at a December 12 auction. They say it’s one of the preservation movement’s finest hours, with hundreds of citizens signing up to protect one of Illinois’ most valued architectural jewels. “The support’s been encouraging,” says David Bahlman, executive director of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, one of the advocacy groups leading the fund-raising charge....

The Curious Theatre Branch’s 15th annual showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music from Chicago’s fringe runs through 11/20 at the Curious Theatre Branch, 7001 N. Glenwood. Admission is $12 or “pay what you can”; for information and reservations, call 773-274-6660. It’s not easy to negotiate the subject of motherhood–to chart a course between the Scylla of sentimentality and the Charybdis of gleeful attack. Veteran solo artist Jenny Magnus makes the attempt in Cant, a 45-minute monologue (with songs)....

I am a 28-year-old straight female with a great boyfriend. I want to share all my fucked-up fantasies with him–and I have, so far, except for one. I have these bizarre fantasies about him overindulging in really bad food and gaining weight. I am not a chubby chaser–if he got fat I would not be attracted to him. But whenever he complains about gaining weight or tells me he was “a total pig today,” I’m outrageously turned on....

The Cubs came home to the Friendly Confines two weeks ago down in third place in the NL Central after two costly losses in Saint Louis. They were only a game and a half out of first, but the fans were too mellow to be a crowd that gave the Cubs a serious shot at the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong–they were delighted to arrive at a game they’d bought tickets to months before and find their team still in contention....

Rock, Pop, etc. BRAN (. . .) POS, COMPOMICRO-DEXALL, ILLUSION OF SAFETY, COEURL, VERTONEN See Critic’s Choice. Sat 7/6, 9 PM, Deadtech, 3321 W. Fullerton. 773-395-2844. JOAN CURTO Free concert. Sun 7/7, 2 PM, Louis Lerner Auditorium, Conrad Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N. Lincoln. 312-744-7616. CLAUDIA HAMILL in a free concert celebrating Bastille Day. Fri 7/12, 1 PM, Chicago WaterWorks Visitor Center, 163 E. Pearson. 312-744-6630 or 877-244-2246. KORN, PUDDLE OF MUDD, DEADSY Fri 7/5, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, 6920 Mannheim, Rosemont....

“The Battle for Hearts and Minds” is the theme of the University of Chicago’s 23nd annual series of lectures, discussions, and performances by faculty and staff. The program takes place on Saturday, October 26; it’s free and open to the public, but registration is required (limited registration will be available on-site on the day of the open house at 8 AM at Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th). Events are held at these campus locations: Biological Sciences Learning Center, 924 E....

Any new musical that can boast “lyrics by Dorothy Parker” is off to a running start. At the time of her death in 1967, Parker–the only original female member of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table’s “vicious circle”–left a treasure trove of light verse, much of it first published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker. With its bouncy rhythms and cleverly rhymed couplets, this material is well suited to the classic American show-tune style, as composer Norman Mathews proves in You Might as Well Live, one of eight works in progress being showcased in “Stages 2003....

Lurking at the far edge of a tony shopping district west of La Brea Avenue, the office building at 8060 West Melrose was an eyesore of gray brick and yellowing white tile. Its interior was drab and airless, smelling curiously like a dentist’s office, with a collection of dead and dying floor plants holding court in the lobby. Sandra Delgado, a 27-year-old Chicago actress with impressive stage credentials, took the elevator up to the fourth floor, head shot and resume in hand....

In a country mired in . . . steeped in . . . no–burdened by history, Bernd Willenbrock lives in the present. He concerns himself with buying and selling used cars, getting women to sleep with him, and keeping up a companionable if superficial connection with his wife. But over the course of Christoph Hein’s latest novel, his title character learns that if you live in Berlin in the unified Germany, and come from East Germany, and sell cars to eastern Europeans, and find out that a former colleague spied on you–it’s pretty darn hard to escape the past....

The title of this 64-minute video by Guy Maddin (Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary) refers to its having been commissioned as a gallery installation for the Rotterdam film festival, to be watched through a succession of arcade-style peep-show machines. Screening here as a self-contained work, it seems like Maddin’s most personal project yet: the hero is a hockey player named Guy Maddin; his mother, like Maddin’s, runs a beauty salon; and Maddin even casts some of his own family members....