What’s New

Free Street Theater joins up with Plant Chicago for a winter market and storytelling event at Plant Chicago’s building (4459 S. Marshfield). From 11 AM-3 PM, you can enjoy stories (1-2 PM), songs from Orcas Are Dolphins (playing 11:30 AM-1 PM), a clothing swap, and the chance to purchase wares from local vendors, including Zeitlin’s Delicatessen, Soap Junkii, Bee-utiful Honey, Little Mama’s Cookies, and more. Free, but you can reserve a spot through Eventbrite. (KR)

Over the next few weekends there will be no shortage of holiday art markets. This weekend I’ve got my eye on two: one at the collectively-run avant-garde art space Happy Gallery (902 N. California) and another at emerging all-purpose artsy event space Color Club (4146 N. Elston). The former will run from noon-5 PM today and feature a slate of funky and fun handmade items. The latter, organized by Vintage House Chicago, will run from noon-5 PM today and tomorrow at Color Club and includes 25 vendors selling vintage and one of a kind wares. Between the two, you’re sure to get a lot of your shopping list taken care of! (MC)

Black Ensemble Theater (4450 N. Clark) offers musical celebration year-round, but they’re going all in for the holidays with Joy to the World, written and directed by founder and CEO Jackie Taylor and featuring a lineup of BET favorites, including Robin DaSilva, Rhonda Preston, Lyle Miller, Dwight Neal, Colleen Perry, and Aaron Reese Boseman. It runs today at 3 and 7 PM, with additional performances tomorrow at 3 PM and next weekend (Sat 3 and 7 PM and Sun 3 PM). Tickets are $51.50-$56.50 including fees, and can be purchased at 773-769-4451 or blackensembletheater.org. (KR)

If you’ve been following the work of Reader social justice reporter Debbie-Marie Brown, you’ve probably caught their recent profile on space disco DJ Zeetus Lapetus and their article on gods closet, the monthly clothing pop-up that provides free clothing and a safe space for gender expression. At 6:30 PM, Zeetus Lapetus and gods closet founder Wing Yun Schreiber will join filmmaker and performance artist Issy Hung for a panel titled “How Personal Style Heals and Connects.” This program is hosted at Jude Gallery (629 W. Cermak, Suite 240) and is organized by the Land of Arden, an experimental boutique clothing store project and self-described “fantasy land where queer bodies dress in queer cloth.” Any and every person who’s interested in fashion, embodiment, and self care should attend! (MC)

Jesse Sandwich, DJ booker at the California Clipper and our latest Chicagoan of Note, is having a birthday party! Celebrate Sandwich’s 42 years of surfing soundwaves and cosmic vibrations with a get-down at the California Clipper (1002 N. California) featuring Greg D and Noleian Reusse. Get your dancing shoes on by 9 PM, and while there’s no cover, you must be 21 or older to get in on the action. (MC)

If you’re looking for a late night laugh, iO Theater (1501 N. Kingsbury) is back in business. Tonight you can catch The Improvised Movie, a longform narrative show presented by Take Two. The improvisors create two 30-minute movies based on audience suggestions; and during this season are working in the holiday movie genre. If you’ve been looking for a send-up of your favorite Hallmark classic tale of “overworked single newspaper editor inherits small Vermont town from previously unknown uncle who was famous for his Elf on a Shelf imitation,” um, err, or something like that, hit iO to join the fun. Tonight’s show starts at 10:30 PM; the last two shows for the run happen Sat 12/17 at 10:30 PM and Sat 12/31 at 8 PM. Tickets for all three dates are available at See Tickets. (SCJ)

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Free Street Theater joins up with Plant Chicago for a winter market and storytelling event at Plant Chicago’s building (4459 S. Marshfield). From 11 AM-3 PM, you can enjoy stories (1-2 PM), songs from Orcas Are Dolphins (playing 11:30 AM-1 PM), a clothing swap, and the chance to purchase wares from local vendors, including Zeitlin’s Delicatessen, Soap Junkii, Bee-utiful Honey, Little Mama’s Cookies, and more. Free, but you can reserve a spot through Eventbrite. (KR)

Over the next few weekends there will be no shortage of holiday art markets. This weekend I’ve got my eye on two: one at the collectively-run avant-garde art space Happy Gallery (902 N. California) and another at emerging all-purpose artsy event space Color Club (4146 N. Elston). The former will run from noon-5 PM today and feature a slate of funky and fun handmade items. The latter, organized by Vintage House Chicago, will run from noon-5 PM today and tomorrow at Color Club and includes 25 vendors selling vintage and one of a kind wares. Between the two, you’re sure to get a lot of your shopping list taken care of! (MC)

Black Ensemble Theater (4450 N. Clark) offers musical celebration year-round, but they’re going all in for the holidays with Joy to the World, written and directed by founder and CEO Jackie Taylor and featuring a lineup of BET favorites, including Robin DaSilva, Rhonda Preston, Lyle Miller, Dwight Neal, Colleen Perry, and Aaron Reese Boseman. It runs today at 3 and 7 PM, with additional performances tomorrow at 3 PM and next weekend (Sat 3 and 7 PM and Sun 3 PM). Tickets are $51.50-$56.50 including fees, and can be purchased at 773-769-4451 or blackensembletheater.org. (KR)

If you’ve been following the work of Reader social justice reporter Debbie-Marie Brown, you’ve probably caught their recent profile on space disco DJ Zeetus Lapetus and their article on gods closet, the monthly clothing pop-up that provides free clothing and a safe space for gender expression. At 6:30 PM, Zeetus Lapetus and gods closet founder Wing Yun Schreiber will join filmmaker and performance artist Issy Hung for a panel titled “How Personal Style Heals and Connects.” This program is hosted at Jude Gallery (629 W. Cermak, Suite 240) and is organized by the Land of Arden, an experimental boutique clothing store project and self-described “fantasy land where queer bodies dress in queer cloth.” Any and every person who’s interested in fashion, embodiment, and self care should attend! (MC)

Jesse Sandwich, DJ booker at the California Clipper and our latest Chicagoan of Note, is having a birthday party! Celebrate Sandwich’s 42 years of surfing soundwaves and cosmic vibrations with a get-down at the California Clipper (1002 N. California) featuring Greg D and Noleian Reusse. Get your dancing shoes on by 9 PM, and while there’s no cover, you must be 21 or older to get in on the action. (MC)

If you’re looking for a late night laugh, iO Theater (1501 N. Kingsbury) is back in business. Tonight you can catch The Improvised Movie, a longform narrative show presented by Take Two. The improvisors create two 30-minute movies based on audience suggestions; and during this season are working in the holiday movie genre. If you’ve been looking for a send-up of your favorite Hallmark classic tale of “overworked single newspaper editor inherits small Vermont town from previously unknown uncle who was famous for his Elf on a Shelf imitation,” um, err, or something like that, hit iO to join the fun. Tonight’s show starts at 10:30 PM; the last two shows for the run happen Sat 12/17 at 10:30 PM and Sat 12/31 at 8 PM. Tickets for all three dates are available at See Tickets. (SCJ)

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Miley Serious Credit: Courtesy Bright Lights Big City

For one night only, catch a special screening of the I Didn’t See You There (2022)in the presence of director Reid Davenport. The award-winning disabled documentarian will attend the 6 PM screening of his film tonight at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State) and participate in a discussion moderated by disabled artist Reveca Torres. I Didn’t See You There considers the legacy of P.T. Barnum’s “Freak Show” and how it intertwined with ableism, shot mostly from Davenport’s POV in an electric wheelchair. Tickets are $12, or half off for Film Center members. (TA)

If you prefer classic holiday films over the cheesy Hallmark rom-coms (or maybe you have range and love both! See Reader contributor Marah Eakin’s article about the local film industry producing the latter here), you won’t want to miss the 39th Annual Music Box Christmas Sing-A-Long & Double Feature. Today marks the opening of the film series at the theatre (3733 N. Southport). Santa will welcome you into the lobby, resident organist Dennis Scott will lead you in a Christmas carol sing-along, and you can enjoy 1954’s White Christmas (9:45 PM), 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life (6:15 PM), or both as a double feature. Single films are $14 ($12 for members) and double feature tickets are $21 ($19 for members), with discounted tickets for kids under 13. See the Music Box website to purchase advance tickets and for screening times for both films on dates through 12/24. (TA)

A made-in-Chicago seasonal favorite, The Christmas Schooner hasn’t set sail locally in a few years. Beverly Arts Center (2407 W. 111th St.) brings it back for a short run continuing tonight at 7:30 PM, Sat 12/10 at 2 and 7:30 PM, and Sun 12/11 at 2 PM. John Reeger and Julie Shannon’s musical is based on the true story of the Rouse Simmons, or “the Christmas Tree ship,” an early 20th-century vessel that brought evergreens from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Chicago for German immigrants homesick for their tannenbaums (until it sank in a winter storm in 1912). It first premiered with now-defunct Bailiwick Repertory in 1995 and has been seen periodically since then at theaters around town, including Mercury Theater Chicago. Tickets for the BAC production are $40 at 773-445-3838 or thebeverlyartscenter.com. (KR)

Theatermaker, vocalist, and composer Nia Witherspoon presents her latest piece, Priestess of Twerk, as a work in progress tonight at 8 PM at Links Hall (3111 N. Western) and in two separate events tomorrow. Tonight’s event is subtitled “An Intergalactic Ritual-Concert,” and promises to be “a participatory evening of invocations, conversations, conscious trap, sacred twerk, and spirit-filled song.” (ASL interpretation is provided.) Tickets for the concert are $10-$40. Tomorrow’s events are billed as the “Sunset Temple Experience” (3-7 PM) and “Night Temple Experience” (9 PM-1 AM). These are focused on Black femme healing rituals and are limited to ten participants each, with tickets $12. Witherspoon, a recipient of a National Theater Project award from the New England Foundation for the Arts, found inspiration for this work in the “bad bitches” of hip-hop, as well as those working for reproductive justice and the “sacred sex workers that graced ancient Egyptian temples.” Information and reservations at linkshall.org. (KR)

If I was forced to pick a singularly memorable night of dance music in 2021 (perish the thought!), it’d have to be when Miley Serious played Debonair Social Club. The renowned French DJ had been slated for a Chicago debut at an underground rave pre-pandemic, but the cops shut the party down before she was able to play. Then last December, party organizers Dark Heaven and Tropikal Solution brought her for an unforgettably sweaty, door-busting night at the Wicker Park bar. Now Tropikal Solution is bringing Miley back for a headlining set at Podlasie Club (2918 N. Central Park). Opening for her are Indiana’s Duck Trash, who’s been making some waves at the local raves, as well as mistress of the dark sounds and Tropikal Solution founder Kona FM. The party kicks off at 9 PM. Don’t forget: Podlasie is a cash-only bar, and you must be over 21! (MC)

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Miley Serious Credit: Courtesy Bright Lights Big City

For one night only, catch a special screening of the I Didn’t See You There (2022)in the presence of director Reid Davenport. The award-winning disabled documentarian will attend the 6 PM screening of his film tonight at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State) and participate in a discussion moderated by disabled artist Reveca Torres. I Didn’t See You There considers the legacy of P.T. Barnum’s “Freak Show” and how it intertwined with ableism, shot mostly from Davenport’s POV in an electric wheelchair. Tickets are $12, or half off for Film Center members. (TA)

If you prefer classic holiday films over the cheesy Hallmark rom-coms (or maybe you have range and love both! See Reader contributor Marah Eakin’s article about the local film industry producing the latter here), you won’t want to miss the 39th Annual Music Box Christmas Sing-A-Long & Double Feature. Today marks the opening of the film series at the theatre (3733 N. Southport). Santa will welcome you into the lobby, resident organist Dennis Scott will lead you in a Christmas carol sing-along, and you can enjoy 1954’s White Christmas (9:45 PM), 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life (6:15 PM), or both as a double feature. Single films are $14 ($12 for members) and double feature tickets are $21 ($19 for members), with discounted tickets for kids under 13. See the Music Box website to purchase advance tickets and for screening times for both films on dates through 12/24. (TA)

A made-in-Chicago seasonal favorite, The Christmas Schooner hasn’t set sail locally in a few years. Beverly Arts Center (2407 W. 111th St.) brings it back for a short run continuing tonight at 7:30 PM, Sat 12/10 at 2 and 7:30 PM, and Sun 12/11 at 2 PM. John Reeger and Julie Shannon’s musical is based on the true story of the Rouse Simmons, or “the Christmas Tree ship,” an early 20th-century vessel that brought evergreens from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Chicago for German immigrants homesick for their tannenbaums (until it sank in a winter storm in 1912). It first premiered with now-defunct Bailiwick Repertory in 1995 and has been seen periodically since then at theaters around town, including Mercury Theater Chicago. Tickets for the BAC production are $40 at 773-445-3838 or thebeverlyartscenter.com. (KR)

Theatermaker, vocalist, and composer Nia Witherspoon presents her latest piece, Priestess of Twerk, as a work in progress tonight at 8 PM at Links Hall (3111 N. Western) and in two separate events tomorrow. Tonight’s event is subtitled “An Intergalactic Ritual-Concert,” and promises to be “a participatory evening of invocations, conversations, conscious trap, sacred twerk, and spirit-filled song.” (ASL interpretation is provided.) Tickets for the concert are $10-$40. Tomorrow’s events are billed as the “Sunset Temple Experience” (3-7 PM) and “Night Temple Experience” (9 PM-1 AM). These are focused on Black femme healing rituals and are limited to ten participants each, with tickets $12. Witherspoon, a recipient of a National Theater Project award from the New England Foundation for the Arts, found inspiration for this work in the “bad bitches” of hip-hop, as well as those working for reproductive justice and the “sacred sex workers that graced ancient Egyptian temples.” Information and reservations at linkshall.org. (KR)

If I was forced to pick a singularly memorable night of dance music in 2021 (perish the thought!), it’d have to be when Miley Serious played Debonair Social Club. The renowned French DJ had been slated for a Chicago debut at an underground rave pre-pandemic, but the cops shut the party down before she was able to play. Then last December, party organizers Dark Heaven and Tropikal Solution brought her for an unforgettably sweaty, door-busting night at the Wicker Park bar. Now Tropikal Solution is bringing Miley back for a headlining set at Podlasie Club (2918 N. Central Park). Opening for her are Indiana’s Duck Trash, who’s been making some waves at the local raves, as well as mistress of the dark sounds and Tropikal Solution founder Kona FM. The party kicks off at 9 PM. Don’t forget: Podlasie is a cash-only bar, and you must be over 21! (MC)

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Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO is a haunting, tear-jerking epic about the futility and cruelty of modern life. The octogenarian director demonstrates how easily mundane existence can slip into either anguish or cheerfulness as we follow the title character through a tumultuous odyssey across the Polish countryside. And, yes, Eo is a donkey. But do not mistake EO for a fairytale, because Skolimowski abandons the fantastical depictions of animals in favor of a harsher reality that is, at the bottom line, undeniably authentic. Instead, EO reimagines the brutal absoluteness of Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. 

Skolimowski’s first film in seven years delivers a visionary commentary on the anxieties of permanence, memory, and hopelessness in modern life. But instead of a typically human, easily accessible narrative, Skolimowski chooses an unassuming, gentle, and watchful donkey to experience the multifaceted spectrum of life, adorning Eo with more personality than any Disney special. Eo stumbles into a tense soccer game, escapes from hunters, and even attends a party. In short, Eo lives a dynamic, exciting life before he faces an unsettlingly familiar fate. But most of all, Eo is innocent. 

EO is a tender film, filled with close-ups of our melancholic donkey, boiling over with emotion that might solely come from the audience. There is a depth to Eo’s eyes, but more than anything, there is room for projection. Eo is a donkey caught in a tumultuous sequence of violence, celebration, and regularity; most importantly, he is an animal Skolimowski compels us to see. And often, Skolimowski pans away as the story is consumed by these peripheral human vignettes. Suddenly, we wonder, where is our donkey? Eo’s innocence is irreducible and his story is honest. Skolimowski illustrates the inexplicable life of a donkey, a life frequently ignored, but in his courageous endeavor, his inventive and engrossing film strikes an emotional core and pulls viewers into Eo’s observant eyes. 86 min.

Gene Siskel Film Center

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In Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s hallucinatory trip to the land between life and death, Amazon is buying Baja California, and you can have a philosophical discussion with the conquistador Hernán Cortés atop a hillock of corpses. You meet your long-gone father in the bathroom of a large hall filled to capacity with your peers who want to give you an important prize and shrink down to the size of a boy while retaining middle-aged features. Your dead infant son keeps reappearing, often from between your wife’s legs, still very much alive.

These and dozens of other dream images are filmed in a seamless wide-screen format that fish-eyes toward its outer edges. They are what Silverio Gama, a stand-in for the director, sees in his last days after suffering a massive stroke on a subway train in LA. 

Whether you will be entranced, confused, or put off by Iñárritu’s latest deep dive into his own subconscious depends on whether you prefer your movies logical or lyrical, as well as how high your tolerance for unlikable and unrelatable protagonists is. Gama is a self-absorbed narcissist, and his visions are mostly self-serving, but I can’t deny their sweep and all-pervasive ambition. As long as you don’t think too long about some of the implications of what flashes past your eyeballs, this is a film to be dazzled by and lost in. In Spanish with subtitles. R, 159 min.

Netflix

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Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO is a haunting, tear-jerking epic about the futility and cruelty of modern life. The octogenarian director demonstrates how easily mundane existence can slip into either anguish or cheerfulness as we follow the title character through a tumultuous odyssey across the Polish countryside. And, yes, Eo is a donkey. But do not mistake EO for a fairytale, because Skolimowski abandons the fantastical depictions of animals in favor of a harsher reality that is, at the bottom line, undeniably authentic. Instead, EO reimagines the brutal absoluteness of Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. 

Skolimowski’s first film in seven years delivers a visionary commentary on the anxieties of permanence, memory, and hopelessness in modern life. But instead of a typically human, easily accessible narrative, Skolimowski chooses an unassuming, gentle, and watchful donkey to experience the multifaceted spectrum of life, adorning Eo with more personality than any Disney special. Eo stumbles into a tense soccer game, escapes from hunters, and even attends a party. In short, Eo lives a dynamic, exciting life before he faces an unsettlingly familiar fate. But most of all, Eo is innocent. 

EO is a tender film, filled with close-ups of our melancholic donkey, boiling over with emotion that might solely come from the audience. There is a depth to Eo’s eyes, but more than anything, there is room for projection. Eo is a donkey caught in a tumultuous sequence of violence, celebration, and regularity; most importantly, he is an animal Skolimowski compels us to see. And often, Skolimowski pans away as the story is consumed by these peripheral human vignettes. Suddenly, we wonder, where is our donkey? Eo’s innocence is irreducible and his story is honest. Skolimowski illustrates the inexplicable life of a donkey, a life frequently ignored, but in his courageous endeavor, his inventive and engrossing film strikes an emotional core and pulls viewers into Eo’s observant eyes. 86 min.

Gene Siskel Film Center

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West-side rapper Philmore Greene has been crafting a catalog of mature, unfussy boom-bap since he dropped his 2018 debut, Chicago: A Third World City. His new fourth full-length, Cost of Living (released by esteemed hip-hop indie Mello Music Group), builds on his established elements—relaxed, sample-based instrumentals and thoughtful ruminations about the systemic unfairness that has historically afflicted Black people (and the frustrating new ways it manifests itself thanks to modern technology). But the album also feels rejuvenated, as though Greene’s creativity has been reborn and he’s newly excited to be doing the same work. This is no doubt in part because he’s found a collaborator who can supersize his vision: veteran Detroit beat maker Apollo Brown, who’s also worked with established MCs such as Guilty Simpson, Skyzoo, and Ghostface Killah. The producer populates Cost of Living with tracks built from lightly dusty samples that accentuate the crispness in his understated percussion. This music has a self-consciously throwback feel, but as much as Greene shows his deference to hip-hop history, he doesn’t let it distract him from focusing his songs on the present. He’s an unflashy rapper who delivers frank descriptions with a workingman’s confidence and care. His voice functions as a sturdy element in the album’s instrumentation; he ends his lines with exclamation points, so that each one lands like a rim shot in a drum break, and he smooths out the flow of his songs with a subtly soulful, melodic touch. On “Steep Life,” Greene reflects on the bleak socioeconomic outlook for young Black men, delivering his lyrics with his whole chest—he raps like he wants you to believe that even when the world blocks your path, you can make your own way where no one expects it.

Philmore Greene & Apollo Brown’s The Cost of Living is available through Bandcamp.

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