TheaterA hearty dose of vaudeville and burlesque will be served up at the Sexy Santas Spectacular! Spectacular! – Burlesque’s Naughty List series of shows at Gorilla Tango Theater. The holiday variety show will feature a different local Burlesque headliner for each performance and will include song, dance and comedy. Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave., Fridays and Saturdays through 12/20, 11:30 p.m., $16 Meet Me in St. Louis isn’t exactly a Christmas story, but......

On Monday, A Red Orchid Theater began running the Chicago premiere of a musical called A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant. And yes, the point of the show is make fun of Scientology, without actually making fun of Scientology. Here's how it works: to circumvent direct commentary, creators Kyle Jarrow and Alex Timbers use a cast of prepubescent actors to play the role of awkward children of Scientologists forced to perform in an amateur......

Comedy The Edge Comedy Club presents The Young Punks of Chicago Stand-Up Comedy, where young ’uns are torn from their high school hallways and brought to the stage for your comedic pleasure. All comics are under the age of 21, so expect interesting and fresh joke sets, as none of these kids will be talking about their wives, marriages or (hopefully) their lame sex lives. Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N Green St.,......

An impressive array of Chicago heavyweights will assemble next Monday evening at 7:30 at the Steppenwolf to pay tribute to Studs Terkel. A staged reading, with music, of Derek Goldman’s adaptation of Terkel’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken makes up the bulk of the program, which will feature David Schwimmer; Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey and ensemble members Robert Breuler, K. Todd Freeman, Tom Irwin, and Alan Wilder; director Joyce Piven (mother of Jeremy);......

Film Tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is screening the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein, accompanied by a world premiere live performance of Franz Waxman’s famous score. An après-scream treat after the concert: a complimentary showing of Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein. 220 S. Michigan Ave., Symphony Center, tonight, 8:00 p.m., pre-concert conversation from 7 – 7:30 in the Grainger Ballroom, Young Frankenstein screens at 10:00 p.m. Theater The latest show from Factory Theater, Busting Out......

Congratulations to Steppenwolf, who was recently named the recipient of two major grants – each helping to fund unique initiatives and programs within the company. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Nonprofit Finance Fund have awarded grants to ten performing arts companies nationwide, part of the foundation’s Leading for the Future: Innovative Support for Artistic Excellence. Each company will receive funding over five years for individual proposed projects. Steppenwolf’s $1,075,000 grant will support......

Happy First Day of Autumn! Fall makes us think of many things, with the most predominant being Halloween. We get easily excited about seasonal themes and events, so we made this list as much for our benefit as for yours, dear Readers. We might actually go to … all of these. The Brides of Ghost Hunter Richard Crowe Local professional ghost hunter Richard Crowe has been a collector of unusual folklore and ghostlore since 1973.......

Thanks to the Sun-Times for putting together this great list of ways to save on tickets to local live theater. Harris Theater’s price reduction on tickets for the upcoming ballet is mentioned, as well as the fairly well-known daily drawing for front row seats at Wicked (we won once!) but otherwise it’s a pretty thorough list – recommending both general and theater-specific tactics to help you save money. Chicagoist racked our brains to try and......

Trying to make sense of "a life so easy if feels hard," playwright and performer Sharon Greene heads camping with a group of people she barely knows. What could have been the hook of a teen horror movie is instead the basis for the Neo-futurists' new site-specific production Fake Lake, performed in the Welles Park swimming pool on Lincoln and Sunnyside. Even though the facility has all the markings of an artificial environment—the weird humidity,......

Alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd) really is the bad boy of City Council: Not only does he flout Mayor Daley's wishes, but ">he also smokes! He even believes the smoking ban was never "intended to limit artistic expression. It would be wise for us to ... allow theater productions to obtain a special waiver when smoking is a critical component of their performance." While Reilly wants the cast of Jersey Boys to be able to light......

The Movie Queens (AKA Windy City Times film critic Richard Knight Jr. and local theater genius David Kodeski) delighted us when we interviewed them late last year, with Richard slamming the Robin Williams stinker License to Wed as the worst film of the year and David going ga-ga over such disparate movies as Coffin Joe and The Driver's Seat. So we're extra delighted that they've just launched a new podcast. It's available for download......

Two tidbits of touring-theater news: Spring Awakening, Duncan Sheik's ribald, iconoclastic rock opera, will play in Chicago August 4-16, 2009. Mark your calendars--Spring Awakening is amazing. Like most great rock operas, Awakening has 19th century German source material and is mostly about screwing, but is a little about dying and growing up, too. Take a listen to "The Bitch of Living", which is one of our faves from the show. Rent is making a return......

Two of Chicago’s theater companies will face Tony tonight in the annual awards ceremony in New York. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater is up for best regional theatre. And the Steppenwolf Theatre Company is up for seven Tony’s for their production “August: Osage County,” which is playing on Broadway. Those seven nominations include Best Play, Best Direction, Best Leading Actress, and more. Download your printable ballot to follow-along. The Tony Awards will be broadcast tonight on......

The timing of this Goodman Theatre production sure is right on the money. "The gas station that inspired the play----which was on the corner of Lincoln and Berteau Streets on the North Side--closed, and I was sort of flabbergasted. I'd lived in the neighborhood for a long time, and Gas For Less was a landmark," explains playwright Brett Neveu. "When the station closed, I asked around to find out what happened. I heard that......

David Schwimmer is officially on board for Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Our Town. Perhaps you recall the kerfluffle with Chris Jones back in January, when Jones reported that this was already a done deal and Schwimmer denied it. Anyhow, it's on like Donkey Kong now. Schwimmer will play George Gibbs, which seems weird because Schwimmer is 42, and at the beginning of the play, George is in high school. Joey Slotnick, a classic hey-it's-that-guy......

Re-imagining any children’s story by author Roald Dahl is a shoo-in for a fun and lucrative undertaking, as Dahl’s stories are both beloved and well known. Adaptations of Dahl’s work have been fairly consistent in the Chicago theater scene, with the BFG running at DePaul University’s Theater School last year, the multi-media show done by The Annoyance in March, and the Emerald City Theater’s puppet production of James and the Giant Peach closing last month.......

A play focusing on the efforts of animal rescuers following Hurricane Katrina has recently made the move from Los Angeles to the Chicago area. Because They Have No Words is based on co-writer Tim Maddock's personal experience rescuing animals in the aftermath of Katrina. Maddock also stars in the production, which is now appearing at Evanston's Piven Theatre. Of the differences between the version performed in L.A. and the new Piven Theatre version, Maddock says:......

The Chicago theater scene, already one of the most reputable in the country, continues to garner critical recognition. Apparently not content with settling for a Pulitzer Prize, Steppenwolf's hugely successful play, August: Osage County was nominated for seven Tony awards yesterday, including Best Play. Not to be outdone, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater was honored with this year's Tony Award for Excellence in Regional Theater, the fourth Chicago-area theater to win the award (Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf......

The Joseph Jefferson awards committee announced this year's Non-Equity Jeff award nominees (formerly known as "Jeff citations") last night. At a minute after midnight, Chris, Chris & Kris posted the list to the Trib and Time Out Chicago blogs, respectively. The most-nominated companies— are Bailiwick Repertory Theatre and Oak Park's Circle Theatre, with a baker’s dozen and dozen mentions each, respectively. Lifeline Theatre's The Island of Dr. Moreau is in contention for nine play-related awards......

We'll still have to wait awhile for Chicago's new Trader Vic's, but in the meanwhile Tiki Terrace has now reopened for business and is ready to hula. And we mean that literally: the Hanalei Revue, every Saturday night, and the Ports of Paradise review on Fridays both feature plenty of dancing and other island-style entertainment. The Zuziak Brothers opened the original Tiki Terrace in 2005, but its Prospect Heights location meant you were plum......

It is 2004 and we are deep in the heart of the presidential campaign. On this particular evening candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry stand behind podiums, ready to face off in a debate being moderated by the NewsHour's Jim Lehrer. Lehrer is in the midst of his opening statement, about to ask the first question of the evening to Senator Kerry, when Bush makes his move. He stealthly approaches Lehrer, weilding a......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Rockabilly The first Thursday of the month at Martyrs' usually means it's time for the Big "C" Jamboree. Hosted by Ken Mottet, the Big "C" Jamboree is the city's longest rockabilly showcase and one of its best kept secrets, a jam session that runs the gamut from Western swing and jump blues to hillbilly music......

“There are gunshots in this show, but don’t be alarmed.” That was the last thing we heard just before the lights went dark, and it suddenly became clear we had no idea what to expect from the seventh annual Etcetera Festival. The show is presented by The Mill Theatre, a local group that has produced progressive theater for the last six years. In Etcetera, The Mill strings together works of performance art that are not......

What would you get if Karen from Will & Grace, Charlotte from Sex and the City and crazy redhead Gloria Clearly from Wedding Crashers moved in together to bask in a Golden Girls-style twisted sisterhood? The product of that perfect storm would be much like Hubris Productions’ latest show, Girls Will Be Girls. In this stage play version of a hit indie film by the same title, three male actors bring to life three colorful......

Ah, the Coen Brothers. They've given us many memorable tales of kidnapping, murder, and betrayal. But none has grown in cult status quite like The Big Lebowski. Since it's theatrical release (10 years ago yesterday!), and despite its subsequently tepid box office gross, the film has become a huge hit on DVD and has even inspired it's own yearly get-together, known as Lebowski Fest. The Fest gives all the Dude enthusiasts a chance to come......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Theater Pegasus Players and Live Bait Theater are the co-producers behind Steven Simoncic's "Heat Wave." Based on the book of the same name, this play takes a look at the heat wave of 1995 which took the lives of 739 Chicagoans and asks if the deaths could have been prevented and what went wrong. 1145......

You meet, you woo, and a soul-consuming love blossoms. Then you break up. And why is it you suddenly have so much to say to the very person you swore you’d never speak to again? Letters/X, a comedic cabaret by the GroundUp Theatre, celebrates the melodramatic literary gold that can come in the form of tear-stained Dear John letters. The show features funny skits, musical numbers and spoken word inspired by actual break-up letters.......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Theater Tonight is the premiere for Lincoln Square Theatre's production of Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles." Adapted from Bradbury's seminal 1950 novel, the play tells of the tensions between native aboriginal Martians and new colonists fleeing a troubled Earth as an allegory for Old World colonialism. Bradbury was inspired to write his novel equally by Steinbeck's......

Photo by Joe M500 A New Trier high school student got access to the school's computer system, apparently to check his class rank. He didn't steal any personal info, and nothing was deleted or changed; he just accessed "student directory information for all students, semester grades for current students and the last three graduating classes, and ACT test scores for the class of 2008." Police are investigating. [S-T] This is my dance space; this......

The following events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music Raul Midon has slowly developed a strong and dedicated fan base with constant touring behind his own hybrid form of soul songs steeped in pop sensibility, calling upon influences ranging from Stevie Wonder to Paul Simon to Bill Withers. His albums tend to be too slickly produced for our ears but in concert Midon......