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Chicago is My Home

13
Dec

Top Chicago Performance Picks For the Weekend of of Dec. 14, 2007

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Comedy, Theater

Run, man, run! Anthrax is coming! Take this HAZMAT suit and Santa hat to protect you.

Join other chemical warfare paranoids in a four-mile fun run to be followed by four hours of drinking and food to calm those frazzled nerves. For $30, the “Great Chicago Anthrax Scare/Santa Hat Run” is on Dec. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Hidden Shamrock.

Do you blame Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for the nightmare that is the CTA? The creators of “No-El, or How the BlagojeGrinch Stole Christmas” sure do.

Feel a little bit better about your own commute as you watch frustrated commuters spend 45 minutes to go two blocks on the CTA. The show runs at the Gorilla Tango Theatre in Bucktown on Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. with a Sunday showing at 3 p.m. The performance runs through Dec. 23. Tickets cost $10.

Did you wake up this morning with a case of the Brits?

Then grab your dentist and go see “Lord Butterscotch and the Curse of the Darkwater Phantom” as the cast takes British clichés to new heights. Lords and randy ladies will be at the Storefront Theater from Friday through Sunday until Jan. 3. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets cost $10 to 20, baby.

By Stephanie Huls

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19
Nov

Changes on Horizon For Chicago-Native Conan O’Brien Writer Kevin Dorff

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Comedy, Television

CHICAGO – Kevin Dorff spent his Sunday in Chicago kicking back and watching the Bears game.

Jim Zulevic and Kevin Dorff (on right) at Second City
Jim Zulevic and Kevin Dorff (on right) at Second City.
Photo credit: Second City

A Chicago native and Emmy Award-winning writer for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” for seven years, the current WGA strike has shut down production and provided him something of a forced vacation.

For nearly a week, he has been back in the city that started his career when he first began taking classes in the early 1990s at what was then called Improv Olympic (now iO).

Within a few years, he was performing on Second City’s main stage.

On Tuesday night, Dorff will be performing alongside Horatio Sanz, Matt Walsh, Ed Furman and others at the Lakeshore Theater for “Horatio Sanz and the Kings of Improv,” which is presented by the Upright Citizens Brigade.

“These guys just love to play,” Dorff said – speaking of the ensemble – in an interview with HollywoodChicago.com.

He has performed with them all many times in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago over the last decade. Dorff added: “Matt and Horatio would just upend some milk cartons and perform on them. That might be a new show we’re working on. I don’t know.”
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30
Oct

Radio Show Sound of Young America Goes Public in Chicago on Oct. 31

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Comedy

CHICAGO – The Sound of Young America – a public radio show syndicated through Public Radio International and a Time Magazine “Pick of the Podcasts” in 2006 – will be hosting a live Chicago show and taping on Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. at the Second City e.t.c. stage.

Sound of Young America
The show is free. Hosted by Jesse Thorn (“America’s radio sweetheart”), the program will feature an interview with legendary music engineer Steve Albini.

Ablini is best known for working with artists such as The Stooges, Nirvana, Bush, Screeching Weasel, Superchunk and the Pixies along with being the frontman for the band Shellac.

Always controversial, Albini has long been a pundit of indie and mainstream music. Chicago comic favorites Hannibal Buress, Team Submarine, Schadenfreude and Second City comics will also perform that evening.

Stephen Colbert (left) and Jesse Thorn
Stephen Colbert (left) and Jesse Thorn.
Photo courtesy of the Sound of Young America
Comedians comprise about a third of the show. The balance features the full arts and entertainment spectrum including authors, TV personalities, musicians and bands. Thorn started the show when he was in college.

He has interviewed personalities including Stephen Colbert, Art Spiegelman and Ira Glass. Something of comedian himself, Thorn is committed to promoting independent and “alternative” comedy.

By Dustin Levell
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com

This article is being published here with permission.

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26
Sep

Chicago’s Allison Silverman Named Executive Producer of Comedy Central’s ‘The Colbert Report’

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Celebrity News, Comedy, Film, Independent Film

Allison Silverman, a former iO Theater and Boom Chicago comedy favorite, has been named the executive producer of Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, according to a Sept. 26 report by Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Allison is a rare combination of funny, kind and intelligent. Unfortunately, in her new job, two of those have to go,” Colbert jested in his announcement of Silverman’s new gig.

In other Zwecker news and for additional coverage of Chicago indie thriller “Root of All Evil,” Sean Bean from “The Lord of the Rings” recently drank it up with cast and crew at Rockit in Chicago to wrap up filming.

Zwecker also touched on the Chicago connection surrounding the controversy with the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel “The Kite Runner”. The film version will open this year’s Chicago International Film Festival on Oct. 4.

Finally, Zwecker says Chicago’s Bernie Mac is banding together with Samuel L. Jackson in the film “Soul Men,” which is a comedy about two former soul music legends.

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13
Sep

Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Signs Lease For New Theatre on Irving Park in Chicago

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Comedy

On Sept. 12, Chemically Imbalanced Comedy executive producer and founder Angie McMahon (773-865-7731) signed a lease for a new theatre at 1420 W. Irving Park Rd. in Chicago.

The space was formerly the home of The Artistic Home. Coming Nov. 1, the new theatre will be known as the Chemically Imbalanced Theater. Interestingly, Chemically Imbalanced Comedy is supported by a grant from Google.

The group describes itself as “an umbrella organization made up of artists from the Chicago area and beyond [that’s] dedicated to recruiting, arranging and providing alternative performance spaces and opportunities for artists”.

In other news today, the Serbian Film Festival runs from Sept. 13 to 16 in Chicago. The price of admission is $10. Metromix says this about the festival:

The inaugural fest features nearly 15 feature films, documentaries and shorts from the European country including 2006 Academy Award nominee “Tomorrow Morning”.

Also, the LaSalle Bank Classic Film Series starts up on Sept. 15 and runs on various dates through Dec. 29. Classic films, shorts, cartoons and features will be screened for a few bucks a pop.

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