The City of Chicago has awarded more than $1 million in grants to 255 arts and cultural organization under its CityArts program, and Jonny can assure you that a number of GLBT groups got a grip on the swag. While none of the grants are large—they range from $1,000 to $8,000—they add a nice official imprimatur to the work of each group. Besides, every little bit helps.
Among the recipients that touch our communities are: Gerber/Hart Library and Archives ( $2,400 ) , Woman Made Gallery ( $3,500 ) , Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre ( $4,500 ) , Healthworks Theatre ( $4,500 ) , Bailiwick Repertory ( $4,000 ) , Chicago Gay Men's Chorus ( $4,000 ) and the Joel Hall Dance Center ( $6,000 ) . Additionally, scores of GLBT-friendly theater, music and dance troupes, museums and visual arts organizations also received grants. Sometimes our tax dollars DO end up in the right pockets.
Speaking of the Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, the Mutt and Jeff duo of Joe Cerqua and Wilfredo Rivera—who just might be the most colorful professional and personal couple in town—will perform Oct. 1-2 at the Athenaeum Theatre as part of 3 A Dance Collaborative that also will feature socially relevant works by DanceLoop Chicago and MOMENTA. Call ( 773 ) 935-6860; $10 & $15.
Corn Productions' big summer hit, The Bad Seed—The Musical, is rolling into fall without a break. The show, now playing at Bailiwick on Friday nights, has been extended through Nov. 11. Our own theater critic, Rick Reed, called it 'a night of laughter that will leave you breathless ... and needing a change of underwear.' But dear, sweet Rick always has had a bladder problem.
Robert Schrock, the clever songwriter responsible for Naked Boys Singing, will be back in Chicago as part of the creative team of Bark!, a big hit at the Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood and a thoroughly delightful show that looks at life from a dog's point of view. Schrock is one of several co-lyricists for Bark!, which has music by David Troy Francis ( also a producer of the show ) . With a local six-person cast, Bark! opens Oct. 21 at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts for an initial 12-week run ( extension possible and likely ) . Jonny predicts Chicago audiences will enjoy Bark! as much as those who've kept the Los Angeles world premiere going for a year now. And remember that one human year is equivalent to seven years if you're a dog or a soap opera child.
Those who are fans of the cable TV show Nip/Tuck might get a kick out of attending a play in a real surgical operating theater, and seeing a massive gelatin mold in the shape of a human cadaver dissected. The show in question is Corpus Delicti: Just Desserts, presented by Local Infinities Visual Theater in a surgical amphitheater at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine. They don't use the sort of gelatin one eats, but something sturdier called ballistic gelatin, used by the FBI ( and all those dozens of CSI shows ) to simulate human flesh in forensics pathology. The Local Infinities crew will construct internal organs out of fruits and vegetables, so that cauliflower becomes the brain, a pomegranate the heart and so on. The gist of the story is set in a dissection theater in Holland in the 17th Century, as immortalized in Rembrandt's painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp. Corpus Delicti: Just Desserts plays Oct. 21-23 and 28-31 only. Call ( 312 ) 528-0077; $15.
The outdoor music season is winding down with a few September last hurrahs. Tuesday on the Terrace—jazz at the Museum of Contemporary Art—concludes next week ( Sept. 27 ) with Crosswind. Admission is free, 5:30-8 p.m., with Wolfgang Puck gourmet picnic fare available for purchase. Also, the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park concludes with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a free, Sept. 25 concert at 6 p.m. Maestro Barenboim conducts and also appears as piano soloist in a Mozart concerto.