Request Programme Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Kroetz’s one-woman Request Programme may be even more likely to work an audience’s last nerve now than it was in its 1971 premiere. Miss Rasch, a factory worker in her early 40s, comes home to her apartment and, without saying a word, goes through her nightly routine: changing clothes, watching TV, making dinner, checking the radiator for heat, inspecting troublesome pimples, reading the mail, taking a shit, doing needlework, smoking cigarettes, staring into space, getting ready for bed....

Though the simplicity and directness of the White Stripes’ attack has barely changed, they consistently breathe new life into their sound–though they were once considered spearheads of the latest garage-rock revival, they’re really too broad-minded to be comfortable in such a narrow role. Jack and Meg White don’t do anything crazy on Get Behind Me Satan (Third Man/V2), unless you count Jack swapping his guitar for a marimba on “The Nurse” and playing a whole lot more piano....

On Sunday, May 8, Marc Monaghan was in Washington Park looking for dog walkers to photograph. As he wandered past Lorado Taft’s Fountain of Time he saw a big white bird with a long beak and a flash of red on its forehead standing in the lagoon. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Whooping cranes are notoriously shy, but this one seemed less perturbed by Monaghan than by a Canada goose that evidently thought it owned the lagoon–it kept hissing at the crane....

AFRICA & PLUMBRIDGE, at Theatre Building Chicago. Vanity productions are often uncomfortable, but this new musical raises the eww factor. The production itself isn’t completely bad: Sue Carey, the local philanthropist who used her own story as the subject matter, has purchased the best talent she can find. The problem is that the heart of the tale–which is supposed to be about the growing relationship between Africa, a deeply troubled 13-year-old who’s been shuttled through the foster care system, and Sue Plumbridge, the kind fairy godmother who ultimately saves her from a dastardly shrink and adopts her–gets lost in the glow of adulation lavished on Carey’s stand-in....

This annual event, running 9/8-9/11, showcases the work of emerging artists in Chicago’s Wicker Park/Bucktown area. Theater, performance, spoken word, dance, music, film and video, and visual art are all represented in the 16th annual edition of this festival. Plays are presented at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division; Open End Gallery, 2000 W. Fulton; Wicker Park, 1425 N. Damen; and Pritzker Elementary School, 2009 W. Schiller. Dance is at the Vittum Theater, 1012 N....

Man on Fire With Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Giannini, and Mickey Rourke. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Washington has chosen wisely, and he hasn’t had to wait long. Since he first caught the public’s attention playing a young doctor on the TV drama St. Elsewhere, he’s tirelessly pursued Poitier’s mantle as the preeminent black leading man in Hollywood....

Bob O’Neill, president of the Grant Park Advisory Council, jokes that his usual response to citizens concerned about new construction in the park is this: “Well, they’re actually out there building it right now, but thanks for the public input.” Consider the case of Queen’s Crossing, the crosswalk linking Buckingham Fountain to the lakefront promenade. In 1995 the city spent over $9 million to restore Congress Plaza to its original Burnham Plan status as a grand pedestrian gateway, framed by Ivan Mestrovic’s majestic twin sculptures the Bowman and the Spearman....

Even though Marc-Andre Hamelin tends to program somewhat obscure, frequently ignored virtuoso music, he always makes it worth listening to. He’s one of the few pianists today who truly can do virtually anything at the keyboard, and he does it with astonishing ease, stunning phrasing, a gorgeous tone, and an intelligence that puts everything in context. For this concert he’ll play Camille Saint-Saens’s Fourth Piano Concerto, which starts out with a brooding theme that shifts between the orchestra and soloist; the solo part becomes increasingly virtuosic, full of Lisztian double octaves, fast-crossing hands, and dazzling runs....

On October 18, Richard Wilson [“Hey, Richy Flash-Flash,” August 13, 2004] succumbed to complications from AIDS, against which he had struggled, both physically and politically, for many years. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Richard was a man of many talents, most notably a genius for the art of photography. He possessed a peculiar ability to render himself invisible, a valuable skill for a photographer seeking candid shots, especially shots of celebrities in less-than-flattering situations....

Starting out as a graphic designer in the early 90s, Colin Metcalf was wowed by Raygun, the David Carson-designed cultural magazine that exploded the staid graphic arts scene of the day. It defied traditional design logic: layouts and typefaces looked like they’d been run through a blender and poured onto the page. Metcalf had never seen anything like it, and it opened his eyes, he says, to the radical notion that there wasn’t any “right” graphic way to get your ideas across....

In cities with large black populations it’s not unusual to see images of black people on billboards, so it’s not the color of Huey and Riley Freeman’s skin that makes them stand out. What distinguishes the stars of the new Boondocks TV cartoon from their brethren in other ads are their expressions. The familiar smiles that populate ads for cognac, cigarettes, and morning-radio DJs are missing. In their place are dire scowls and cartoon eyes as big as Bambi’s, but filled with the hate the Disney deer must have felt for its mother’s murderers....

Music Concrete Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fulcrum Point, made up of about 20 musicians, is an offshoot of a larger, more traditional group, the American Concerto Orchestra. Both were dreamed up by Burns after he joined Performing Arts Chicago as artist in residence in 1998. A composer, conductor, and virtuoso trumpet player, he was an Indiana University professor when PAC head Susan Lipman snagged him by asking, “In the best of all possible worlds, what would you like to create?...

Lead Story Northern Arizona University professor Con Slobodchikoff told the Albuquerque Journal in December that the yips and barks of prairie dogs may constitute a communication system surprisingly close to actual language: different communities of the same species appear to use related but distinguishable dialects, and prairie dogs independently shown the same unfamiliar objects responded with the same newly coined calls. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Cleric Suspect Misses Hearing Due to Long Toe Nails” (Reuters, London, January): Radical Islamic leader Abu Hamza al-Masri, charged in Britain with inciting his followers to violence, found walking too painful to make even a video-conferenced court appearance....

Eleven bands into Saturday’s 18-band bill at Chicago Fest, I got to talking with Shawn Creeden, the singer of the New England-based hardcore band Bad Business. “Aside from being in this band, I hate everything about hardcore,” he told me. “The bands are all the same, the politics are totally unrealized–it’s all false awareness.” He smiled, then went back to crocheting the brown scarf he had started working on the day before....

Emerald City Theatre Company’s musical adaptation of three Janell Cannon children’s books capitalizes on her gift for making “revolting” creatures–bats, pythons, hyenas–appealing. Even as played by perky Kara Konken, an American Girls Revue alum, the bat Stellaluna retains a wonderfully creepy quality, especially when she spreads her leathery wings. But the production’s real standouts are the costumes, puppets, and masks, all designed by L. Nicholas Saubers: many received Lion King-like gasps of appreciation from adults, and at a fraction of the Lion King cost....

After a couple years as the group American postpunk bands came back from European tours talking about, German quintet the Robocop Kraus are putting the moves on the States. Their fourth album and first U.S. release, They Think They Are the Robocop Kraus, has just been released through punk megalith Epitaph, and they’ve made their way across the pond to convert the kids with a proven formula of disco hi-hats, synth, and ennui....

Select, Lumpen magazine, and Public Media Institute produce this annual festival, now in its fourth year, focusing on art, media, technology, and politics, with an emphasis on work generated by underground and activist communities. This year’s festival runs through Sunday, May 1, and includes neighborhood walks, workshops on urban gardening and exterior decoration, and numerous public art installations, film/video screenings, lectures, and musical and other performances. The events are scattered mostly through the Wicker Park and Bridgeport neighborhoods....

Celebration singer Katrina Ford might sound familiar because of her guest appearance on TV on the Radio’s dance-floor hit “Staring at the Sun” (though her anodyne girl vox are often misattributed to Karen O). While Celebration’s connection to TVOTR is being used as the primary selling point for their debut record on 4AD (the press materials repeatedly mention that David Sitek produced the record and that every other member of his group makes a guest appearance), the band’s material is more than capable of standing up on its own....

With more boutiques opening every year and the city’s increasing awareness and support of the local design scene, Chicago’s style IQ is higher than ever.While that can translate into higher prices, savvy shoppers can always find a bargain. Here are some tips for working the retail system. Neiman Marcus (aka Needless Markup; 737 N. Michigan, 312-642-5900) are the top of the heap, but if you stop in at the right moment you might be able to score a heavy discount on that top that caught your eye in Vogue last season....

The 14th Chicago Underground Film Festival runs Wednesday, August 15, through Sunday, August 19, with screenings at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, and Elegant Mr. Gallery, 1355 N. Milwaukee. Tickets for all screenings are $7; a $50 pass admits you to ten sceenings. For advance tickets visit brownpapertickets.com; for more information call 773-341-6727 or visit www.cuff.org. Following is the schedule for August 15 and 16; a complete festival schedule is available online at www....