Young Chicago Info 312-443-3600 Rosa’s “Young Chicago” has similar ambitions, with the work of 16 designers cutting across all the disciplines–architectural, industrial, graphic, and fashion. On display is one of Nick Cave’s fantastical Soundsuits, described in the catalog as “static sculptures for exhibition…as well as ritualistic costumes for performance.” Also on display are the menus graphic designer Jason Pickleman did for Avec and the proposals architect Clare Lyster made to spur redevelopment–including agricultural–in Chicago’s Lawndale community....

They have a New Orleans theme here, and it reminds me of where I lived for seven years. This is one of my happy memories of the town. It was a Monday night on Bourbon Street and there were like ten people versus the millions on the weekend, and this fat lady was trying to go to the bathroom and somehow got up on the roof of a four-story building. She was that drunk, I guess....

No Questions Asked Thompson might feel differently about primrose paths now that he’s traveled one of his own. Kerner and his pal Theodore Isaacs were accused of doing a secret deal that brought them racetrack stock worth more than $300,000. On Thompson’s watch–since 1998 he’s chaired the Hollinger International board’s three-person audit committee–Conrad Black and David Radler allegedly fleeced the company of more than $400 million. Thompson isn’t pleading stupidity, exactly....

You could read every piece of paper left from the English city of York in the Middle Ages–every tax roll, every parish register, every will–and almost never see the name of a woman. “The historical documents were written by men and about men,” Anne Grauer told the Chicago Archaeological Society recently, “as if there were no women there at all.” But Grauer, a Loyola biological anthropologist, knows where to find them: in the cemeteries....

This third annual showcase of one-person performances, featuring more than 30 pieces, runs through 10/10 at the Athenaeum Theatre, third-floor studio, 2936 N. Southport. Tickets are $15 per show; “all access” passes cost $90. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster by calling 312-902-1500 or logging on to www.ticketmaster.com; single-show tickets are also available at the door. For more infor-mation call 312-371-4476 or see www.singlefilechicago.com. Following is the schedule through 9/26; a complete schedule is available online at www....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “My research colleagues and I found that from 1986 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report . . . found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent [58 percent] had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change....

In this 60-minute adaptation of a Chinese folktale by writer-director Tami Zimmerman Henry, the lotus fairies become bored with dance parties and mah-jongg in their home by the heavenly Pool of Green Waves and disobey their guardian to play in the mortal realms. When a drought threatens the earth, they risk everything to rescue their newfound companions. This Tireswing Theatre family show has its flaws–choreographer Ling Ling Pao’s dances, though exquisite, tend to halt the dramatic action....

In this GroundUp Theatre show, Shakespeare’s play is about former CEO Prospero, now living in the Sunbelt after being forced into early retirement, whose handsome son, Ferdinand, rescues the executive director’s daughter, Miranda, after the company plane crashes. Well, a certain interpretive license is permitted when a production’s battling the disruptions of a neighborhood park, as this one is on its tour of local outdoor venues. And all the roughhousing and broad characterizations–especially Karen Hill as a punk-chic Caliban and Eryn Gauen and Sabrina Lloyd as airhead interns Trincula and Stephany–do enhance rather than interfere with GroundUp’s 90-minute show....

Last month while finishing a list of my 1,000 favorite films for a forthcoming collection, I was shocked to discover I’d forgotten to include Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog. If I’d been working on the list a few days later, when I attended a press show of the soon to be rereleased The Battle of Algiers (1965), which I hadn’t seen in decades, I probably would have included that as well....

There’s nothing like a white slavery scandal to intensify what could have been just another musical about a farm girl in Manhattan. This adaptation of Richard Morris’s 1967 screenplay travels easily to the intimate Marriott stage in a production led with lanky charm by Tari Kelly as Millie, supported by an attractive, nimble-footed ensemble. At two and a half hours, the show could afford to have a few reprises cut. Doing so might allow time to savor the dramatic climax–the villain’s comeuppance–treated here as an afterthought, a break between tap dances....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I tried, I really tried to read Mr. Margasak’s undoubtedly well researched and thoughtfully crafted article chronicling the Future/Now Films-Wayne Kramer hissy fit [“The MC5 Movie You May Never See,” April 23]. But somewhere around the fifth or sixth arcane citation of American entertainment law, I folded. Is it any surprise the film has too? Suddenly the story of an all-too-familiar legal battle has overshadowed the astonishing story the Five lived and Dave and Laurel set out to secure for posterity....

As a general rule, I don’t go to poetry slams, but last Sunday I made an exception for my family. Coming off a Cubs game and then a greasy Chinese dinner, my parents and my mom’s two brothers were tipsy and belligerent and somehow decided it’d be a good idea to go to the Green Mill, where the art of poet heckling was born. Whole evenings–not to mention egos–are ruined in a moment there, when all the courage it takes to get up in front of a bunch of strangers is squashed by the audience’s gestures of disapproval, from loud conversation and finger snapping to outright booing....

Morrissey You Are the Quarry (Attack) Here’s a quick sampling of those “horrible things”: In a 1984 interview with defunct UK rock rag The Face, Moz was asked, “If I put you in a room with Robert Smith, Mark E. Smith and a loaded Smith & Wesson, who would bite the bullet first?” His response: “I’d line them up so that one bullet penetrated both simultaneously. . . . Robert Smith is a whingebag....

The concept’s actually kind of cute. A sweet schlemiel of a short-order cook working at a struggling diner (slogan: “It ain’t great but it’s food”) stumbles on a new fashion in burgers and finds himself at the top of a fast-food empire, wondering–well, wondering the usual things likable characters in musicals wonder when they’re suddenly wealthy beyond their dreams. That the authors of Burgertown trade in familiar tropes isn’t the problem....

The eighth annual edition of this sprawling celebration of improvisational comedy brings together performers from around the U.S. and abroad; Chicago, of course, is heavily represented. The lineup ranges from fledgling talent to returning stars who have won fame and big bucks appearing in and/or writing for movies and TV. This year’s festival, the largest and most diverse yet, is divided into several series–Mainstage, Showcase, Sketch, Solo, Duo, and Fringe–as well as an all-night improv session, a series of daytime “Lunchbreak” performances (presented in conjunction with the city’s cultural affairs department), forums, workshops, and numerous special events....

The 21st Chicago Latino Film Festival continues Friday through Thursday, April 15 through 21, at Chicago State Univ., 9501 S. King Dr.; Dominican Univ., 7900 W. Division, River Forest; Facets Cinematheque; Pipers Alley; Landmark’s Century Centre; Morton College, 3801 S. Central, Cicero; North Park Univ., 3225 W. Foster; Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium; Richard J. Daley College, 7500 S. Pulaski; River East 21; St. Xavier Univ. McGuire Hall; and Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Student Center East, 750 S....

Dirty Projectors’ new album, Rise Above (out September 11 on Dead Oceans), is a “reimagining” of Black Flag’s 1981 hardcore masterpiece Damaged, reportedly inspired by the discovery of an empty cassette case for the album. Bandleader David Longstreth leads the Brooklyn-based quartet, now on its fifth lineup, through 10 of the original 15 tracks, but you won’t recognize much beyond the lyrics: The guitar rhythms are playful, recalling African highlife, peppered with runs owing more to flamenco than Greg Ginn....

This is the Arthur about whom the trifles of the Bretons rave even now, one certainly not to be dreamed of in false myths, but proclaimed in truthful histories–indeed, who for a long time held up his tottering fatherland, and kindled the broken spirits of his countrymen to war. –William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, c. 1125 AD Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But perhaps I’m crediting the wrong party: although Franzoni gets the screenwriting credit and Antoine Fuqua is the director of record, King Arthur is very clearly a Jerry Bruckheimer movie....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Reporters use the FOIA regularly to nudge government officials to produce documents or data. But researchers, attorneys, businesses, activists, and other people also submit FOIA requests all the time, and while it’s a necessary tool for collecting information about our public offices and agencies, it’s even more useful as a reminder to public officials that those records don’t technically belong to them–they belong to us, their funders and employers....

This one-man show tells a fascinating, enigmatic true-life story about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a transgendered German who survived under the Nazi regime and the brutal Soviet-controlled puppet government of East Germany. Doug Wright’s play, based on Charlotte’s autobiography and his own interviews with her, examines not only the cost of that survival but how his relationship with Charlotte evolved over time. The performance is nothing short of riveting: under the direction of Moises Kaufman, Tony winner Jefferson Mays plays Charlotte, Wright, and a slew of secondary characters....