You want to lose weight, become a better person or save the world. Why not start a bit smaller, with stuff that you can do for fun? Here are some entertainment resolutions from Tribune critics and On the Town staffers. What are yours? Let us know at onthetown@tribune.com. Meanwhile …
OUR CITY
Art galleries should resolve to …
Stop closing between Christmas and New Year’s. Yes, gallerists need vacations, too, but by shutting down between holidays, you’re denying yourself prime tourist foot traffic and locals looking to get cultured on their days off.
Keep your shows up for at least a month. I’m looking at you, apartment galleries and Grolsch-sponsored one-nighters: Cut us some slack, and we’ll get there.
Offer affordable art. More of us than meets the eye are interested in buying and collecting, but even fewer of us than before can afford to. Unless you dealers can afford another year with slow sales, now’s the time to rethink your business plan.
Art lovers should resolve to …
Schedule openings into your social calendar. Autumn is the season everyone plans on, but spring and summer (and even winter) openings happen monthly everywhere. Make an evening of it: Get cultured while sipping and snacking for free, and pat yourself on the back for the rest of the weekend.
Go to the Art Institute. Go see the Modern Wing; go see the rehabbed historic wing. Go when it’s free and fight the crowds, or go pay your dues when it’s not and relish the quiet. No excuses.
–Lauren Viera
The Arie Crown Theater should resolve to …
Make going to the Arie Crown (2301S. Lake Shore Dr.) a more pleasant experience. You entice us with a nice lineup of entertainment (Cedric the Entertainer, Jan. 16; Fresh Fest with Salt N Pepa, Biz Markie and others, Feb. 5; “Madea’s Big Happy Family” starring Tyler Perry, March 2-6; ), and then it all goes wrong.
Sound system. Watching an entertaining show where the audio of the performers is the “Charlie Brown” adult voices (“mwa-mwa-mwa”) is a problem.
The maze. McCormick Place is a huge, huge, place. How about some signage in the parking garage walkway (I’ll be talking to you about the garage later) that says, ‘Hey, the Arie Crown is this way!’? There are only so many times you can venture through identical walkways and seem to end up in the same place — not the Arie Crown — before the expletives begin.
Park and die. I have yet to figure out the coding in this most confusing parking garage. 2A is next to 2F on the same floor as 3A, but only if you exit Walkway 1B on one foot.
Thank you, Arie Crown staff ? Answering ‘Where is the restroom?’ ‘Where is my seat?’ ‘May I have a program?’ shouldn’t be considered an inconvenience.
–Regina Robinson
Chicago classical music organizations should resolve to …
Lower your ticket prices. This means you, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera. In case you hadn’t noticed, the recession is still raging. People are still hurting, especially with holiday bills coming in. Yes, you offer student-rush tickets and/or student memberships. It’s the single ticket-buyers at the high end who wind up paying premium prices for seats. Make some of the same kinds of discounts available to them that the smaller groups offer.
Don’t abandon the spirit of adventure and risk-taking. Audiences want to be challenged as well as entertained. Don’t coddle them. Their tastes often are more sophisticated than you think. The trick is devising new stratagems to engage them without breaking the budget.
Classical music audiences should resolve to …
Get out of your comfort zone more often. Try to vary your concert-going routine so that you don’t get bogged down in one area or genre of music at the expense of others. If your taste runs mainly to symphonic music, investigate what’s going on in choral music. Or chamber music. Or contemporary music. You might find such forays just as rewarding, or more so, than the same-old.
–John von Rhein
Jazz music audiences should resolve to …
Check out the Jazz Record Mart. Sure, CDs and downloads are just a click away on the Internet, but buying online isn’t quite the same as visiting one of the world’s great record stores. Vintage CDs and LPs, dusty tomes, obscure music magazines –they’re all there in the quaintly cramped aisles of the Mart. And there’s one more thing you’ll find here that’s not readily available online: knowledgeable staff who will direct you to the real thing. 27 E. Illinois St.; 312-222-1467.
Swing by Room 43. Music has been unfolding here for less than a year, but already a vibrant scene has taken root, from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. Sundays. Organized by the nonprofit and perpetually inventive Hyde Park Jazz Society, the music making spotlights top Chicago artists at a hard-to-beat price: $10. 1043 E. 43d St.; 773-285-2222 or hydepark jazzsociety.org.
Tune in WDCB. Contrary to popular misconception, jazz still lives on Chicago’s airwaves, and no station offers more than WDCB 90.9 FM (streaming wdcb.org). Though the signal can be difficult to catch downtown and in some neighborhoods, the station — based at the College of DuPage, in Glen Ellyn — still reaches a wide swath of the Chicago area. You’ll hear jazz all day weekdays and in various slots Saturdays and Sundays.
–Howard Reich
Dance fans should resolve to …
Think big and go far. As a new decade dawns, let’s throw miserly caution to the wind, embrace a hoped-for recovery, pack our bags and splurge on a journey overseas to see those world-class ballet companies in their proper, notably splendiferous home settings.
Start in London, and catch the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden and Eliza Doolittle fame. And then there’s Paris and the Paris Opera Ballet at the extraordinary Palais Garnier. The Royal Danish Ballet is a must-see, housed in the 18th century Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen, and most luring of all is Russia’s St. Petersburg, so flush with architectural beauty and the Kirov Ballet at the legendary Maryinsky Theatre.
Bon voyage!
–Sid Smith
Theater audiences should resolve to …
Go see a show in Chicago at least once a month. This is one of the reasons you live here.
Go see a show that challenges your comfort zone.
Be willing to ponder your own demise, in the company of your fellow, flesh-and-blood humans. It will make for better living in the here and now. (“The Year of Magical Thinking” is slated for Jan. 14-Feb. 14 at Court Theatre in Hyde Park.)
Chicago theaters should resolve to …
Create more must-see events. There’s a plethora of small-cast, even one-person, shows on the boards this season. Given the economic turmoil of recent times, that’s understandable. But history shows demonstrates that audiences respond to the excitement of major productions and initiatives. Remember “August: Osage County” or the Goodman’s hugely successful Albee, O’Neil O’Neill and Mamet festivals?
Better compensate their actors. There’s a noble and wholly worthy tradition of young companies using non-Equity actors in their early years. But when a theater has been around for 15 years or more and is still paying pittances, then something has gone badly wrong. Few are in this business to make their fortune, but they deserve respect.
–Chris Jones
– – –
OUR STAFF
Doug George:
I resolve to look stupid. You want an example? Chicago theater is my beat, and how many productions of “Macbeth” have I seen live onstage? Zero. Nada. Never a single double-toil-and-trouble one. That’s weak, but it’s the truth, and the only way to fix that kind of oversight is to not worry about looking dumb and go and see more Shakespeare — or more LaBute plays, or more ballet. I have a suspicion that the fear of looking stupid or out of place keeps more Chicagoans from attending plays and cultural events that they deserve and would really like than any other factor.
The Joffrey Ballet is staging “Cinderella,” Feb. 17-28; joffrey.org.
Get to a live, loud, local music show. Years ago, I went to many, but other interests and time commitments took their place, and somewhere back there I just stopped. Why haven’t I been back? Maybe a fear of looking stupid.
Mucca Pazza, 10 p.m. Friday, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave. $10; 773-276-3600 or emptybottle.com.
Lauren Viera:
Revisit the New Apartment Lounge. I had my first run-in with this gem of a jazz joint on a sub-freezing night last month. I was an hour early for the set and had to kill time on an empty stomach and later got marooned sans cab after midnight. It was still worth it, folks. Tuesdays at 10:30 p.m. Do it.
504 E. 75th St.; 773-483-7728.
Dine at Terzo Piano atop the Modern Wing. I got to know the Art Institute better in 2009 than any year prior but have yet to try chef Tony Mantuano’s new dining room with a view.
159 E. Monroe St.; 312-443-8650 or terzopianochicago.com.
Brave the hipsters and embrace Bridgeport’s art scene. I’ve dropped into a few Bridgeport galleries on occasion but rarely award this ‘hood’s openings the same weight as those in more prominent gallery districts. Presuming there’s good stuff to see, bring it on.
Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 W. 35th St., 773-523- 0200; zbcenter.org.
Remember the suburbs. For us city dwellers, it’s easy to forget the bevy of museums and galleries (and venues, restaurants and landmarks) beyond. On my to-visit list for early 2010: Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, Oak Park’s He Said-She Said, and the Evanston Art Center.
Regina Robinson:
See what’s going on at the Rosemont Theatre. It looks as if it is trying to become the pop singer’s hot spot to perform. Lady Gaga’s Chicago Theatre shows have moved there Friday through Sunday; Nick Jonas, Jan. 17; and Justin Bieber, March 24-25.
5400 N. River Rd., Rosemont.
Give the big pop stars a chance to prove they have more talent than hype. Live performances are tell-alls. Upcoming: Mariah Carey (Feb. 13 at the Chicago Theatre); Alicia Keys (March 3 at Allstate Arena); Black Eyed Peas (March 13 at United Center).
Kevin Williams:
Hate less stuff. It isn’t the band’s fault that it’s bad. I mean, it sort of is. But there’s beauty in everything, right? Like:
Nicholas Barron, 8 p.m.Tuesday, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave. $7; 773-525-2508 or schubas.com.
Embrace theater. As an athlete, I have a difficult time sitting still in a seat. For anything more than a half-hour. Without losing my mind. But Chicago has some amazing theater, as we all read in On the Town every week. Time to really get into it. Music would help, so …
“Million Dollar Quartet,” through March 28, Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave., $59.50-$80; 773-935-6100 or apollochicago.com.
Be less ambitious. This needs an explanation: When I go out, it’s with a lot on the plate. Atypical night is the evening that I did Lyric Opera opening night, then Day of Music at Symphony Center, then a concert at the Hideout. Yes, all in the same night. But there is such a thing as too much culture, so let’s suggest one great thing.
Alejandro Escovedo, 9 p.m. Fri. and Sat., FitzGeralds, 6615 W. Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn. $20; 708-788-2118 or fitzgeraldsnightclub.com.
Get to the Chicago Cultural Center even more often. Everything there is free, and it’s almost always brilliant. Even the visual art programming is ambitious, and a lot of the music comes from the mind and phone book of the amazing Mike Orlove.
John Coltrane Tribute with Rich Corpolongo, 12:15 p.m. Jan. 26. 78 E. Washington St. Free; 312-744-6630.
Buy local. Chicago bands have a particular sound, and it’s one that needs to be heard. Every week, Andy Downing covers a pair of homegrowns in his Local Sounds feature.
The Yolks, 10 p.m. Jan. 15, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave. $8; 773-276-3600 or emptybottle.com.
