More Top Picks Laundry Basket
player ready...Though Tito Puente’s stage shtick sometimes overshadows his music, don’t be deceived: He’s a virtuoso timbales player as well as an inspired bandleader. When he visits the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park on Wednesday, he’ll be celebrating his 50th anniversary as a leader. Considering that he’ll be sharing the stage with the formidable conga player Giovanni Hidalgo and pianist Hilton Ruiz, among others, this show could be one of the highlights of the summer. 847-266-5100.
– Howard Reich
CLASSICAL: BARITONAL BOUNTY
Always a welcome visitor to the Ravinia roster, Thomas Hampson this week will remind festival audiences why he is considered to be one of the finest interpreters of the song literature of his generation. The American baritone will join pianist and Ravinia music director Christoph Eschenbach for a performance of Schubert’s deeply moving song cycle, “Die Winterreise” (The Winter Journey), at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Martin Theatre. He also will present a master class for singers, open to the public, at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Bennett-Gordon Hall. If you miss these events, you owe it to yourself to hear Hampson’s newest EMI Classics CD release, “To the Soul,” featuring 22 fascinating, if little-known, settings of poems by Walt Whitman. 847-266-5100.
– John von Rhein
THEATER: LOONY COONEY
Theater openings are few and far between during these dog days, but one potential bright spot is Drury Lane Oakbrook’s revival of “Run for Your Wife,” regarded by many as the quintessential Ray Cooney farce. Directed by veteran actor Ray Frewen, the cast includes John Cooke as the bigamist taxi driver and Kathy Jaeck and Fiona Bergen as the two suspicious wives. Previews begin Tuesday, and the show opens Aug. 10. 312-902-1500.
– Sid Smith
ROCK: A BETTER IDEA
Lilith Fair, which plays Saturday at the World Music Theatre, is being hyped as the quintessential “women’s concert,” but its lineup is stocked with a relatively quaint batch of singer-songwriters. For a broader musical vision, check out Beth Orton the same night at Double Door, 1529 N. Milwaukee Ave. Orton’s merger of folkish songcraft and electronic textures make her “Trailer Park” album one of the year’s more intriguing debuts. As the British singer says in the liner notes, “Gender is just an excuse.” 773-489-3160.
– Greg Kot
TV: `TRACK’ GETS ON
“M*A*S*H” executive producer Larry Gelbart returns to series television by sitting behind the wheel of “Fast Track,” a new Showtime series focusing on stock-car racing. The series, which premieres Sunday at 7 p.m. before moving to its regular Saturday night home starting Aug. 16, stars Keith Carradine (“Nashville,” “The Will Rogers Follies”) as racer-turned-doctor Richard Beckett. He is asked to become the track doc at a speedway owned by a former friend (Duncan Regehr), who is now married to Beckett’s old girlfriend (Guylaine St-Onge). Look for plenty of wipeouts due to all the soap on the track.
– Allan Johnson
ART: EDEN OF EAST
Marilynn Alsdorf and her late husband, James, enriched the Art Institute of Chicago in a number of ways through their wide-ranging collections. A new exhibition that presents about 200 examples of Hindu and Buddhist art explores publicly for the first time two of the Alsdorfs’ less familiar areas of concentration. The show, which has just opened in the museum’s Rice Building, continues through Oct. 26. 312-443-3600.
– Alan G. Artner