You’ve heard that “Rent” has signed a long-term lease in Chicago. And the Art Institute’s Renoir exhibit that opens in October comes as no surprise.
But there are events in this upcoming season that aren’t getting peppered with attention, that aren’t backed by fat public relations budgets, yet seem to have what it takes to be remarkable. Or, maybe not. Only time will tell.
(NOT) A PRAIRIE FLOWER
C’mon, admit it: You broke into a huge grin when you saw this eccentric, super-scale water tower from Fresno, Calif. Sure, it has no stained-glass windows showing stylized prairie flowers. But its architect, George Washington Maher, was part of the Prairie School of Architecture led by Frank Lloyd Wright. Lesser-known members of this loose confederation are finally getting their due, as groups like the Chicago Architecture Foundation recognize their role in creating an indigenous Midwestern style. “The Architecture of George Washington Maher,” featuring 100 black-and-white photographs by Judith Bromley, runs from Sept. 23 through Nov. 30 at the foundation, 224 S. Michigan Ave. Call 312-922-3432.
– Blair Kamin
WYMN’S MOVEMENT
If performance art looks too cerebral most of the time, check out the very visceral Austin, Texas-based Root Wymn Theater. This women’s troupe uses music, movement, text and startling installations to play with stereotypes of African-American women. These sistahs are smart and funny, and sometimes sad too. Their new show, “No Mo Blues,” features Sonja Parks in a one-person performance. Nov. 21 and 22 at 8 p.m., and Nov. 23 at 3 p.m., at Randolph Street Gallery, 756 N. Milwaukee. Call 312-666-7737.
– Achy Obejas
BEYOND `TRAINSPOTTING’
The British director, writer, producer and star of the gritty “Trainspotting” and nasty “Shallow Grave” make their Hollywood debut with a romantic road comedy set in America? With Delroy Lindo and Holly Hunter as cops in heaven who must play Cupid to a janitor (Ewan McGregor) who kidnaps a corporation honcho’s rich, pampered daughter (Cameron Diaz)? Sounds scarily like “Excess Baggage,” but if their track record is any indication, director Danny Boyle and writer John Hodge should give the formula a topsy-turvy spin. Opens Oct. 24.
– Mark Caro
COMMON CAUSE
Chicago hip-hop was once so underground it barely registered on the East Coast-West Coast radar, but no longer. One of the most anticipated rap albums of the fall arrives Sept. 30 when South Side native Common, formerly known as Common Sense, drops his third full-length release, “One Day It’ll All Make Sense” (Relativity). With gangsta rhymes sounding increasingly tired, Common brings a fresh lyrical approach that, following on the heels of homegrown commercial successes such as Crucial Conflict, Twista and Do or Die, indicates the city has arrived as a hip-hop power.
– Greg Kot
A WRITER WHO SWINGS
Chicago novelist Leon Forrest may be nationally known as the author of the sprawling “Divine Days,” among other works, but did you know there’s music in his words? Jazz innovators Henry Threadgill and Ari Brown will prove the point during a “Dramatic and Musical Interpretation of the Works of Leon Forrest,” as part of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Traffic series. Catherine Slade, an actor and acting teacher at Columbia College, will read from Forrest’s lyric novels, while tenor saxophonist Brown and multi-instrumentalist Threadgill riff on stage. The show is Nov. 17 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted St. Call 312-335-1650.
– Howard Reich
MOLE RATS AND ROBOT SCIENTISTS
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Director Errol Morris’ films are too fanciful and jazzy to be labeled documentaries, yet they’re grounded in real life, not fiction. After tackling more serious subjects with his last two projects, “The Thin Blue Line” and “A Brief History of Time,” Morris has returned with perhaps his most free-wheeling movie yet, “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control,” which whimsically interweaves profiles of a lion tamer, a mole-rat photographer, a topiary gardener and a robot scientist. What they and the filmmaker turn out to share is a great sense of wonder. Opens Nov. 14.
– Mark Caro
LIVE, FROM LEEDS
Sure, the Rolling Stones are great in concert and you want to get tickets but have you ever been to a Mekons show? The Mekons have had more lineups than Ani DiFranco has had hairstyles, have outlived punk-era contemporaries such as the Clash, Buzzcocks and Sex Pistols, and still deliver the goods during their rare performances with fervor, humor and the odd drunken bellow. These onetime art-schoolers from Leeds, England, celebrate their 20th anniversary with a late-night concert Sept. 20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art that will offer a preview of an album being recorded in Chicago. They will also stage two shows Sept. 19-20 at the MCA with feminist author Kathy Acker, which will mark the first local performances of their bawdy collaborative soundtrack for Acker’s 1996 novel, “Pussy, King of the Pirates.” Call 312-397-4010.
– Greg Kot
BLUE DEMONS
They are not Devo, or men in black, either. But the silent, ball-spitting, self-styled “shamanistic” Blue Man Group a trio of cobalt-painted mimesis one of off-Broadway’s stranger hits. The troupe, known to fans of Chicago’s own “Milly’s Orchid Show” as well as “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” arrives for an open-ended, not-to-be-missed engagement beginning Oct. 7 at the Briar Street Theatre. Call 773-348-4000.
– Sid Smith
SCARE TACTICS
A long-run hit in London, “The Woman in Black” arrives in Chicago at the Theatre Building Oct. 28 (just in time for Halloween) with a reputation as a truly frightening, unsettling ghost story. It may be just another case of the thriller-chiller genre on which the Brits dote, but, on the other hand, Americans who have seen it swear it scared the daylights out of them, too. In any event, in Chicago it will have Greg Vinkler, one of the city’s best actors, starring as a lawyer who hires a young actor (Timothy James Gregory) to help him re-enact and exorcise a ghostly event of years before. The play is being presented here by a company with the promising title of Blood Curdling Productions. Call 773-327-5252.
– Richard Christiansen
WHAT A `DEGENERATE’
Lasar Segall (1891-1957) was a featured artist in the 1991 exhibition of work proclaimed “degenerate” by the Nazi regime, but only this year will he receive a full retrospective for English-speaking audiences. It will open Oct. 16 at the David and Alfred Smart Museum, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Called “Still More Distant Journeys: The Artistic Emigrations of Lasar Segall,” the show will include more than 125 paintings, watercolors, prints and drawings from Segall’s early German Expressionist phase as well as his late contributions to Brazilian modernism. It’s a “wild card” if there ever was one. Call 773-702-0200.
– Alan G. Artner
UNDER STALIN’S YOKE
For many creative people living in Russia during the murderous and repressive regime of Joseph Stalin, making art was literally a life-or-death matter. Composer Sergei Prokofiev fell in and out of official favor throughout the Stalin years, cranking out numerous potboilers but also masterpieces. He and Papa Joe died on the same date – March 5, 1953 – but the Soviet papers didn’t carry Prokofiev’s obituary until days later. Concertante di Chicago will begin its season Feb. 8 at the DePaul University Concert Hall with a program of rare Prokofiev works composed during some of the grimmest years of Stalin’s dictatorship. Included is Piano Concerto No. 4 for the left hand, with Daniel Beliavsky as soloist. As an added attraction, the concert will feature a slide presentation of scenes from Russian films of the period. Call 312-621-5265.
– John von Rhein