Friday | October 26
There is very little going on this weekend that doesn’t require you to pretend to be a kitty cat, Superman, or binders full of women, as the case may be. But at the DuSable Museum of Art, you can just be you—or at least the version of you that drinks wine and makes witty comments about the art of Henry O. Tanner and Augusta Savage, among others. Art, Wine and Entertainment, which celebrates the museum’s exhibit Buried Treasures: Art in African American Museums, will feature a spoken word poetry performance, Afrobeat music, live art demonstrations, and a guided tour of the show. 740 East 56th Street. 7–10 p.m., $10.
Halloweekend continues at Lincoln Park music venue Martyrs’, where a bunch of cover bands are getting into the Halloween spirit by dressing up as the bands they cover. The show runs through Saturday, but today you can check out the masked musical stylings of Dirty Pigeons as the Moody Blues, Dolly Varden as Fleetwood Mac, and Ben Mots as Bad Company. 3855 North Lincoln Avenue. Starts at 8:30 p.m., $12, $10 in advance.
Saturday | October 27
Getting hammered and performing incoherently at a karaoke bar isn’t a bad decision, it’s a privilege. If Hyde Park Art Center’s Mischief Night has anything to say about it, it’s also the highest form of art. At HPAC’s impressive line-up of interactive arts, tricks, and treats, you can communally shave some guy’s chest hair, séance anything to your favorite deceased artists, make your own skeleton, cover someone’s body with whipped cream, cinnamon rolls and donuts, and, of course, watch a master artist get drunk and perform karaoke. 5020 South Cornell Avenue. 1–10 p.m., free.
Sometimes you go to a classical music concert to be moved by its complex beauty and spirited humanism. Other times, you go to conjure up images of Will Smith fighting a giant mechanical spider on the American frontier. Whatever your reasons are, the University Symphony Orchestra’s Annual Halloween Concert is bound to please you. This year they’re going as “The Wild, Wild West” performing rough-and-tumble favorites such as John Williams’s “The Cowboys Overture,” Aaran Copland’s “Billy the Kid” ballet, and music from The Magnificent Seven and Paint Your Wagon. There will also be costumed appearances by the Hyde Park School of Dance and the University of Chicago Chorus. 1131 East 57th Street. 7–8:15 p.m., $4 student tickets.
Sunday | October 28
Forego straggler Halloween parties or another night in the Reg for a mature discussion of foreskin that is bound to be both illuminating and uncanny. Don’t miss Doc Films’s free screening of CUT: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision. Director Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, interviewed several professors from his alma mater, as well as from our own U of C (plus several mohels and rabbis for good measure) in his search for the religious, scientific, and ethical truth about circumcision. 1212 East 59th Street. Starts at 8:30 p.m., free.
It’s really difficult to find that special someone on Halloween because everyone is trying to be someone else, so why not go to a party that feels comfortable this year? O’Shaughnessy’s Public House hosts Dating for Nerds, Freaks, and Geeks Halloween Party, an oasis of trivia, board games, and icebreakers. Halloween attire inspired by nerd culture is encouraged, so slip on your prescription grandma glasses and break out the weird Plato jokes. 4557 North Ravenswood Avenue. 5–8 p.m., $30, 21+.
