ACSA’s 11th Annual Cultural Show
The ACSA Network, organized by the African and Caribbean Students Association in celebration of its 11th anniversary, will explore how the African and Caribbean diasporas connect to people, places, and cultures through various social media platforms. The show, hosted by Nigerian comedian AphricanApe, will include a fashion show, student acts, and performances by outside artists. African and Caribbean food will be served.
Friday, April 15, International House, 7–10 p.m., $10 for students and $15 for non-students.
EbonyEssenceJet’s We Got Issues! and Off-Off Campus at The Revival
EbonyEssenceJet, an all-women comedy troupe, will be performing original improv and a sketch at The Revival as part of the Chicago Improv Festival. Following its show on April 15, UChicago’s Off-Off Campus will also be doing an all-women sketch show to end the night.
Saturday, April 15 and 29, The Revival, 8 p.m., $5 for Off-Off on April 15, $10 for EbonyEssenceJet.
Othello: The Remix as part of Shakespeare 400
Adapted by Chicago hip-hop artists The Q-Brothers and Rick Boynton, the Creative Producer at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, this version of Othello promises 80 minutes worth of rap, dance, and a reimagining of a classic Shakespeare play that will end with an exclusive talk with UChicago faculty and creative staff. A part of Shakespeare 400, the show aims to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death through performances that pay tribute to his legacy.
Wednesday, April 20, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 East Grand Avenue, 7:30 p.m., $15 for students with UCID. Transportation included.
GATSBY: The Musical
As part of UT/TAPS’s New Work Week, third-year Corson Barnard, second-year Maggie Strahan and fourth-year Laurie Beckoff have adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby into a musical. Directed by Barnard, who composed the music with Strahan and set it to lyrics written by Beckoff, the show aims to tell the widely-known story of the literary classic through song.
Saturday, April 16, Logan Center, Room 501, 9 p.m., $5 at the door (cash only), or you can purchase a New Work Week pass for all of the festival’s performances for $10 online or at the door.
A.O. Scott, Better Living Through Criticism
The New York Times’s venerable film critic A.O. Scott will be at the Seminary Co-Op to discuss his new book, Better Living Through Criticism. In the book, Scott examines the criticism of art as an intellectual endeavor, painting it as something we all do; everyone’s a critic in their own right. Using his own film criticism as a beginning point and looking at the nature of modern discourse and criticism in the age of technology, Scott explores how we as artistic consumers develop our tastes, likes and dislikes, and our inner art critics. Criticism, Scott says, is “a celebration of art and imagination, an examination of our inborn drive to cultivate delight and of the various ways we refine that impulse.”
Saturday, April 16, Seminary Co-Op, 2 p.m., free.
PanAsia Presents: Between the Occident and the Orient—Q&A with poet Sarah Howe
A collaboration between PanAsia, Student Government, the Program of Poetry and Poetics, and Blacklight Magazine, “Between the Occident and the Orient” will be a talk and Q&A with the Hong Kong–born British poet Sarah Howe. The winner of numerous poetry awards including the 2015 T.S. Eliot Prize, Howe is also an academic, editor, and judge for the UK’s National Poetry Competition. Her first book, Loop of Jade, has been met with critical acclaim.
Thursday, April 21, Reynolds Club, 7:30 p.m., free.
