Friday/ November 16
Phat Pitch, a new RSO dedicated to sponsoring campus music of all kinds, screens The Wizard of Oz synched with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon tonight. Are the seeming congruities between album and film eerie coincidences or part of a design by Floyd’s Roger Waters or, spookier, MGM head of production Mervyn Leroy in a moment of Nostradamus-magnitude divination? Has anyone thought of synching Snow White with Pet Sounds? Dude. Also, look carefully for the famous munchkin suicide during the forest scene, just after Dorothy has met the tin man. (Stuart 101, 7 p.m., free)
1927’s Chicago, remade as a musical in 2002, is a story of Jazz Age irreverent frivolity told in a frivolously irreverent way. Roxy Hart, played by Maurine Dallas Watkins, is a freewheeling playgirl catapulted to celebrity when she kills her lover, precipitating a glittery farce of a criminal trial. David Drazin, a renowned Chicago silent film pianist, will provide musical accompaniment to this silent gem. (Film Studies Center, 7 p.m., free)
Saturday/ November 17
Catch the lighting procession of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, on North Michigan Avenue between Oak and Wacker Drive, this Saturday evening. Broadcast nationally on ABC, the lighting of over a million lights along Chicago’s main shopping thoroughfare is a beautiful, romantic, and probably incredibly wasteful utilization of the city’s infrastructure. It’s worth seeing despite the kitschy elements; Mickey Mouse is master of ceremonies. After the lights go on you can get in some early holiday shopping. (Michigan Avenue, 6 p.m.)
Tonight’s your last chance to see Lucky Plush Productions’ sophisticated, witty dance performance, Cinderbox 18. Inspired by the pervasiveness of reality television and crime dramas, the piece explores themes of spectatorship, failure, virtuosity, and competition. Lucky Plush has quickly gained a reputation as one of Chicago’s more inventive dance ensembles, partly because the pieces address such novel subjects and partly because of its unique use of technology and visual elements to enhance the experience of the dance. (220 East Chicago Avenue, 7:30 p.m., $24)
Sunday/ November 18
Tonight’s University of Chicago Wind Ensemble performance features the Emmy-winning score for the television special Scenes from the Louvre by Dello Joio. One of the foremost mid-century American composers, Joio often composed specifically for high school and college concert bands and ensembles. This was the case for one of his most famous pieces, Fantasies on a Theme by Hadyn, which he composed for the Michigan State University Wind Ensemble. Music by Arnold and Persischetti is also in the offing. (Mandel Hall, 4 p.m., free)
Drawing on recent scholarship in art history, musicology, the history of science, and psychology, the Smart Museum’s new exhibition, Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France, documents how the proliferation of mechanically reproduced images and the burgeoning science of psychology in the 19th century fundamentally altered the way people looked at and experienced art. The Smart’s exhibition reveals how the function of art changes with fashion, social trends, and technological progress. (The Smart Museum, free)
Monday/ November 19
Rising young artist Kariann Fuqua presents 20 new pseudo-psychedelic paintings of Chicago’s gritty cityscape at the Hyde Park Art Center’s new exhibition, On Unstable Ground. Fuqua’s paintings emerge from photographs she takes of spaces between buildings in Chicago. By using shocking, incandescent blocks of color, she dissolves the distinction between private and public space, building and alley. (5020 South Cornell Avenue, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., free)
Tuesday/ November 20
The Newberger Hillel Center sponsors the 61st annual Latke-Hamantash debate tonight at Mandel Hall. Panelists will give arguments for the supremacy of their favorite Jewish delicacy from the perspective of law, political science, business, and Middle Eastern studies. You can refuel and mingle at the reception following the discussion; both Latkes and Hamantaschen will be served, so you can make up your own damn mind. (Mandel Hall, 6:30 p.m., free)
Wednesday/ November 21
Lollapalooza veteran Catfish Haven plays its soulful rock at the Double Door tonight along with indie pop band Chin Up Chin Up. It’s a free show, so what reason is there not to go? (1572 North Milwaukee Avenue, 9 p.m., free)
Thursday/ November 22
If you aren’t leaving Chicago, make sure to get up early and see the Thanksgiving Day Parade on State Street, along with 400,000 others. Giant helium balloons will sway precariously in the breeze while marching bands, floats, and equestrian groups add to the hullabaloo. (State Street between Congress and Randolph, 8:30 a.m.)