March 2019 events calendar for Chicago
March is finally here, which means that spring is in the air. Soon enough, the snow will melt away and the Chicago River will turn green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Though warm weather is just around the corner, real Chicagoans know that winter isn’t over just yet. While we wait on patio season, there's plenty to look forward to this month, including flower shows, parades, beer festivals and great concerts from the likes of Robyn, Bad Bunny and Kacey Musgraves. Say goodbye to winter with some of the best things to do in Chicago this March.
RECOMMENDED: Events calendar for Chicago in 2019
Featured events in March
“A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE”
Contemporary art comes to the Driehaus Museum for the very first time, when the Gilded Age mansion hosts Shonibare’s sculptures dressed in colorful high-Victorian costumes and two collections of photographs. The British-Nigerian artist's work is spread throughout the house, contrasting the humor and irony of his creations with the beautiful, antiquated spaces in which they reside.
Art on theMART
After taking two months off, Art on theMART is back. For five nights each week the 25-story-tall video installation takes over the side of the Merchandise Mart, filling the building's historic facade with vibrant colors and moving images. Harnessing 34 digital projectors, the show features work by a rotating lineup of artists and is best viewed from Wacker Drive or the Riverwalk, between Wells and Orleans Streets. Art on theMART lights up the night Wednesday through Sunday, with projections beginning approximately 15 minutes after sunset.
Chicago European Union Film Festival
The Gene Siskel Film Center's annual European Union Film Festival serves as North America's largest showcase for films from European Union nations, including countries like Austria, Belgium and Croatia. This year's program features more than 60 films, representing all 28 EU nations. Highlights of the lineup include Romanian murder mystery Thou Shalt Not Kill, German teen drama Tiger Milk, Spanish animated film Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles and Hungarian Cold War comedy Lajkó--Gypsy in Space.
Pop-Up Magazine: XQ Super School Live
Journalists, writers, filmmakers, photographers, poets and musicians take part in a multimedia variety show that's designed to capture the feeling on flipping through the pages of your favorite publication. Pop-Up Magazine teams up with education organization XQ for the latest edition of its show, which tasked contributors with telling stories about things that are happening in modern high schools. Throughout the evening, you'll hear about a high schooler who ran for school board president, a school cafeteria restaurant critic and a sociology class trying to track down a serial killer. Plus, all proceeds from the evening benefit a local non-profit.
Uppers & Downers
Good Beer Hunting presents this annual festival devoted to the various intersections between craft beer, coffee, chocolate and cocktails. During two sessions at Thalia Hall, attendees will be able to try brews from the likes of Hopewell, Solemn Oath, Off Color and Middlebrow, as well as coffee from Metric, Intelligentsia and Counter Culture. Plus, you'll also find caffeinated cocktails and some interesting dishes to pair with all the bean juice you're consuming.
“Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera”
Best known for her photos of dolls and miniature objects (as well as for being the mother of Girls creator and star Lena Dunham), New York artist Laurie Simmons creates work that views reality through a surreal lense. The MCA's career retrospective, entitled "Big Camera/Little Camera," includes works that explore scale, female gender roles and the artificiality of social media. In addition to photographs, guests can view a collection of the miniature props that Simmons used in her imagery, sculptures that comment on society's obsession with the female body and a trio of short films, including one in which actress Meryl Streep interacts with vintage puppets. In acknowledgement of Simmons' activism in the realm on gender inequality, the MCA will offer $12 tickets (81 percent of the regular $15 admission price) to those affected by the gender pay gap through the duration of the show's run.
Concerts in March
Kacey Musgraves
Hailing from Texas, singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves made a name for herself with twangy tunes about small-town living, romance and staying true to yourself. On Golden Hour, Musgraves frequently moves beyond country music, experimenting with bouncy disco arrangements and vocoder-aided vocal melodies that exhibit her usual pristine pop sensibilities. The catchy hooks and harmonies are infectious, but the most striking element of Musgraves' music is its raw emotional honesty.
Mumford & Sons
Once known for writing banjo-picking, foot-stomping folk-rock anthems, the lads of Mumford & Sons have comfortably settled into their new identity as radio-friendly rockers. The group's latest album, Delta, takes Marcus Mumford's vocal harmonies and places them atop moody electronic compositions that wouldn't sound out of place on a Coldplay record. It's an obvious direction to take for a band that can easily fill arenas, but at least it will be interesting to hear how Mumford & Sons integrates the twangy choruses of smash hits like "I Will Wait For You" and "The Cave" into a set of sleek new tunes.
Alan Menken
The Oscar, Tony and Grammy-award winning composer repsonsible for the songs from Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King that soundtracked your childhood takes the stage for an evening of storytelling and performances. In addition to his classic Disney catalog, expect to hear tales from Menken's work on Little Shop of Horrors and his musical contribution to the first Captain America movie.
Theater in March
Doubt: A Parable
Mary Ann Thebus and Michael Patrick Thornton are some of this city’s best actors. Now they’re taking on two powerful roles in Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn—the conservative nun and the progressive young priest, respectively, in John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Doubt: A Parable. Watch these local titans go head to head at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre.
Remember the Alamo
Perhaps Remember the Alamo isn’t the most accurate title for Neo-Futurist Nick Hart’s immersive take on the famous battle. Reenact the Alamo in All Its Gory Detail might be a better fit. Directed by fellow Neo Kurt Chiang, this play mashes up American history, personal narratives and a hearty helping of metatheatrical silliness. It’s a very special recipe that only the Neo-Futurists could execute.
Sweat
In 2011, playwright Lynn Nottage interviewed residents of the nation’s poorest town, Reading, Pennsylvania. Those discussions were the backbone for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat, which catalogs the broken dreams of working-class Americans. The Chicago premiere comes courtesy of veteran director Ron OJ Parson and a dynamite cast.
The Ridiculous Darkness
Translated by Daniel Brunet, this disturbing, subversive satire from German playwright Wolfram Lotz splices together a Heart of Darkness-esque quest to find a madman in the jungle with a modern-day Somali pirate’s journey through the heart of the European justice system. Directed by Ian Damont Martin, The Ridiculous Darkness promises to be unlike anything else in town.
Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical
Big-budget disaster movies like 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure are simultaneously ridiculous and divine. It’s that irreverent reverence for shlock that powers Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical, David Cerda and Scott Lamberty’s 2002 smash-hit parody. Returning for a third go-around, Poseidon! has become a bit of a classic itself.
A Number
Despite its simple setup—two men (a father and son) together in a room—this play immediately starts screwing with your head. Call it the Caryl Churchill special. Director Robin Witt directs William Brown and Nate Burger in this dark, British sci-fi thriller. It’s the nature-nurture debate taken to a frightening conclusion.
Southern Comfort
Based on the 2001 documentary of the same name, this folk and bluegrass musical chronicles the life of Robert Eads, a transgender man whose cancer diagnosis affords him one last trip to the Southern Comfort Transgender Conference in Atlanta. Written by the team behind Trevor: The Musical, this production from director JD Caudill features transgender actors in all applicable roles.
Little Shop of Horrors
It’s a classic story: Boy meets girl. Boy meets talking plant. Plant promises to help boy get girl so long as boy feeds plant human blood. Boy and plant go on killing spree. Christopher Kale Jones stars as the lovestruck Seymour in the Mercury Theater’s new rendition of the cult-classic musical. Make alternative plans if you have a fear of dentists and/or murderous plants.
Act(s) of God
In this dark existential comedy from Kareem Bandealy, a traditional nuclear family receives a mysterious envelope informing them of a very special guest coming for dinner. As they scramble to welcome their cosmic visitor, things start to get just a wee bit absurd. Like any good dark comedy, this show is best suited for audience members who are 13 and up.
The Man Who Was Thursday
It’s hard not to look at The Man Who Was Thursday with suspicion. After all, how did a play about anarchist cults and government spies so perfectly attuned for 2019 manage to premiere all the way back in 2009? Were writer Bilal Dardil and director Jessica Hutchinson tipped off to some kind of vast Illuminati plan? And what of the fact that the two are now remounting Dardil’s rollicking G.K Chesterton adaptation at Lifeline Theatre? Do they know something we don’t? In order to solve this mystery, you’ll just to have see the show. Trust us: you won’t regret it.
