Clybourne Park at Steppenwolf

Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, an homage of sorts to “A Raisin in the Sun,” achieved the formidable task of bookending Lorraine Hansberry’s classic without gimmickry. This two-generation story about a home—first changing due to white flight (the flip side of “Raisin”) then, a generation later, transitioning again via the forces of gentrification—managed to put a fresh and thought-provoking spin on the still-evolving subject of race. And by centering it on a home, it managed to skewer America’s notions of class and the middle class as well. Norris’ text is funny, heartbreaking and dramatic, attributes brought into their finest light in the hands of Steppenwolf’s director Amy Morton and a superlative cast. A perfect night of smart theater.

Audience choice:
5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche
The New Colony at the Dank Haus
4740 North Western
(773)561-9181
thenewcolony.org

Best of Chicago 2011

M Lounge

The sounds are cool but the scene is cozy at M Lounge on South Wabash. For the past six years, this chic and intimate space has served as a midweek oasis for music-loving South Loopers. The club hosts solid local talent in a variety of flavors, from straight-ahead jazz to bossa nova, every Tuesday and Wednesday from 7pm to 10pm, with no cover charge and a two-drink minimum. It’s a bargain, made even sweeter by the comfy seating, well-stocked bar and civilized, attitude-free atmosphere, where newcomers quickly feel at home. Owner Reginald Marsh named the club in honor of his wife MaryAnn, who encouraged Marsh to quit his press-secretary gig and pursue his martini-mixing dream. “When we settled in the South Loop, there wasn’t a lot of entertainment infrastructure,” says Marsh. “I wanted something that was the opposite of every bar I hate–a place that takes care of customers and feels like a living room.” And so it is. On a recent evening, with the fine Chris Davis Jazztet playing to a clued-in and respectful crowd, the vibe was laid-back, upbeat and just right.

M Lounge
1520 South Wabash
(312)447-0201
mloungechicago.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Jeff Carter at Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall, IIT

Jeff Carter’s sculptures of buildings, assembled from IKEA parts, played with the famous dictum “form follows function,” which influenced a score of Chicago architects. The sculptures were perfectly sited in Mies’ Modernist temple of Crown Hall.

Best of Chicago 2011

Fredda Hyman

We fantasize about the ideal of the “salon”: the imaginatively designed city home filled with fascinating people, with great artists sharing their talents in intimate private settings. For most of us, though, such gatherings are the stuff of Vanity Fair articles, the forbidden fruit of a privileged few. Fredda Hyman and her husband, Sidney, however, created an open-to-the-public classical music series in their West Loop home, Music in the Loft, which made such patrician partaking open to anyone with a passion for the arts and a courtesy for the environs in which it was presented (a home!). Fredda Hyman passed away earlier this month, leaving the future of her beloved creation uncertain at best and without its guiding spirit at the very least.

musicintheloft.org

Best of Chicago 2011

Artis’s Lounge

Many of Chicago’s blues venues feel like tourist traps or museums, but this tiny Calumet Heights dive is the real deal, a welcoming place to hear terrific music. Sundays Tre’ and the BlueKnights play an appealing hybrid of blues and rock ‘n’ roll, and DJs spin old-school R & B, house and steppers’ cuts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. But Monday is the best night to show up, when harmonica legend Billy Branch & the Sons of Blues hold court. As Branch makes his way around the circular bar, don’t be surprised if he blows a few stray notes in your ear.

Artis’s Lounge
1249 East 87th
(773)734-0491
facebook.com/pages/Artis-Lounge

Audience choice:
Buddy Guy’s Legends
700 South Wabash
(312)427-1190
buddyguy.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Escape from Thorne Mansion

The Art Institute’s collection of sixty-eight Thorne Miniature Rooms is one of those forever-present idiosyncratic marvels that most of us tend to take for granted. Especially since a busy gallery full of high-energy tourists and attention-challenged children make pensive contemplation unlikely. But the AIC has a virtual tour on its website that manages to take this old familiar and give it a fresh injection of imaginative vigor. Sure you can study photographs of each and every room if you want, but it’s far more fun to play Escape from Thorne Mansion, a take on the old-school RPG style of clicking around a room to find hidden passages in search of a prize or destination. While not likely to vex Zelda masters, it manages to create a bizarre sense of congruity between the otherwise stylistically incompatible rooms.

artic.edu/aic/thorne-game

Best of Chicago 2011

Bring Your Own Beamer at the MCA

BYOB is a potluck for video artists, who contribute to this one-night group show by bringing art and a projector (beamer). Although it first debuted in Chicago at Pilsen’s Kunsthalle New in March, the BYOB event at the MCA in October was meaningful because artists chose the art exhibited in the museum, at least temporarily.

Bring Your Own Beamer
byobworldwide.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Hinge Gallery

Holly Sabin opened Hinge in February, and the gallery’s roster of artists and exhibitions promises to support some of Chicago’s most deserving emerging artists.

Hinge Gallery
1955 West Chicago
(312)291-9313
hingegallery.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Wise Fools Pub

Located at Lincoln and Belden, you’d think that Thursday night, aka 50-cent Miller High Life Draft night, would be packed with college kids. Well, you’d be wrong. The crowd ranges from college kids to people in their mid-thirties, and you never know when it’s going to be a chill night or a rowdy night. It has a lengthy bar, a pool table and a dance floor off to the side with its own bar. But the best part—besides the free popcorn—is that you can feel like a baller by ordering rounds for your friends and still not need to break a $20.

Wise Fools Pub
2270 North Lincoln
(773)929-1300
wisefoolspub.com

Best of Chicago 2011

Photo: Isabella Coelho

The Green Mill

With the recent passing of Fred Anderson and retirement of Von Freeman, Chicago lost two great jazz venues, the Velvet Lounge and the New Apartment Lounge, respectively. Fortunately this historic Uptown lounge, once a Capone hangout, is still going strong. Its beautiful Art Deco fixtures provide a classy setting for appearances by some of the biggest names in the biz plus weekly residencies by talented locals like organist Chris Foreman and pianist Patricia Barber. Please respect the club’s policy against talking during performances—Barber has been known to come down from the stage and scream at noisy audience members.

The Green Mill
4802 North Broadway
(773)878-5552
Greenmilljazz.com

Audience choice:
Green Mill

Best of Chicago 2011