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Yes, “Stupormarket.” Choreographer Carrie Hanson’s irreverent hour-long dance-theater piece on the economy features a stressed-out Prada salesman arguing with a bear; a melodramatic “tragedy” for an anthropomorphized mink stole, diamond, and Hummer; and a literally hysterical movement auction. But it’s not all fun and games—Hanson nails the greed, guilt, and heartbreak of the economic downturn. It runs this weekend only. You can check out my review on SeeChicagoDance, or buy tickets at Stage 773.

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There wasn't a lot to shout about at the final televised forum featuring the four leading mayoral candidates. The audience wasn't allowed to shout in any case. The candidates were generally civil to each other and mostly stuck to their familiar talking points, but observed time limits and avoided grandstanding thereby investing the q-and-a session with a bit of meat.

What was unusual is that the League of Chicago Theatres and Broadway In Chicago were among the 10 co-sponsors of the candidates' forum, telecast live last night (Feb. 17) on ABC-7 from the stage of Broadway In Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre. The League and Broadway In Chicago generally steer clear of any direct involvement in politics or elections, though neither (of course) was coming out in favor of any of the candidates, Carol Moseley Braun, Gery Chico, Miguel Del Valle and Rahm Emanuel.

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Dexter Bullard admits he’s been “overbusy” for several months. Two of his productions are closing soon: the eerie, gut-twisting world premiere of Brett Neveu’s “Odradek” at the House Theatre and, off-Broadway, Craig Wright’s “Mistakes Were Made,” featuring Michael Shannon. American Theater Company has already extended Bullard’s debut of Dan LeFranc’s “The Big Meal,” and Victory Gardens opens his staging of Annie Baker’s award-winning “Circle Mirror Transformation” late this month. In mid-March, the Museum of Contemporary Art restages his Link’s Hall brainchild, “The Dialogues,” in conjunction with the exhibit “Without You I’m Nothing.”

When I talked to Bullard, 45, he was in LA auditioning students for the Theatre School at DePaul, where he’s head of graduate acting. No rest for the weary, not when they’re this talented.

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The fog is beginning to clear over at the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and its newly-independent first cousin, the Chicago Tourism Fund (CTF). We now know at least a few of the people who will be running things in the name of culture. My colleague Jim DeRogatis, who broke this story last December, has kept you up-to-date on what will happen to the City's various music festivals and events, and now I'll do the same for theater programs.

To remind you: late last year, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and the Mayor's Office of Special Events were merged without the approval of the DCA. Many senior employees of the DCA were let go, and management of its actual presenting programs--theater, music, dance, visual arts, public art, etc.--was shifted to the Chicago Tourism Fund (CTF). Thing is, the CTF was a fiscal entity not an administrative entity. It funded various positions for folks working for the DCA and the Chicago Office of Tourism, but the CTF itself had little staff and no executive leadership. Also, longtime DCA Commissioner Lois Weisberg--who had the trust of the cultural community--resigned as of Jan. 30 in a white-hot fury over what had happened to the DCA. Along with the retirement last Dec. 30 of Weisberg's longtime Number Two, Deputy Commish Janet Carl Smith, this left the new DCASE with no leadership.

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In New York last week, I caught up with three theater muck-a-mucks with Chicago connections: director Gary Griffin, performer Andre De Shields and actor/writer Charles Busch.

At this very moment Griffin is enjoying a two-week holiday in Costa Rica, and he's earned it, having had two Chicago productions running at the same time, "As You Like It" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater (through March 6) and "The Mikado" at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He also found time for a concert staging of "Lost in the Stars" for New York's City Center Encores! Series, with which Griffin has been associated for some years. I saw "Lost in the Stars," the 1948 musical by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson based on Alan Paton's novel, "Cry, the Beloved Country." The musical adaptation is a simply-told but deeply affecting tale of South Africa at the time Apartheid was becoming official government policy in the late 1940's. Its tale of two fathers, black and white, who bridge the racial divide through mutual grief, remains profoundly moving. It may be Weill's most richly melodic score and it was beautifully sung (only the black characters sing), played and staged at City Center. As soon as he returns from Costa Rica, Griffin heads to Canada for his third season with the Stratford Festival, where he'll stage a lavish production of "Camelot" (April 16-Oct. 30).

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A lucky 13 years ago, playwright Eve Ensler decided she would permit groups around the world to conduct Valentine’s Day performances of her seminal (ovarian?) feminist work The Vagina Monologues, provided they used the proceeds to combat violence against women.  The demand was so great that Ensler extended her grant of one-off rights throughout the months of February, March, and April, and so what began as a single event in New York now includes more than 5000 events annually. 

(That first New York reading caused a bit of a scandal when Donna Hanover, Rudy Guiliani’s wife and thus the city’s First Lady, participated, given that the text includes a rendition of all possible names for that portion of the female anatomy including my particular favorite, “Cootchie-Snorcher.”  The scandal flared up again several years later when the show’s Off Broadway producers cast Ms. Hanover in the lead role, whereupon she graciously withdrew to spare her husband further embarrassment.  He repaid her several months later with a public announcement that he preferred someone else’s cootchie-snorcher to hers.)

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Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s rap hit, “Funk It Up About Nothin,” is adding a month in London to its international touring schedule. Written and directed by Chicago- based brothers GQ and JQ (who also perform in it), the breezy, rapid-fire condensation of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” already has been performed in New York and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival since CST and the two Q’s first rolled it out in 2008.

The show’s return visit to CST closes this Sunday (Feb. 13) in preparation for a five-week tour of Australia announced some months ago. The new news is that “Funk It Up” will go immediately to London for a month-long run (April 6-May 7) at the historic Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in London’s richly multi-cultural East End. A half- century ago, the Theatre Royal was home to director Joan Littlewood and her working class Theatre Workshop, famous for developing the anti-war musical revue “Oh, What a Lovely War,” which went on to enjoy enormous success in London’s West End and on Broadway.

With “Funk It Up About Nothin” Chicago Shakespeare Theater now can claim to have developed a truly international stage success.

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