1. Funny Ha-Ha with WBEZ blogger Claire Zulkey is tonight. This particular show is called Hot Stuff, and in case you don’t know about this thing that’s cool and makes you laugh, it’s a literary humor series with local Chicago writers. This week’s line-up includes Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me panelist and “Ask Amy” columnist Amy Dickinson, as well as Jezebel writer Erin Gloria Ryan. It’s all at The Hideout at 7 pm.

2. The long-awaited Chicago premiere of Spring Awakening has its cast, and they’re a motley crew of unknowns, much like the original Broadway production which, fun fact, had a girl from my high school in it (she still went to classes, by the way). Good to see that there won’t be a Rosario Dawson-playing-a-teenager-in-Rent- when-she-was-ancient situation going on here. The cast includes local students, from Columbia College, Northwestern, Roosevelt University, the Theater School at DePaul, UIC and Loyola, as well as Cornell University and Oklahoma City University.

3. Steppenwolf has shaken up it’s artistic staff; their Associate Producer is now Jacob G. Padrón and their Literary Manager position has gone to Aaron Carter (no, not that one). Padrón will oversee Steppenwolf’s Garage Rep, First Look, and NEXT UP series, while Carter will be working on finding new work for the company and getting audience engagement up. Padrón has been at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Carter was at Victory Gardens. 

4. Another day, another Sex and the City knockoff…homage, I mean. Opening this weekend at the Metropolis Performing Arts Center in Arlington Heights, Second City is doing a “pre-Chicago run” of The Second City’s Sex and the Second City: A Romantic Dot Comedy which “puts a hilarious spin on the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier, but really make us pull out our hair.” More importantly, Fred Willard, a Second City alum, and amazing star of movies like Best in Show, will be appearing via video. That’s so 21st century.

5. Memoir at Greenhouse Theatre is also opening this weekend, and it’s filled with history and…memory. “It is the summer of 1922 on an island off the coast of Brittany. Sarah Bernhardt, an icon of the nineteenth century stage, sets out to write the second volume of her memoirs. As Sarah and her secretary Pitou rekindle memories, they discover the truths behind her mythic stature.” Oooooooh.

Questions? Tips? Email kdries@wbez.org.