Visitors in town: Nate Bargatze, Piff the Magic Dragon, Ross Mathews, Anthony Rodia. Jeremy Piven returns to his hometown.

At Zanies: Dobie Maxwell (Chicago), Tom Clark (Chicago), Jessica Kirson (Chicago), Anthony Bonazzo (Chicago), Tuesday Ten Showcase (Rosemont), Sensational Six Showcase (Rosemont), Tom Clark (Rosemont), Tom Clark (Rosemont), Nick DiPaolo (Rosemont).

At the Improv: Kevin Bozeman, Bret Ernst.

At Riddles: Darren Fleet.

Chicago comedians in the news: Did I imagine it or was Nick Vatterott in the audience on The Price is Right last Friday? Suspicion bolstered when his podcast partner Nick Turner got called, went on down and won a car. Then a shout-out to Nick Vatterott as he spun the Big Wheel. Then … Confirmed!

Following is this week’s Spotlight. Please confirm all details before leaving home!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24

Temple of Geekdom at Second City, 8:00 p.m. “An improvised adventure.”

This One Woman at Hopleaf, 7:30 p.m. Stories and stand-up inspired by one woman. Tonight’s performances are in honor of Lizzo.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25

The Second City Black History Month Show, 8:00 p.m. Classic sketches updated for 2020.

The Book of Moron at Broadway Playhouse, 8:00 p.m. Robert Dubac is here through March 1.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26

Cole’s Open Mic at Cole’s Bar, 9:30 p.m. Experience one of Chicago’s most famous open mics (created by Cameron Esposito). Hosted by Carly Kane and Alex Kumin. Over forty comedians each week and a mix of veterans, new comics and surprise drop-ins.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27

The Comedy Nosh at Max and Benny’s Restaurant & Deli, Northbrook, 7:00 p.m. Dinner and a show with headliner Peter-john Byrnes. Featuring Mona Aburmishan and Colleen Brennan.

Nick Bargatze at The Genesee Theatre, Waukegan, 7:00 p.m. The “Good Problem to Have” Tour.

Comedy for Cancer at Tivoli Theater, Downers Grove, 7:30 p.m. The H Foundation presents its Third Annual Comedy for Cancer benefitting Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Andrea Darlas hosts Jeanie Doogan, Mike Toomey, and headliner Pat Tomasulo.

Everything’s All White at Second City, 8:30 p.m. “Celebrate Black History Month with Diversity Hire! Get your resumes ready as we take a dive into the untold stories of African Americans, past and present.”

Molly at iO, 10:30 p.m. Susan Messing and Norm Holly! One night only!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28

Jeremy Piven at Community House of Winnetka, 7:00 p.m. A fundraiser for the Piven Theatre Workshop. With Chris Bader.

Dreamboat at iO, 8:00 p.m. “Highlighting some of iO Chicago’s best LGBTQIA+ performers.”

Piff the Magic Dragon at North Shore Center for Performing Arts, 8:00 p.m. “After earning national acclaim as the standout star of NBC’s America’s Got Talent and Penn & Teller: Fool Us, Piff The Magic Dragon continues to win over audiences across the globe with his mythical mixture of wizardry, wit and sarcasm …”

The Big Snail Show at The Playground Theater, 10:00 p.m. “A monthly comedy showcase that features the most original, often eccentric, and always hilarious comedy acts from Chicago and beyond … hosted by very large snail enthusiast Jack Allen and features fresh acts every month.” Featuring Prateek Srivastava, Evelyn Troutman, Mitch Kamaiopili, Claire Sundbye, Joe Chazaray, Ella Gale.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29

The Kates’ Leap Year Edition at The Book Cellar, 7:00 p.m. Chicago’s all-women stand-up comedy group. Hilarious, unforgettable voices. Created and produced by Kelsie Huff (Windy City Live, The Jam). Tonight: Joyce Hagen-McIntosh, Annie Russell, Mary DeMan, Lauren Hooberman, Claire Zulkey, Tocarra Mallard, Kyna Lenhof, Kristal Adams. Hosted by Soli Santos.

Big Laughs at The Buffalo Grove Community Arts Center, 7:30 p.m. Fabulous, memorable night guaranteed with headliner Kristen Toomey and featuring Peter-john Byrnes.

State of Unfairs at The Revival, 8:00 p.m. A sketch comedy revue about our state (of IL).

Ross Mathews at the Athenaeum Theatre, 8:00 p.m. Ross Mathews is here to celebrate his new tour and book of the same title Name Drop. Ross Mathews’ stories and vibrant storytelling are unparalleled. He interned at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, judged RuPaul’s Drag Race, spent Christmas with the Kardashians and had to explain himself to Barbara Walters. That’s just the beginning. Expect lots of energy, stand-up, and the opportunity to play games directly with Ross. You can also get a VIP Meet & Greet.

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

Anthony Rodia at The Arcada, St. Charles, 5:00 p.m. “Known for his hilarious skits, song parodies, And his weekly “Road Rage Wednesday” using his popular character “Uncle Vinny.”

Plus-Prov at iO, 7:30 p.m. Appreciating and celebrating plus-size comedy.

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In my opinion you dont have to worry about grammar especially as a new writer just starting out.

There will always be time to go back and add the comma after “In my opinion.” You’ll have time to debate using “don’t” or “do not.” You can second guess whether the introduction should be one or two sentences. Should there be a comma between “grammar” and “especially.” A semi-colon? What about, “starting out,” “getting started,” or end it right at, “as a new writer.”

Sure, grammar is important and I understand why it’s taught right away in elementary school. Having good grammar is viewed like having the right shooting form in basketball or establishing the mechanics of a perfect golf swing. The somewhat true belief: If you don’t learn it early on, you’ll develop bad habits and those habits become harder and harder to break.

But too much emphasis on grammar can also develop a more dangerous habit of overthinking every sentence. When you have endless rules about nouns, verbs, adjectives drilled into you at 8-years-old, when you practice diagramming sentences, feeling more like a surgeon than a writer, when you learn the rules of commas, memorize expressions like “I before E except after C,” all of these things add up and it’s like adding a list of safety precautions to your process; ultimately slowing down creativity.

And then when do you finally turn something in, you’ll see all of these red marks and crossed out words. It makes the next story that much harder to get down on paper.

There’s too much red pen in general, but especially in elementary school. Imagine if second, third, fourth graders turned in their papers and instead of any grammar marks, there were comments like, “Wow, loving the style of this! I think you’d like reading Roald Dahl. I think you’d like Judy Blume.” Or, “Hey, you like writing about bugs, you should check out these two books. You’ll love ’em.” Building an early love of reading will do more good for a writer than memorizing a list of rules. Plus, if you’re reading a lot, there’s natural osmosis with grammar. You won’t know the specific rules but you’ll be able to spot a sentence and say, “Eh, that one looks funny.”

The other problem, especially as we moved on to middle school and high school, is all of those dreaded five-paragraph essays would be due on a Monday morning. What would happen? We’d write them on Sunday night. We procrastinate the things we don’t want to do and when writing has become this cold process of rules and trying not to make a mistake, no wonder we pushed the paper off until after the Sunday Night Football game.

A healthier writing process would have been to make a paper due in three parts. Deadlines are good, they give a final push to get something out there. But the first round, every student should get a 60 out of 100. No matter what they turn in. The goal of Round 1 is just getting something down on paper. Then you spend the next three days celebrating.

And here I am making rules about “not making rules,” but students should be given no notes on their rough draft for those three days and encouraged not to look back at their papers. Build some distance from it.

Then you start the rewriting process. First by looking at the bigger picture. Do the arguments make sense? The intro paragraphs. What can be cut? What can be reworked? The next 20-30 points out of 100 are all about the rewrites. Having a few days where you don’t look at the paper helps you see it in a new light. Make some changes. Turn it in. Celebrate again.

The final stage, then, is line editing. Now it’s time to ruthlessly look at the grammar. The difference between 93 percent and a 97 comes down to all of those nagging rules about commas and not ending a sentence with a preposition.

This way you start to separate writing – which is really just storytelling – from rewriting and separate revision from grammar editing. Students can then start to say, “I love writing, I’m just not a big fan of editing,” or, “I’m more of an editor than a writer,” versus getting a 70% C- and saying a blanket statement of, “Oh, I must not be a good writer.”

I’m writing this all about school, but the same thing applies if you’re getting back into writing for fun or working on a book in retirement. The downside is you’ll have years of those perfection rules standing in the way. The default setting will be second-guessing your work.

But I want to show you something real quick. Something I hope will be encouraging. Here’s the first paragraph of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, one of the most famous openings in literary history:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Had Dickens turned this in to three different editors or grammar editing software, one might say, “This is a run-on sentence. And you can’t use the word ‘it’ so often. Especially to open a sentence.” Another might say, “You need to get rid of words like ‘epoch’ and ‘incredulity,’ no one’s gonna know what those mean.” And another might say, “Dude, just say, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ and move on. You’re killing us with these long-winded emails.”

If one of the most famous opening paragraphs in literary history could still have all of these nitpicky grammar “mistakes” to consider, then think about how much less pressure we should put on ourselves, especially our rough drafts. There should be way more freedom! Because yes, a typo or a glaring grammar mistake can damage an otherwise perfect sentence, but there’s also never been a moment when I’ve been reading a great story, stopped, highlighted a passage and said to myself, “Wow, look how perfect the grammar was right here!” No. The great passages stand out for reasons we can’t really explain. It just works. It hits us right. We know it when we see it.

Which means the truly great writing reaches a higher tier than perfection. So why not set our sights higher than trying to be perfect? Writing is not about the rules, it’s about telling a story in your voice. The way it was always meant to be told.

I’m working on two outlets for people to reclaim a love of writing or start writing for the first time. The first is Long Overdue Stories which is intended to help people record their own stories or stories from parents/grandparents. The other is Long Overdue Books where authors can publish their books for a wider audience, one chapter at a time.

For anyone in Chicago, I’ll be hosting a class about how to turn your stories into a book on March 4th from 7-9 pm at Third Space in Lakeview East. If you’d like to attend, you can register here or email me directly at [email protected]. 

I’ll be taking the month of March off from the blog, but I’m excited for some of the posts coming up in April and May. Hint: Get ready for a few restaurant review blogs.

Spotlight on great events happening this week at Chicago’s independent bookstores. Many of these events are free. This is just a sample! Follow link for details and many more authors, book launches, book clubs and all sorts of memorable experiences for Chicago bibliophiles.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24

Women & Children First, 7:00 p.m. The launch of Go to Sleep (I Miss You), the latest by Lucy Knisley!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25

The Book Stall, 6:30 p.m. Live taping of Hey YA! “with authors and co-hosts Eric Smith and Kelly Jensen. First, a discussion of Eric’s brand-new YA novel, Don’t Read the Comments.  Then a live taping while the hosts “shop the store” to recommend some of YA’s greatest hits. Recommended for all YA fans 12 to adult.”

Bucket O’ Blood Books and Records, 9:00 p.m. A discussion of the graphic novel with emphasis on Will Eisner’s Contract with God.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26

Women & Children First, 7:00 p.m. Book launch for Hood Feminism: Notes from the women that a movement forgot.”Author Mikki Kendall will be interviewed by Block Club reporter Jamie Nesbitt Golden.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27

Bookends & Beginnings, 6:00 p.m. Cynthia Beebe discusses her new memoir Boots in the Ashes about her experience as one of the first women special agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, (ATF).

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28

Seminary Co-Op, 6:00 p.m.   Author Michael Rossi talks about the Republic of Color, a look at how modern industry deliberately shaped the way we see colors.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29

The Book Cellar, 7:00 p.m. The kates, Chicago’s all-women stand-up comedy group. Hilarious, unforgettable voices. Created and produced by Kelsie Huff (Windy City Live, The Jam). Tonight: Joyce Hagen-McIntosh, Annie Russell, Mary DeMan, Lauren Hooberman, Claire Zulkey, Tocarra Mallard, Kyna Lenhof, Kristal Adams. Hosted by Soli Santos.

Ross Mathews at the Athenaeum Theatre, 8:00 p.m. Ross Mathews is here to celebrate his new tour and book, Name Drop. Ross Mathews’ stories and vibrant storytelling are unparalleled. He interned at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, judged RuPaul’s Drag Race, spent Christmas with the Kardashians and had to explain himself to Barbara Walters. That’s just the beginning. Expect lots of energy, stand-up, and the opportunity to play games directly with Ross. You can also get a VIP Meet & Greet. The Book Stall will be on hand supplying books!

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

The Book Stall, 2:00 p.m. Diana Kapp talks about her new book, Girls Who Run the World: 31 CEOs Who Mean Business with business education expert Lowey Bundy Sichol.

Anderson’s Bookshop in Downers Grove, 2:00 p.m. Sharon Cameron’s new YA novel The Light in Hidden Places is based on a true Holocaust story about a brave teen.

A Story of Bloody Abomination

Haven Theatre brings to the Roman stage, the bloodiest play written by William Shakespeare, ‘Titus Andronicus,’ a story filled with violence, murder, revenge, politics, class, culture, and gender. The Romans, who were the mortal enemies of the Goths, battled against Titus Andronicus, a Roman general, and his army. He returns from ten years of war, with only four out of twenty-five sons left. He has captured Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons, and Aaron the Moor. In obedience to Roman rituals, he sacrifices her eldest son to his dead sons, which earns him Tamora’s unending hatred and her promise of revenge.

As we walked into the theater at Haven, one of the ushers told us that the play runs three hours, after marinating on the lengthy time, and getting settled into our front row seats. I (Brenda) overheard the lady sitting two seats away, ‘I hope we don’t get splattered with any blood.’ My first reaction was as big as this space is, I hope not, so I immediately turned my focused on the Afro-futuristic storyteller and dancer sitting on the stage looking out at the audience.

After everyone settled in, he started doing a tribal dance, which led to an intense choreographed ballet of war between the two opposing rivals who battled it out with blades and ruthless power. This battle dance was a prelude to what happened before the homecoming of Titus Andronicus (Colin Jones), the general of the Roman army, and his warriors from their triumph over the Goths.

As a reward to the gods, they get to choose a Goth to be sacrificed, which happens to be the son of Tamora (Michaela Petro). She pleads for his life; however, no mercy was granted. She seeks revenge after Titus with Aaron (Andrew Perez). So the blood bath begins of which includes hand chops, cannibalism, beheadings, rape, torture, and a tongue extraction, which was the making of a good night of Shakespearean horror on stage.

Artistic Director and Director Ian Damont Martin did a great job of diversification with a talented group of actors. He cast women to play male roles, Bassianus (Lakecia Harris), Chiron (Morgan Lavenstein), to play Tamora’s son. Titus’ brother/sister, Marcus, played by Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, she is referred to as Aunt Marcus in this play, in the original as uncle Marcus.

As he stated, “Often marginalized to the center of his work.” Martin then adds, “When a Black person embodies a text and world wherein characters say exactly what they think and feel, ultimately to harvest empathy and understanding – it’s a ripe and refreshing piece of catharsis.”

Colin Jones did a good job portraying the tragic hero of the play, The General of Rome and the father of Lavinia and Lucius. Tarina Bradshaw, as Lavinia, Titus’ only daughter, stayed graceful even after being brutally raped, mutilated, and tortured. Gregory D. Hicks, as Lucius, Titus only surviving son who becomes the Emperor of Rome. He was the only character that went through a substantial psychological transformation throughout the play, moving from bloodthirsty youth to sober leader.

The embodiment of Tamora, the Queen of Goth, mother of Chiron, and Demetrius, played by Michaela Petro, was quite entertaining to watch. Christopher Wayland, as Saturninus (the Emperor), the eldest son of the late Emperor of Rome, who Titus successfully advocated for him to be the new Emperor was hilarious.

The design element created by Sydney Lynne Thomas and lighting by Adrienne Miikelle was dreadful (light-toned wood in beige) for Roman times, given the grandeur space in which they were given we expected more of a lavish set. The costumes done by Lily Walls were not as elegant as you would expect for those times, and we were a little confused about what era this took place, especially when we saw gym shoes on one of the Goths and a push broom. The synchronized ballet dance by R&D Choreography was done very well.

Titus Andronicus was a little too long (three hours), and it dragged in some parts. Nonetheless, some of the performances were good, and we didn’t get any blood on us.

Let’s Play ‘Somewhat Recommend’ that you check out Titus Andronicus, the revenge tragedy by William Shakespeare.

Haven Presents
Titus Andronicus
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Artistic Director Ian Damont Martin
February 13 – March 14, 2020, at The Den Theatre

Jeanine Cummins’ novel, “American Dirt” hit the proverbial jackpot when it received the Oprah bump a few weeks back, selected as a 2020 Book Club read.

It has also been at the center of a publishing firestorm, which is well summarized here. The story of a Mexican woman and her young son on the run from a cartel boss, written not by a person of Mexican heritage, but of a white woman with Latin roots.

I bought the book a day before I started hearing and reading about the uproar. I debated whether or not to read it. But I forged ahead for two reasons — one, a friend asked me if I hadn’t heard about the bad press, would I have read it (yes) and two, if I scrupulously vetted every book I read before I read it, I’d never get to actually reading a book.

I’m going to set the controversy aside for a moment to tell you what I think about the story itself. Then I’ll circle back. Because it should be talked about.

You can read the entire review here.