LETTICE & LOVAGE It begins amusingly enough. Lettice Douffet is an eccentric middle-aged lady whose limited means conflict with her unlimited imagination. The daughter of a Shakespearean actress whose cross-gender specialties were Falstaff and Richard III (she used the same pillow for her belly and her hump), Lettice shares with the Bard a theatrically vivid disrespect for historical facts. Employed to lead tours through a stately Tudor mansion, she embellishes the official history of Fustian House (“the dullest home in England”) with her own crowd-pleasing fantasies; this brings her the unwanted attention of her superior, a tough little terrier named Lotte Schoen, who promptly fires her....

LUTHER Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The play, if not the production, is intriguing. Osborne’s drama spans Luther’s life from the time he gives up the prospect of law school to join the Augustinian order, in 1506, until the excommunicated Luther becomes a father, in 1530. Along the way, Luther wears the hats of scholar, penitent, firebrand, heretic, divine apologist, victim of irregularity, misunderstood son, and loving father....

Morrissey is a damp Kleenex of a rock star, a full-time mope who complains far too much–even when he’s not it seems like he’s about to. He has a limpid smile and a flamboyantly indeterminate sexuality and sings in a melodramatic, lugubrious manner guaranteed to wear down the nerves of any sentient being in the area within half-a-dozen songs. So why’s his show the concert event of the summer? Over the five years or so since the collapse of the Smiths, the former lead singer had pretty much laid low–until last year’s casually released greatest-hits album, Bona Drag....

Gerard Schwarz, music director of both the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the New York Chamber Symphony, is one of the few young American conductors who specialize in eloquent interpretations of works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. A rigorous classicist in the mold of Bruno Walter, he knows how to shape a phrase and unfold the logic so crucial to the music’s dramatic effect. Lately he’s become especially adept at Mozart’s orchestral pieces; unlike, say, the slick Georg Solti, Schwarz resists the temptation to prettify or sentimentalize....

Clarence Darrow, the legendary defense attorney, always thought of himself as a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist. His answer to the questions: Does man have free will? Is there life after death? Is the human race getting anywhere? was always a resounding no! Darrow viewed history as a kind of treadmill, each generation hanging on to the same illusions, mouthing the same inanities, and repeating the same dumb mistakes as the ones before it....

“It was just like a Chuck Norris movie,” said the guy in the back of the train. He was wearing a mesh New York Giants jersey with the sleeves cut off. The girl next to him was staring at him open-mouthed, saying “Wow” every two or three seconds. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “So I went to this deli, this Korean deli, and I ordered a sub....

Next month–pulling teeth? Traumarama is coming on Wednesday nights in November to Club Lower Links on West Newport: “In addition to special guests, each night will include the Trauma Slide Series and a ‘show-us-your-scar’ open mike.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Is Weight Watchers a Republican plot? That seems to be Janet Tanaka’s idea, writing in the Chicago-based Christian feminist journal Daughters of Sarah (September/ October 1989): “As long as our inherent power and gifts are tied up in ourselves we present no threat of change....

Saxophonist Urs Leimgruber–definitely not a household name (not even in my household)–offers two quite different but related approaches to his music. When he plays unaccompanied, he concentrates on repetitive, scientific investigations of the instrument’s capabilities: like Roscoe Mitchell, he uses overtones, multiphonics, and an exquisite control over the instrument’s most difficult expanses to create entrancing patterns. (Unlike Mitchell, Leimgruber sometimes makes these sound like a sample of Philip Glass.) But with his trio–starring the iconoclastic and much respected drummer Fritz Hauser–Leimgruber takes the results of these investigations and turns them into more fully realized musical experiences in which free-flowing melodies and fluid harmonies are emboldened by his technical wizardry....

ANY BONDS TODAY? Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Whatever one’s opinions of either war, in those grim times a USO bond rally provided the perfect excuse for young people to get together, dance, and flirt, all in the name of a worthy cause. The musical revue Any Bonds Today? re-creates one such event, from the Andrews Sisters-style invitation to “buy a share of freedom” to the rousing George M....

A PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OF “THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE MASTER RACE” The Alchemical idea was to take Brecht’s collection of scenes documenting the everyday horrors of life in the Third Reich and create a new context for them, juxtaposing them against Walsh’s own material about the present-day reunification of East and West Germany. Current events and the catastrophe behind those events would thus share the same stage: history and hope would knock up against each other; undermine, accuse, and expose each other; and ultimately impart a sense, between them, of the dialectics (not to mention the desperate characters) playing themselves out now in the so-called new Germany....

Friday 9 While politicians debate building a new jail, the wisdom of mandatory minimum sentences, and corruption in the sheriff’s office, prisoners are sleeping on the floor and in hallways at the county jail. Overcrowding at Cook County Jail, a morning workshop sponsored by the League of Women Voters, takes a look at the causes and possible solutions. U.S. district court judge Milton Shadur, circuit court judge Thomas Fitzgerald, Cook County Commissioner Jerry “Iceman” Butler, Cook County Department of Corrections Director Spencer Leak, and John Howard Association director Mike Mahoney will be on hand....

Friday 25 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ruben Blades has never been a typical salsa singer. While others sang about new dance steps and doing it all night, Blades talked about street violence, better education, and love’s ambivalence. His career has been enigmatic and intense: a Harvard law grad, he first appeared on-screen in Crossover Dreams, a tiny, wildly successful independent. When Robert Redford offered him the lead in The Milagro Beanfield War, Blades opted for a lesser, meatier role....

Friday 24 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Gospel singer Clarence Fountain is blind as a bat and 60 if he’s a day; plus he’s a sex god. He leads the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and just got done starring in the Goodman’s The Gospel at Colonus. His and the Blind Boys’ only local club appearance before they blow town is tonight at B....

In Bob Cooley’s cramped office, there are paintings and sketches of flowers and underwater pebbles reflecting sunlight. There are watercolors and mountain panoramas. But the view out the window is of an Ohio Street parking lot. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Cooley goes on lots of vacations. While skiing in the Alps or relaxing in a Wisconsin cabin, he takes photographs that he uses to make sketches for his paintings....

This festival of films and videotapes from more than 25 countries concludes at Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, on Sunday, October 22. Single tickets are $2.50 for adults and children; a pass good for five films is $10. For more information call 929-5437. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » BEHAVE YOURSELF, GABI! Cornel Diaconu’s Romanian feature about a boy’s adventures at his grandparents’ country house....

DEAR HOLMEY Dear Holmey was written by two of the actors in the show–Clark Weber, who plays Dean Holmes, an advice columnist for a Chicago newspaper, and Karen Cole, who portrays a character with no apparent relevance to the plot. The show was directed by another cast member, Todd L. Yearton. Dear Holmey is the first show staged by Yakity Yak Productions, a group formed for the purpose. Creating his own production company was clearly the only way Weber could get his script staged, for the plot of Dear Holmey is so incoherent and arbitrary, and the dialogue so inane, that the play verges on surrealism....

You might imagine the director of an institution named the Chicago Christian Industrial League to be a grim, black-frocked fellow, passing out bowls of greasy soup. Roberts worked hard, went to college, and got a job as a recreation therapist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. From there he joined the staff of the Fox River Rehabilitation Center, got involved in hospital administration, and eventually became a public-relations man for nonprofit organizations....

THE FRESHMAN “The overwhelming attractiveness of the screwball comedies involved more than the wonderful personnel. It had to do with the effort they made at reconciling the irreconcilable. They created an America of perfect unity: all classes as one, the rural-urban divide breached, love and decency and neighborliness ascendant. –Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money (1971) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In the early 80s Bergman formed a production company with producer Mike Lobell, which has been responsible for The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) and Chances Are (1989), as well as So Fine and The Freshman....

Bruce Woods is not a household name in the world of fashion and design. But then he doesn’t aim to be. Working from his north-side apartment, he designs and crochets one-of-a-kind skirts, tops, dresses, jackets, even coats for individual clients. “Crochet” may suggest a kind of craft or folk art, but that is not what Woods does. His pieces are elegant garments that sell for $200 and up. And though he wishes he had a few more clients, he doesn’t want to work any other way....

“It’s quite clear you wouldn’t get into a carriage in this,” Virgil Johnson says. “You wouldn’t wear lace in a carriage.” The dress he’s talking about, made of black satin embroidered with bright flowers, with a black lace underskirt and a high mandarin collar, belonged to Mrs. Samuel Allerton, and it probably never was worn in a carriage. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Most recently, though, Johnson has used his knowledge to curate an exhibit of dresses from the 1880s–a period when the number of millionaires in Chicago was increasing rapidly and when elaborate dress, the result of an elaborate social code, was the rage....