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Arguably the most popular early-music ensemble around, the Waverly Consort specializes in reviving a wide range of musical styles popular between the 12th and the mid-18th centuries. Since its founding in 1964 by Michael and Kay Jaffee and some of their fellow New York University musicologists–the name Waverly is taken from a well-known street in Greenwich Village–the group has built up an impressive repertoire. Among its more famous presentations is The Christmas Story, already practically a holiday classic, based on a number of medieval and early Renaissance liturgical plays....

Bishop Hill rests quietly in south Henry County, about 20 miles northeast of Galesburg. The most direct drive from Chicago–roughly three and a half hours–is to take I-55 south to Joliet and west to Illinois highway 82; then take 82 south for about 25 miles to the marked turnoff for Bishop Hill and drive north about 3 miles. To catch a little more heartland, leave I-80 earlier, at the interchange with Illinois highway 34 outside Princeton, and take 34 south and west through Sheffield, Kewanee, and Galva....

These days, Alligator Records is billing Lil’ Ed as “refreshingly unsophisticated,” and for once the hype is pretty close to the truth. Slide guitarist Ed is the nephew of the late J.B. Hutto, and he carries on in his uncle’s grand tradition: short on subtlety and heavy on the kind of kick-ass, rough-hewn exuberance the blues and boogie crowd never seems to tire of, with a sufficiently healthy dose of authentic Chicago tradition to please aficionados as well....

THE WAGES OF FEAR With Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Vera Clouzot, Folco Lulli, Peter Van Eyck, and William Tubbs. With Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Jim Norton. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » We like to think we know what we’re getting when we go to the movies–that the credits are accurate, that the version we’re seeing (if it’s an older film) is the original one....

Syd Straw is the honeyed, railing voice on most of the more distinctive tracks laid down by the New York artdemimonde supergroup the Golden Palominos. On her solo debut, Surprise, nearly three years old at this point, she showed herself to be both a discriminating producer and dedicated risk taker; there are a couple of easy shots (a cover of the dB’s “Think Too Hard” and a soaring duet with Michael Stipe), sure, but what you get from the album is an appreciation of how deftly she takes on some difficult melodies (“Heart of Darkness”) and odd ensembles (“Golden Dreams,” with instrumentation by computer ‘n’ guitar weirdos Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois) and makes them work....

“Sports is one of the few ways I know to get a 17-year-old at 250 pounds and 6-foot-5 to listen respectfully to an adult and take it every day,” says Larry Hawkins, director of the University of Chicago’s Office of Special Programs and coach of the 1963 state champion Carver High School basketball team, in the U. of C. Chronicle (May 26). “The fact is that most kids give coaches much more credence than they deserve....

Who would have guessed that Igor Stravinsky’s only full-scale opera would have to wait nearly 40 years to be heard professionally in the city of its conception? Who would have guessed that it would be not Lyric Opera or Chicago Opera Theater that would mount it, but Chicago’s 18th-century orchestra, the City Musick? If this production of The Rake’s Progress is anything like the magnificent Mozart Idomeneo City Musick presented at the Shedd Aquarium two years ago–and all indications are that it will be much more–this could well be the operatic highlight of the year....

THE GODFATHER PART III With Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Sofia Coppola, Eli Wallach, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, and Joe Mantegna. Even more guilt is present in The Godfather Part III than in its two predecessors, but this time it is merely acknowledged, not celebrated, and the crimes that occasion it are only memories–crimes that are recalled and discussed but not recapitulated in flashbacks. Emotionally speaking, these crimes boil down to one above all–Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) having ordered his own brother Fredo (John Cazale) killed for participating in a plot against him near the end of part two....

THE LION IN WINTER “It is 1183 and we’re barbarians . . .” –Eleanor of Aquitaine, in The Lion in Winter Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But as the play progressed, I realized how fundamentally right she was. Casting Bill, it turned out, was not only appropriate–it was pretty clever: her contemporary looks supply a neat visual metaphor for the literary gimmick that makes The Lion in Winter work....

The other day at work I saw a fluorescent light bulb crash to the ground and shatter. When I started picking up the pieces, a coworker warned me to be very careful, saying there was a highly toxic chemical inside fluorescent tubes and one cut meant certain death. This is something I’ve heard before. Just what is this mystery chemical? Is it really as deadly as I’ve been led to believe?...

There was one road through the forest. You could follow it on the map, a single blue line threading its way north with no crossroads and only an occasional tiny town which, when you reached it, turned out to be a gas station, a general store, and a few Indian houses. Otherwise there was nothing to see almost the entire length of the province, nothing but trees. On either side of the road they rose up in unbroken walls of green....

This superb cabaret singer possesses high intelligence as well as a warm, vibrant alto, and she puts the combination to wonderful use in “I’ll Be Seeing You: The Love Songs of World War II.” This evening-long dramatic concert is much more than just a 1940s torch-tune hit parade; Marcovicci’s thoughtfully structured selection of songs by such masters as Hoagy Carmichael, Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, and Noel Coward adds up to a powerful portrait of a young woman’s courtship by, marriage to, separation from, and reunion with a soldier during the course of America’s “good war....

ANIMAL DREAM This is probably why it’s perversely refreshing to encounter an ugly, inarticulate, ragtag, clumsy play willing to take on good versus evil, the battle between God and the devil for man’s soul, totemistic shamanism, the fine line between sex and violence, the pseudotribalistic pack instinct of street gangs, the existential imperative and the avoidance of it, and probably many other philosophical dilemmas at which I–and possibly even the playwright–can only guess....

Cubby Bear’s Revenge, Part 2: Brad Loses His Baby “We had philosophical and professional differences,” Loukas said later of the reasons for Altman’s termination. “You could say that the story was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he admitted. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Altman believes Loukas fired him because he felt that his employee had taken too much of the credit for the Cubby Bear’s success....

“I was 14, 15 when I made my first dance, to a piece called ‘Jezebel’–a tango. I wore a red Roman-striped taffeta skirt. I didn’t know there was such a thing as choreography! I just made up a dance.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » There’s something girlish and gleeful about Shirley Mordine yet, though as the founder of Mordine & Company Dance Theatre, head of the dance department at Columbia College, and artistic director of Columbia’s Dance Center, she’s something of a materfamilias to Chicago dance....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It has come to my attention that the caption under Howard Learner’s picture in “What a Waste!” (September 28) might be misinterpreted. It read, “BPI’s Howard Learner found the task force’s goals a “sham, and akin to no environmental program at all.’ He has not returned to the bargaining table.” Learner was of course not objecting to the task force’s general goal–reaching a fair negotiated settlement on waste reduction and recycling....

FATHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS Paradoxically, Janis seems to have voluntarily isolated himself, even though the forces that are also pushing him into isolation seem entirely beyond his control. For example, when Janis visits Dr. Angoff (Darwin R. Apel), a white psychiatrist who seems genuinely committed to helping him, Angoff shows Janis his file. It says in part that Janis, “like many of the black race,” has internalized racist stereotypes, become self-hating....

FATHOM BLAZER That informality is in stark contrast to Doorika’s space: a beautifully restored industrial loft, utterly regular and geometrical. At one end of the room are placed 40 or so mismatched chairs, all painted pure white, in two neat rows. Visually they’re stunning, as if they had appeared out of a dream–especially since everything else in this vaulted room is lost in the shadows. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

GRACELAND and At first these two one-acts seem to ridicule women. Here We Are, adapted from a Dorothy Parker short story, is about a woman married less than three hours who keeps picking silly fights with her new husband as they ride the train to New York for their honeymoon. And Ellen Byron’s Graceland is about two Elvis worshipers camped out in front of the dead singer’s mansion on the day it’s scheduled to open to the public, fighting over who will be the first to set foot inside....

You have to hand it to artistic director Steven Ovitsky for coming up with one of the most unusual ideas ever for a Grant Park opening night: Borodin’s monumental Prince Igor, which, next to Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, is probably the most famous example of 19th-century Russian grand opera. Prince Igor is heard so rarely that this performance will be a real treat, especially with Metropolitan Opera bass Paul Plishka in the lead and an array of soloists from the Kiev Opera....