Goodman Theatre has been social-consciousness central this spring. Intentionally or not, the most recent shows at its two spaces form an American diptych, exploring the seductions of capitalism and the responsibilities of communities in the second half of the 20th century. Soups doesn’t have anything like Sign‘s verbal or dramatic sophistication. A lot of Gilman’s strategies are standard issue for this kind of earnest, issues-oriented play, quite literally set around a kitchen table....

Playwright Sarah Ruhl is on the record as not loving the words “quirky” or “whimsical” applied to her brand of reflective, heady, poetic quasi-comedy. I can’t imagine she loves the adjective “twee” either, and yet there’s no getting around how prominently it hangs over the arty, wry proceedings of this frequently staged 2002 “contemporary farce,” which originally debuted at Evanston’s Piven Theatre. Tilly (Alys Dickerson), a chronically melancholy bank teller, is sent by her employer to a wacky, unspecified Euro-accented psychotherapist (Martin Diaz-Valdes) to treat her aloof, not-quite-depressed condition....

But while he’d never cooked with pig’s tail before, DiBattista says it wasn’t that far outside his comfort zone. His first thought was to make a ragu, but he wanted to “showcase the form of the tail.” He decided instead to braise the tails, then cook them on Campagnola’s wood-burning grill. He was inspired by the barbecue of the Caribbean, where pig’s tail is popular, but made the barbecue sauce using a balsamic vinegar reduction and served the meat with polenta to give the dish an Italian spin....

Many of the early reports and responses to the mass-casualty shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub decry the tragedy as one fueled by anti-LGBTQ hate, or as murders committed by an ISIS sympathizer. With the news that the perpetrator reportedly attended the club on several occasions, and even may have used gay dating apps, internalized fear and hatred of LGBTQ people may even come into the fore. Indeed, these issues aren’t mutually exclusive and are important areas of focus while trying to make sense of a senseless crime....

Shamir rose to the spotlight with the release of his 2014 song “On the Regular,” but though the dancy, cleanly produced music made the singer-songwriter what he calls an “accidental pop star,” it pigeonholed him into a stylistic box that proved detrimental to his creativity. With the popularity of that single and his 2015 debut album, Ratchet (XL), Shamir found himself facing a question that plagues many rising artists after their first brushes with success: How can you change up your sound when doing so goes against the expectations of your label and audience as well as mainstream trends?...

There are plenty of (warm) things to do this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Wed 2/14: Honor your one true love (no, not your significant other): Selena, the Queen of Tejano music. Enjoy oysters, fondue, dessert, and tableside drink service at Punch House’s (1227 W. 18th) Selena Tribute party, where DJ Alive Girl spins the late singer’s tracks exclusively. 9 PM-2 AM, $55-$110

We take for granted certain inevitabilities in life: the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, the world keeps on turning, and Stevie Nicks, clad in black platform boots and a billowy black dress, twirls along with it. The 68-year-old, flaxen-haired icon spun into the United Center Saturday night on her 24 Karat Gold Tour. Variously layered with song-specific shawls and capes (gold fringe for “Gold Dust Woman,” crepe-like silk for “Bella Donna”), she assured a similarly dressed crowd—lots of middle-aged women draped in shawls and beads to channel the Fleetwood Mac front woman—that amid life’s unpredictability, her bewitching brand remains unchanged....

If you’re like Gossip Wolf, the words “folk festival” conjure up earnest imitators of Joan Baez and pre-electric Dylan. Those artists are cool—but “I Gave My Love a Cherry” is for smashing guitars like John Belushi in Animal House. The Maypole Folk Festival solves this problem by booking diverse bills with the likes of Chicago Afrobeat Project, the Golden Horse Ranch Band, and the Golosa Russian Choir. The fourth annual fest, at the Empty Bottle all day Saturday, April 27, includes folkie Sam Amidon, the honky-tonkin’ Western Elstons, Rami Gabriel’s Middle Eastern ensemble Arabic Xhaman, and the Girls of the Golden West—aka Marydee Reynolds, Amalea Tshilds, and Elyse Bergman re-creating the music Reynolds’s great-aunt played in the 1930s....

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. My first sushi burrito and bulgogi fries from En Hakkore Bon Appetit’s crispy turmeric-and-pepper-spiced chicken wings Homemade popcorn drizzled in chhonk instead of just butter (this is life-changing, trust me) What we’re reading:

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Jennifer Slept Here: in which Ann plays a ghost that haunts her old house and becomes a mentor to the disaffected teenage son who lives there. There are a few episodes loaded to YouTube by fans, including the opening credits: What online livestream events we’re looking forward to:

Tradition keeps us cozy and warm around the holidays—and a routine that only happens once a year can’t feel too tedious. Maybe your thing is to happily choke down extra-boozy eggnog with a brick of fruitcake, or perhaps you gather around the TV to watch Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney sass each other in White Christmas. Both totally decent options. Me, I like to repeatedly listen to and eventually write a short post about the B side of a little-known 1995 seven-inch by great long-gone Boston oi-punk band the Showcase Showdown: “Merry Christmas, I Fucked Your Snowman....

So, two Irish actors walk into a bar. As does the entire audience. That’s the setup for Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints, imported from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre to Navy Pier. In the pub at Chicago Shakespeare, the audience members are flies on the wall (or rather, crammed around tiny tables surrounding the bar) as a pair of never-named blokes (Liam Carney and Philip Judge) banter over Guinness and the occasional whiskey....

For last week’s Books and Comics Issue, we excerpted a few pages from Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan’s excellent forthcoming comic cookbook Let’s Make Ramen!, which neatly orders the often confusing universe of a relatively recent culinary phenomenon. And there are targets on both sides. “Mediocre and mass-produced products are already flooding the market, aiming to prey on both a general lack of education among consumers and those same consumers’ raw enthusiasm,” writes Jay Schroeder in Understanding Mezcal, a slim, delightfully designed volume that answers agave-related questions beginning with “What does the word mezcal even mean?...

One of the last things Governor Pat Quinn did before he left office was to sign off on an amendment that created a new state eavesdropping law. The new law? Not so much, since it arrived with some surprising baggage. State representative Elaine Nekritz, who sponsored the bill in the house, says that’s no accident. We made a decision “not to specifically state that citizens can record cops,” Nekritz says. “I thought if we tried to describe every instance in which you either were or were not committing eavesdropping, we would run into more trouble than we’ve created by having this more general standard....

To help celebrate the return of The Best Show, the Reader asked Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster to revisit their first collaboration, the famous “Rock, Rot & Rule” sketch, which predated the show by several years—and still stands as one of the great moments in the history of trolling. Wurster played fictional blowhard Ronald Thomas Clontle, whose opinions on music—who rocks, who rots, and who rules, according to his own impenetrable criteria—were engineered to confuse or enrage hapless listeners....

Taste Talks, a food-centered conference that launched in Brooklyn in 2013, returns to Chicago this weekend for its third year. A day full of panel discussions and chef demos is bookended by several events dedicated to eating food rather than talking about it—most notably the All-Star Barbecue on Sunday, with chefs including Jason Hammel (Lula Cafe), Brian and Jennifer Enyart (Dos Urban Cantina), Jared Van Camp (Leghorn Chicken), and Chris Pandel (Swift & Sons)....

On November 13, 1992, Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas launched the Homocore Chicago series with a show by Toronto band Fifth Column—their drummer and guitarist, G.B. Jones, is also a filmmaker, and in 1985 founded influential queer punk zine J.D.s with director Bruce LaBruce. The series booked the likes of Bikini Kill, Los Crudos, Sleater-Kinney, Pansy Division, Tribe 8, and God Is My Co-Pilot, and its May 2000 swan song was Le Tigre’s local debut....

There’s plenty to do in Chicago this weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Sat 8/6: The Martin Luther King 1,000 March is a re-creation of a portion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic 1966 march against housing segregation, during which King and his followers faced thousands of violent protesters. It begins a daylong “living memorial” to King Jr. in Marquette Park (6734 N. Kedzie). 10 AM 

There were more than 700 Families Belong Together rallies across America today, including one in downtown Chicago. The rallies were ostensibly organized to protest the new government policy of declaring immigrant children “unaccompanied minors” and separating them from their parents at the border, but they also condemned the Trump administration’s refusal to grant asylum to refugees from domestic and gang violence and the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the travel ban on residents of seven countries, five of which are majority Muslim....

In 1994, when major labels were still snapping up Chicago “alternative” bands in hopes of manufacturing another Seattle, music publicist Nan Warshaw, house painter and occasional drummer Rob Miller, and Flying Fish Records veteran Eric Babcock launched Bloodshot Records—which quickly became a rallying point for the burgeoning alt-­country scene. Bloodshot’s debut, the compilation For a Life of Sin, collected 17 tracks from acts including the Old 97’s, the Handsome Family, and Robbie Fulks....