A collection of character sketches drawn from author-star Danny Hoch’s observations of New York life in all its polyglot perversity, Some People invites comparisons to John Leguizamo’s Spic-O-Rama, Sherry Glaser’s Family Secrets, Lily Tomlin’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, and Eric Bogosian’s Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll. But as good as those pieces are, they’re so carefully structured we’re constantly reminded we’re watching virtuosic actors at work....

A witty British courtroom comedy-drama, set circa 1450, in which a Parisian lawyer (played by Colin Firth), accompanied by his clerk, tries his hand in the French provinces, meanwhile becoming involved with a beautiful Gypsy outcast. In a misguided effort to cash in on the fanfare accompanying The Crying Game, also distributed by Miramax, viewers are urged not to reveal a “surprise” that this picture virtually gives away in its opening sequence, one predicated on the medieval practice of treating animals as “equals” under the law....

The Imaginary Invalid, Symposium Theatre Company, at the Organic Theater Company Greenhouse, South Hall. You won’t hear much of Moliere’s repartee in this rendition of The Imaginary Invalid, not in John Wood’s plodding translation or in these actors’ leaden midwestern accents, with the occasional oui, monsieur, and mon pere (pronounced “wee,” “muhzherr,” and “moan pear”) dropped in at random. Neither will you see much of Moliere’s inventive physical humor, since director Kay Cosgriff keeps most of the action to the far left and right of her stage, forcing audiences to watch as if at a table-tennis match....

I’ve been listening to Don McLean sing “American Pie” for 20 years now and I still don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I know, I know, the “day the music died” is a reference to the Buddy Holly/Ritchie Valens/Big Bopper plane crash, but the rest of the song seems to be chock-full of musical symbolism that I’ve never been able to decipher. There are clear references to the Byrds (“eight miles high and fallin’ fast”) and the Rolling Stones (“Jack Flash sat on a candlestick”), but the song also mentions the “King and Queen,” the “Jester” (I’ve heard this is either Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan), a “girl who sang the blues” (Janis Joplin?...

On one point all sides agree: over 15 months ago a coalition of northwest- and southwest-side activists asked Cook County officials for computer tapes on which are recorded the tax assessments on every piece of property in the county. But the institute, long past patience, has filed suit. “We have the right to this stuff,” says Jerry Brozek, the institute’s lawyer. “And since they won’t release it, we’re going to court....

THE REAL THING Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In Artist Descending a Staircase, for example, which is about modern artists and their experimentation with concepts of time and space, Stoppard experiments with time. The scenes in the first act run in reverse chronological order–characters start the act as old men and end it as schoolboys–but in the second act, they run in the correct order....

This year’s American Institute of Architects’ annual convention, held here June 17 through 19, will have a touch of guerrilla theater, courtesy of a group called CARY, as in Chicks in Architecture Refuse to Yield (to Atavistic Thinking in Design and Society), as in “caryatids.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » That group, dedicated to offering a humorous feminist perspective on the world of modern architecture, soon grew to 70 active members, 50 women and 20 men, including architects, graphic designers, interior designers, and lighting specialists....

J-Bird has identified with hip hop since he was a shorty in Waukegan. It shows in everything from his speech to his mannerisms–he sounds like a Bronx teen and gestures with his hands like a laid-back MC. The 24-year-old J-Bird (aka Jason Cook) has just launched a new zine called Caught in the Middle, a 55-page bimonthly that’s Chicago’s answer to the myriad hip hop zines published on both coasts....

CHANT “Jimmy Buffett!” comes a vicious scream from the EMI president’s office. “We’ve been passed by Jimmy Buffett! That’s the final insult! Janet!” he yells to his secretary. “Get everybody together! I will not be passed by some calypso camp act from Key West. Jesus Christ, I have monks, real monks!” Radio VP: It’s for people who listen to NPR, eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, say things like “infrastructure.”...

AH ME OH MY Magnus told me beforehand that she was “working on the idea of being unprepared.” I cringed–mostly, I think, from the memory of so many performers who had achieved that all too well. And though it may be vital for artists to explore new challenges, I’m not entirely convinced that the exploration should take place before a paying audience. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Magnus’s cool, often cerebral stage persona isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but I’ve always enjoyed her irony and savage vulnerability....

INTERIOR. AN OLD MOVIE THEATER. (Kouvalis looks to his cousin, Louis Faklaris, who scoops out the popcorn and ladles on the butter. A high school girl hands up the drinks.) We don’t have small. Small is associated with practically nothing. We serve Whenever. Whenever. When I feel like it. It’s Memorial Day tomorrow, a day off. Relax. What’s a few minutes out of your life? “Alex runs a mom-and-pop operation,” says Willis Johnson, owner of Classic Cinemas, a chain of suburban theaters, including the grand old Tivoli in Downers Grove....

Hubertus von der Goltz: Balance and Perspective There’s something new on the front of the building that houses Fassbender Gallery. A thin piece of black metal juts sideways and upward from the brick wall, way above your head. A man’s metal silhouette perches precariously on it; in a wind, this thin plate of a man flaps back and forth slightly. Featureless, inscrutable, yet vulnerable, he seems caught in mid-journey, utterly alone....

DON JUAN PROJECT Bailiwick Repertory Watching this production, you can see why. The play offers lots of action and the quintessential Andalusian lover–suave and stoic, handy with pistol and sword. In the first act he’s the arch defier of God and man and defiler of women, but by the second act Don Juan is chastened. His virtuous fiancee Dona Ines has died of a broken heart, and Don Juan is now obsessed with human suffering, daunted by the magnitude of a wartime massacre he witnessed....

EDDIE KIRKLAND Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » One of the more embarrassing moments of my journalistic career occurred when I touted guitarist Eddie Kirkland for his nonstop, high-energy performances, only to have him show up, sit in a chair, and play moody blues ballads and low-key shuffles all night–which is to say that Kirkland is both a supremely gifted and refreshingly unpredictable bluesman. Famous for his dynamic spectrum of tones, erratic tunings, and explosive barrages interspersed with metallic chording, he’s equally comfortable with the more subtle emotional ranges of postwar blues traditionalism....

EL QUINTO SOL: TENOCHTITLAN AND TLATELOLCO RECENT FINDINGS These works imply a very different worldview than the one most of us share, despite all our differences. “Reality” for these people seems to have been far more fluid–the animal, human, and spirit worlds were seen not only as interdependent but as interchangeable. Abstract designs take on the quality of secret languages, as vivid as the most realistic sculpture. When a modern artist takes the viewer on a similar flight of fancy–as the surrealists did, say–we sense we’re peering into a subjective world, a dream state, an image in someone’s mind....

Michael Bynum’s sister, Nadine James, needed a new kidney to survive. Michael, a 42-year-old unemployed former postal worker, has a different father than Nadine, 29, whom he still sometimes calls his “baby sister.” Neither is married. They have always been close and they both say they learned strength and perseverance from their mother, who died of cancer three years ago. Nadine and Michael say they were brought even closer together during their mother’s ordeal, a closeness they say helped them confront the medical emergency that was to strike Nadine....

There’s this curious traveling trade show called the Abilities Expo that draws disabled folk of all shapes and sizes, races, religions, and creeds. It’s a gathering of manufacturers demonstrating the latest technology for getting in and out of bed, going to the bathroom, etc. Basically it’s a toy store for gimps. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » And all it costs is $10 zillion. So now you’ve just got to have it....

There’s nothing really new in this three-hour thriller about cops (Al Pacino and others) and robbers (Robert De Niro and others) in Los Angeles, but writer-director Michael Mann’s latest has craft, pacing, and an overall sense of proportion, three pretty rare virtues nowadays. The story takes as long as it does because the big heist is actually shown rather than elided (a la Reservoir Dogs) and because the action keeps passing back and forth between Pacino and De Niro, concentrating on their personal failings as well as their professional smarts....

LEA DeLARIA Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “And what’s more, baby, I can cook!” sang Lea DeLaria as she belted out the brassy, sassy swing number “I Can Cook Too” in last summer’s Central Park revival of the 1944 musical On the Town. The sentiment was apt: in this hilarious Leonard Bernstein-Betty Comden-Adolph Green tune, sung by a female cabdriver as she puts the make on a naive sailor in World War II Manhattan, “cook” refers to the singer’s musical talents as well as her culinary and sexual ones....

Actually Existed a Certain This polished hour-long dance-theater piece lies before us like a beautiful stone, deflecting interpretation yet inviting our projections. Everything in it, from the old-fashioned furnishings of the set–satiny couches and chairs, a desk, two oriental rugs, and a couple of battered lamps–to the cool, precise dancing of Sabine Fabie and Mark Schulze, works together to create stasis, a timelessness at the heart of this mysterious narrative....