Friday 5
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We’re just dying to hear what the American Suicide Foundation is going to say at its benefit debate tonight, Can Suicide Be Rational? The group says its aim is to promote suicide prevention through research and education; at tonight’s debate, hosted by the foundation’s midwestern division, a spectrum of local doctors will tackle the dos and don’ts of self-destruction from ethical, religious, medical, and personal-care points of view. The event costs $12 and starts at 7 at the Randolph Street Gallery, 756 N. Milwaukee; there’ll be a reception to follow with refreshments and a light buffet. Call 478-1956 for more.
Saturday 6
Monday 8
Director Mary Zimmerman has turned 5,000 pages of notes and drawings into a “dream documentary” called The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Zimmerman produced a smaller and less elaborate version of the same thing about five years ago at the old Edge of the Lookingglass; since then, she’s done a lot of reworking. The new version opens in the Goodman studio, 200 S. Columbus, tonight; the cast includes Christopher Donahue, who appeared in Zimmerman’s last Goodman production, The Baltimore Waltz; Steppenwolf’s Mariann Mayberry; the Lookingglass Theatre’s Laura Eason; and many others. It runs through November 28, with performances Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays through Sundays at 8, and weekend matinees at 2:30. There are certain dates without performances, so call in advance. Tickets are $18 and $23; call 443-3800.
William T. Vollmann has been called “the reigning kid genius of American fiction” (by USA Today), “one of America’s most intrepid fictional frontiersmen” (by Publisher’s Weekly), and “a cross between William Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon” (by his publicist). His new book, Butterfly Stories, seems to be a sex- and drug-drenched descent into hell. He’s reading tonight at 6 at Waterstone’s Booksellers, double-billed with novelist Richard Grossman, whose The Alphabet Man is reputedly the twisted tale of a sadistic schizophrenic. Waterstone’s is at 840 N. Michigan. Call 587-8080 for more.
