An ambitious and frequently overwhelming history lesson, Wael Shawky’s three-part experimental work Cabaret Crusades covers dozens of historical actors and several centuries’ worth of events over its three and a half hours. Its principal subject is the first three Crusades—which took place from the end of the 11th century to the beginning of the 13th—though Shawky also considers the seventh-century schism between Sunni and Shia Islam and various European and Middle Eastern political intrigues contemporaneous with the Crusades....

The 2013 Pure Fiction issue In January, the Reader will publish its 15th annual Pure Fiction issue, a collection of short stories submitted by mostly local fiction writers paired with illustrations by mostly local artists. This year, we’ll take submissions until November 15. Pure Fiction’s most recent success is Jessie Ann Foley, a Chicago Public Schools English teacher who had work in the 2010 and 2012 issues. That first story, “The Carnival at Bray,” about a teen girl uprooted from Chicago when her family moves to Ireland, became the opening chapter in her debut novel of the same name published earlier this month by Elephant Rock Books....

CHIRP, aka the Chicago Independent Radio Project, has just released the latest video in its ongoing live-music series, CHIRP Factory Sessions. This one spotlights local four-piece She Speaks in Tongues, a band named “Best feminist rock ‘n’ roll exorcism” in the Reader‘s 2015 Best of Chicago issue. Recorded by Mike Lust and shot and edited by Bigfoot Media, CHIRP Factory Sessions puts a great band in a raw warehouse space and produces a high-quality performance video along with an interview; this is CHIRP’s sixth episode, and previous participants have included notables such as Ultimate Painting, Whelms, and Circuit des Yeux....

This 2012 play, written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields for London’s Mischief Theatre and now playing at the Oriental Theatre, could as easily have been called The Set That Goes Wrong. At least 50 percent of the comic bits in this amusing, intensely physical comedy involve mishaps with the scenery (brilliantly designed by Nigel Hook): wall hangings fall, a door won’t open, an elevator malfunctions, etc. The set is so integral to the story about a provincial theater company that tries—and fails—to put on a rather lackluster fictional 1920s murder mystery that it’s virtually another character....

Ashley Cooper grew up in the 90s in Chatham and Grand Crossing but also in 40s, 50s, and 60s Hollywood. Her whole family loved movies. “My aunt’s middle name is actually Lauren Bacall,” she says. Her parents often dropped her off at her grandmother’s house, where Turner Classic Movies was the preferred TV channel. She started to read up on production details and made lists of movies mentioned in books about old Hollywood to see in the future....

You could go for a morning jog. And, yes, breakfast with your grandparents would be nice. But the South Loop has recently welcomed a fresh alternative to your Saturday morning: the weekly “After Afters” party, which starts at 7 AM. Since opening last fall, Riff Music Lounge has provided a much-needed boost of energy to a neighborhood long neglected by the Red-Bull-and-vodka set. And you’ll need plenty of both (or something stronger) to survive marathon sets by house DJs including Dustin Sheridan, Bucky Fargo, and Peru....

There are hundreds of stores just like Sexy Girls of the Hollywood all over Chicago. They sell inexpensive, strippery-looking shoes, cheap earrings and necklaces, underwear with the big padded butts, underwear without butt padding, fishnet stockings, a few wigs, and, oddly, some baby clothes and supplies. (Though I suppose sexy hosiery and procreation are inextricably linked.) Sexy Girls in Albany Park sets itself apart by having a name that’ll get people through the door—people like me, who think a totally unnecessary “the” (what the hell is the Hollywood?...

720 N. Wells 312-280-0720 boardinghousechicago.com Runner-Up Jeremy Quinn of Telegraph

The whole “classic records being performed front to back” thing has been all the rage for the better part of a decade now, and the demonic rock operas of Danish black-metal pioneer King Diamond couldn’t be better suited for that treatment. Abigail, from 1987, was Diamond’s second solo record after his split from Mercyful Fate, and tells the long and complicated tale of a Victorian couple who move into a haunted mansion, where they are harassed and possessed by the spirit of the titular Abigail, a baby stillborn in the 1700s....

Great news, everybody! The publishing industry has been working overtime to explain all the weirdness that was the year 2016. Already sportswriters unraveled the mystery of the World Champion Cubs (The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse by Tom Verducci, 3/28, Crown Archetype). The warning about Russian hacking (How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft by Edward Jay Epstein, 1/17, Knopf) may be coming a little late, but it’s fitting that by the time Donald Trump assumes the presidency there will be not one but two books about how he managed to win the election, one from the left (Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus by Matt Taibbi, 1/17, Spiegel & Grau) and one from the right (The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution by Roger Stone, 1/31, Skyhorse)....

A couple of weeks ago, Tanner Woodford left his stable, well-paying job as lead interaction designer at the investment research firm Morningstar to focus full-time on growing his passion project, the nascent Chicago Design Museum, which he founded in 2012. “I’m taking the leap,” the 27-year-old says over the phone. “I’m sooo nervous, but I’m also very confident. Sometimes doors don’t open until you make a big gesture.” Woodford has been operating “ChiDM” as a pop-up museum....

ARTIST: Dan Grzeca SHOW: Dark Lord Day at 3 Floyds Brewing on Sat 5/13 MORE INFO: groundup.bigcartel.com

Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria Various locations

Cherry Circle Room 12 S. Michigan Runner-Up Les Nomades

Admiral Theatre 3940 W. Lawrence Runner-Up Vip’s Gentlemen’s Club

Disappears front man Brian Case has been taking time away from his guitar to cultivate an interest in synths, as you know if you’ve heard him in gothy duo Acteurs. He also loves ambient, textural music, and in 2013 he found himself listening obsessively to Lullabies & Nightmares, a solo record by Ann Arbor-bred experimental musician Justin Walter that Kranky had released that spring. See Heat by Bambi Kino Duo

Singer and songwriter Caleb Willitz has forged a beguiling sound that seems like it only could have emerged from Chicago. With each performance he works with a shifting cast of musicians and ends up reshaping his poetic folk-rock songs. As with last year’s Home (Peace of Coal), most of his bands feature top-notch improvisational voices from the local scene who change the complexion of the music and frequently extend his songs into powerful meditations....

Well, one thing we can say for sure about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: it’s alive. The great gothic novel’s 200th anniversary will be observed in Chicago with no fewer than four stage versions, three of them opening in the fall. And why not? Not only is this birthday round numbered, but the author is as iconic as they come for a culture that’s clearly undergoing a leap toward a new level of gender equality (yes, even despite implacable opposition)....

The racial grass gap hasn’t narrowed a bit. Though studies have found similar marijuana usage rates across racial groups, 78 percent of those arrested since August 2012 for carrying small amounts of pot were black, according to police department data. Another 17 percent were Hispanic, and just 4 percent were white—virtually the same breakdown as before the new possession ordinance went into effect. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s press office did not respond to a request for comment....

America Ferrera and Michael Pena in Cesar Chavez Doc Films didn’t release their spring calendar until after we went to press, so we couldn’t list in our print edition what they’re showing next week. But it’s a fine program, and the opening week is loaded with classics. On Monday Wild Boys of the Road (1933), one of director William Wellman’s finest Depression-era dramas, kicks off a series on road movies....