Jackie O's Family Hits the Heights While South Holland Gets Jazzed Up

Chicago Heights

Imagine this – a musical about Jackie O’s relatives.

Billed as the first musical ever made from a documentary, Grey Gardens, follows the mother-daughter team of Edith (mom) and Edie Beale (offspring).

The acclaimed production follows a mother-daughter team, “delightfully eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis,” the press release notes.

As the story goes, the two women became notorious in the East Hamptons, living in a run-down 28-room mansion.

“The musical tells their alternately hilarious and heartbreaking story (and is) scandalously entertaining,” the release states.

J. R. Rose, theater and English teacher at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, directs the production. Judith E. Felix is assistant director.

Don't forget – as with most south suburban area arts events, parking is free!

Where: Drama Group Studio Theatre, 330 W. 202nd St., Chicago Heights.
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4-5 and 10-12; 2 p.m. Feb. 6 and 12-13.
Tickets: $18, $17 students and seniors
Information and tickets: 708-755-3444 and www.dramagroup.org

Dialogue, exhibit of paintings by acclaimed local artist Patricia Moore and works by 14 regional sculptors, remains on view.

Where: Union Street Gallery, 1527 Otto Blvd.
When: Through Feb. 12; gallery hours, 12 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday; 12 to 6 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Cost: Free, as is parking
Information: 708-754-2601 and www.unionstreetgallery.org 

Dateline: Somewhere in New York City, 1905.

An African-American woman earns her living as a seamstress, sewing intimate apparel for her huge range of clients, from wealthy white women to street-wise prostitutes.

Lynn Nottage’s play Intimate Apparel, opening Friday at Illinois Theatre Center, follows the seamstress, Esther, whose “gifted hands and sewing machine are the tools she uses to fashion her dreams for the whole cloth of her life experiences,” the press release says.

An award-winning playwright, Nottage was born in 1964. Her award-winning scripts often focus on African American women. A 2007 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Nottage, is described on the foundation website, as “an original voice in American theater, a playwright whose entertaining and thought-provoking works address contemporary issues with empathy and humor.” Critics consider Intimate Apparel one of her most powerful works.

Where: Illinois Theatre Center, 371 Artists Walk, Downtown Park Forest
When: 8 p.m. Jan. 28, 29, Feb. 2 to 5 and Feb. 9 to 12; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30, Feb. 6 and 13
Cost: $22 Fridays, and Saturdays; $20 all other performances, $1 discount seniors and students
More information: 708-481-3510 and http://www.ilthctr.org

South Suburban College Jazz Fest concert stars Michael Mossman on trumpet and Mark Colby on sax.

The two well-known artist’s will take the stage on their own as well as with the SSC Jazz Ensemble for a night that promises to heat up the Kindig auditorium.

Or maybe the Kindig will simply become very, very cool!

Where: KIndig Performing Arts Center, South Suburban College, 15800 S. State St., South Holland
When: 11:30 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. Feb. 11, 12 
Admission: Free
Information: www.ssc.edu

St. Xavier University’s SXU Gallery features an exhibit of works by visual artist Nikkole Huss who will talk about her exhibit, Permeable Perimeters: Needle-Felted Wood and Encaustic on Panel, at a Feb. 9 reception.

Huss is inspired by photographs of Earth and outer space phenomena.

“By gazing far beyond the human eye’s ability to see … it is possible to perceive the impossible …,” she say in her artist’s statement.

Where: St. Xavier University’s SXU Gallery, 3700 W. 103rd St.
When: Exhibit runs from Feb. 3 to Feb. 24, reception 3:30 p.m. Feb. 9; gallery hours -10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday
Cost: Free;
Information: 773-298-3081 and www.sxu.edu