Buffalo Grove Countryside

Barrington native goes up ‘The River’

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:49:31 -0600

Jeff Galfer is pretty upbeat for a dead guy. His character became the first casualty on ABC’s Feb. 7 premiere of the paranormal TV show, “The River.” “I knew I was going to die, but it didn’t matter to me because I was so excited to work on this level,” the Barrington native said. Landing the role of Sammy, a cameramen documenting the search for a missing explorer, wasn’t easy. Galfer got into the audition room because he knew the pilot’s director, Jaume Collet-Serra, but the rest was a bumpy process. The creative team (Michael R. Perry and Oren Peli, …

For your consideration

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:49:31 -0600

A quartet of activities for the coming week

New this week on video

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:12:20 -0600

Shakespeare turns out to have been a bit of a poser in the historical drama “Anonymous” and Santa Claus turns out to be a bit of a stoner in “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.”

Wine rules, but food holds its own at Cooper’s Hawk

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:24:35 -0600

With weekend table waits up to two hours, Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant in Arlington Heights has already become a destination restaurant for its wine, food and ambiance. Open since late November, Cooper’s Hawk remodeled the 26,000-square-foot former site of Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen in Arlington Heights, joining two other area locations in Wheeling and South Barrington. The Cooper’s Hawk concept includes four distinct components where guests can stop by for a meal, a glass of wine, a tasting in the tasting bar, or to buy a gift for a special occasion. Unlike many other restaurants, the front doors here open …

Poetry workshop in Palatine

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:24:48 -0600

Poet Andrea Witzke Slot will lead a a Second Saturday Poetry Workshop to be held 9 a.m.-noon, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012, from 9 a.m.-noon. The program, “No Ideas But in Things,” will explore issues of imagery. Witzke Slot is a poet, scholar, teacher, and mother. Her first book is To Find a New Beauty (Gold Wake Press, 2012). Witzke Slot’s work has appeared in many places. She teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is an editor at RHINO Poetry. Participants are encouraged to bring 15 copies of their own work to share with the group. The workshop, …

Liberty Town celebrates life and love

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:25:22 -0600

Love songs, “Love Letters,” food and friendly people — Liberty Town Productions teams up with Mickey Finn’s to offer a Valentine’s Day program they hope will capture some heartfelt sentiments of the day in an entertaining evening. “We wanted to do something between our bigger shows,” explained Scott Metzger, a Libertyville resident and member of the troupe’s board. He noted that Feb. 14 presented itself as the ideal day, and A.R. Gurney’s epistolary play, “Love Letters” fit the bill. So Metzger and Maggie Bieritz, of Arlington Heights, will present the two-person play that traces the lifelong relationship of a man …

Actors add extra zest to comedy’s debut

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:00:01 -0600

In “Sirens,” Deborah Zoe Laufer’s romantic comedy making its Midwest premiere at Citadel Theatre, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary bumps head-on into a midlife crisis as they take stock on the state of their marriage. The 90-minute play, directed by Will Casey, is entertaining, though predictable. Yet it benefits from an exceptional cast led by the real-life husband-and-wife team of Scott and Ellen Phelps, who first met in 1982 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. In “Sirens,” Sam, a songwriter whose one and only hit was inspired during his courtship of Adele, finds himself in a funk, depressed …

Charlene Brooks offers a Streisand valentine

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:39:03 -0600

Barbra Streisand taught Charlene Brooks how to sing. That’s the multitalented Skokie performer’s story and she’s sticking to it. “I was a latchkey child so I was home alone a lot. My parents had their own business and they both worked all day,” Brooks related. She filled her time listening to several of her parents’ record albums repeatedly. One was Streisand’s “Funny Girl.” “I had a little tape recorder,” Brooks said. “I would listen to her music and then I would stop every phrase or two and record it until I thought I had got it just right. Then I’d …

Burning dialogue doesn’t warm up ‘Hesperia’s’ plot

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:52:01 -0600

Do a quick Google on “born again porn stars” and you’ll find there’s a surprising number of Evangelicals who gave up so-called sins of the flesh upon finding Jesus. Yet despite its grounding in an apparently not uncommon phenomenon, Randall Colburn’s “Hesperia” strains credulity. The story of sex workers striving to make new lives in a wholesome heartland far from Hollywood’s den of flesh-peddling iniquities has the marks of a writer gifted in dialogue and able to see intense depths in characters all too often played as stereotypes. Still, the Writers’ Theatre remount of a script seen in a Right …

Author finds Viking legacy in today’s America

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:49:30 -0600

Being born with Norwegian, Swedish and Danish blood pumping through his veins and living in Minnesota wasn’t enough for author Eric Dregni to convey the Scandinavian experience in America to readers. So, after having penned In Cod We Trust, a book about living in Norway for a year, Dregni, an assistant professor of English at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn., set out on a journey through the Midwest, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Washington state—areas with large Scandinavian-American populations — to delve deeper into his heritage and that of all Scandinavian-Americans. Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America (University …

Arts and entertainment calendar for Feb. 9

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:26:52 -0600

Stage “The Complete History of America (Abridged),” through Feb. 12 at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, 111 W. Campbell St., downtown Arlington Heights. Everything you know about American history is distorted through hilarious sketches, songs and parodies, from the birth of Bob Dole before Christ to the assassination of JFK by Lucy Ricardo. Tickets: $39-$43. Call (847) 577-2121 or visit www.MetropolisArts.com. “The Drowsy Chaperone” will be presented by ECC Musical Theatre Feb. 17-26 at Elgin Community College’s Visual and Performing Arts Center, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $20; $18 …

Buffalo Grove dancer brings her show home

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:48:32 -0600

New York dancer and Buffalo Grove native Mindy Upin returns to Chicago next week to perform her very own show. Described by friends as an electric dancer with a spontaneous and sometimes spicy style, Upin joins friend Lindsey Kelley for a performance of “The Ratio of Mindsey to Kelpin.” The show is scheduled for 8 p.m. both Friday, Feb. 10 and Saturday, Feb. 11 and at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12 at Links Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield Ave., Suite 207, Chicago. Seating is limited. “The show is a full evening of our work, solos and duets that we’ve choreographed,” …

Cirque du Soleil brings ‘Quidam’ to Hoffman Estates

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:14:03 -0600

Family Friendly: a “special journey” comes to the Sears Centre, plus Daddy Daughter Date Night in Buffalo Grove, a library anniversary in Lake Zurich and much more.

For your consideration

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:48:31 -0600

A quartet of activities for the coming week

Student actors join Kirk Players for ‘David and Lisa’

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:46:01 -0600

Two Mundelein High School students are sharing a unique acting experience. Freshman Emma Morton of Hawthorn Woods and senior Tim Trinka of Mundelein play the title characters in Eleanor Perry’s “David and Lisa,” a co-production between the high school’s theater department and Mundelein-based Kirk Players. The show is directed by Kirk Player Jon Leslie Lynn and the cast includes Jonathan Meier, director of theater at Mundelein High School, as Dr. Alan Swinford. The cast of nearly 30, includes high school students and adult community theater actors. David and Lisa are residents in an institution for children with psychological problems. Cold …

Buffalo Grove Art League talent on display

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:24:23 -0600

Buffalo Grove and vicinity art enthusiasts will have the opportunity to check out top homegrown talent right in their own neighborhood. During the month of February, the Buffalo Grove Artist’s League will showcase work from approximately 20 member artists at the Indian Trails Public Library, 355 S. Schoenbeck Road in Wheeling. The show is just one way the League supports its members and reaches out to the community. “The Artist’s League inspires other artists and drives them along,” says Sharon Borstein, volunteer Buffalo Grove arts commissioner and a founder of the group. “The league also provides additional knowledge for artists …