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Event Details: Chicago Weekend Preview: MayDay Edition - :

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Chicago’s starting to shine like the great city it blossoms into for the summer. May is not only when all the flowers start to sprout and leaves return to trees but the pants become shorts and the sex becomes more promiscuous than ever. Chicago’s full of fun events to get you out and about!

Thursday

• AVENUE Q is the smash-hit Broadway musical about real life in New York City, as told by a cast of people and puppets through a hilariously irreverent, Tony-winning book and score. The three-time Tony Award winning musical tells the story of Princeton, a bright-eyed college grad who moves to NYC with big dreams and a tiny bank account. The only apartment he can afford is way out on Avenue Q, where everyone’s looking for the same things he is: a decent job, a stable relationship, and “purpose.” Eventually, Princeton learns to embrace the ups and downs of city life and realizes that “the real world” isn’t so bad, after all! Engagement from May 4-9th. Bank of America Theatre, 18 W. Monroe, $25-75, 7:30pm.

• Days of Late is a new play that explores the intricacies of finding love and sex and personal fulfillment spanning across the gay, straight and bisexual communities. It is a daring hybrid of raw, emotional desperation and dark comedy. It follows the savage, hilarious and heartbreaking journey of eight young city dwellers fighting to navigate their lives in this current era of sexual liberation, including on-line dating, anonymous sex and the growing acceptance of bisexuality and homosexuality. Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western Ave, $20, 7:30pm.

• Night filled with live entertainment by Lynne Jordan and the Shivers, silent and live auction, delicious food and beverages to benefit the kids of Camp of Dreams. Camp of Dreams is devoted to bringing uplifting, engaging, free educational and cultural enrichment programs to young people who would otherwise go without. We do so during the hours in which our youth are typically unengaged and needing meaningful interaction, and our year-round approach includes two main areas of programming: Overnight summer camp for 3 weeks in July and Community Days during the school-year (2 Saturdays per month). Our project as a whole brings a wide range of activities to our participants: Academics, Visual and Performing Arts, Mind and Body, Health and Wellness, and Civic Engagement. And in all of our activities, our young people learn about accountability, about following through with themselves, their fellow participants, and their broader community. Green Dolphin Street, 2200 N Ashland, Free, 6pm.

Friday

• Join Equality Illinois supporters and friends for their monthly First Friday networking event. For a $10 donation to the Equality Illinois PAC, you receive two-drink tickets and a ticket for a door prize drawing. Sidetrack, 3349 N Halsted St, $10, 6pm.

• Love Crimes: A Hate Story will inspire you to laugh at a society where love is condemned as a crime through the silliness of hateful storytelling. See what happens when a Detective and his Male Femme Fatale attempt to piece together a drunken night in Boystown; a Lesbian Vaudeville duo rekindle their act after decades of silence, and a soulful sedcutor serenades Fred Phelps with a love song. Hydrate yourself with a drink, while Quixotic dives into the deep end of the sea of unlawful love, lust and unstoppable laughter. Hydrate, 3458 N. Halsted, $10, 9pm.

• The Flesh Hungry Dog Show presents Plain Ole Delicious, Pieptone! and Homoticons. DJ Sky spins between the bands, and Chicago rock impresario Gary Airedale hosts. Special guests, The Revelettes will go-go dance you to a fever pitch. Jackhammer, 6406 N Clark Street, $10, 9pm.

• The largest and most important Mexican celebration in the Midwest takes place the weekend of May 7th through the 9th in the heart of Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood (26th Street and Kostner). Celebrating its 21st year in 2010, Cinco de Mayo Festival (Cinco de Mayo Festival) is a grand community gala that commemorates Mexico’s independence from Spanish rule (or “Dia de la Independencia”). Cinco de Mayo Festival offers something for every family member including entertainment, carnival rides, live regional and traditional music and a Healthy Lifestyle area. More than 70 vendors offer a wide variety of arts, crafts and merchandise along with authentic cuisine and drink. Popular local, regional and international musical acts perform over the weekend. In addition, special appearances by TV, radio and other celebrities further build event excitement with the crowds. Little Village, 26th Street and Kostner, Free, 6pm.

• Dynamic performer and author E. Patrick Johnson seamlessly inhabits the many interviewees who comprise this fascinating oral history of black, gay southern life in Sweet Tea. The acclaimed book is brought to life in a co-production with Jane M. Saks and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago, where Johnson has developed this project as a Fellow. Viaduct Theatre, 3111 Western, $15, 7:30pm.

• Sister Spit is the legendary, raucous, rowdy performance gang, brings a vanload of queertastic brilliance, a multimedia explosion of zinesters, fashion plates, slam poets, novelists, performance artists, poets and fancy scribblers. Featuring queer luminary Michelle Tea, legendary trans film director and screenwriter Silas Howard, queer graphic novelist and anti-racist activist Elisha Lim, lesbian slam-poet/performance artist Lenelle Moise, trans psychic memoirist Len Plass, queer zinester/portraitist/graphic novelist Nicole J. Georges, and Power Point loving shape-shifter translady Annie Danger!! Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark St, $10, 9pm.

Saturday

• Join Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus and bid on fabulous live auction prize packages presented by the sexy men of CGMC. Bid on exciting travel, cooking, fitness and fashion packages. Sidetrack, 3349 N Halsted St,  $25 in advance, $30 at the door, 5pm.

• Dyke Delicious Screening Series presents Do These Shorts Make Me Look Fat Popular shorts program with films and videos about lesbians and other strong women, a collection of thought-provoking and rib tickling stories,sapphic silliness and dyke drama. 7pm Social Hour; 8pm Screening. Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N Clark, Free, 7pm.

Sunday

• Versatile comedian Kristen Studard takes the spotlight with this sharp new solo show exploring the joys of life’s Small Victories. Studard’s characters take us to silly and absurd places while giving voice to irrational fears, secret shames and sexual confessions. We meet a Hungry Hungry Hippo who might actually be full, hear what our household objects really think about their lives, and witness a bee’s steamy encounter with a lonely house-flower. Smart and playful, Small Victories sheds a hilarious and often harsh light on the lies we tell ourselves to get through each day. Annoyance Theatre 4830 N Broadway, $10, 9:30pm.

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