“I believe that theatre is an art unlike any other because it asks for a type of bravery that is scarce in this world,” says Dan Dvorkin, one of the founders of Two Lights Theatre Company. Named for Five for Fighting’s “Two Lights,” a song that speaks of this type of courage and bravery, Dan and his co-founder, Becky Leifman, are themselves the Two Lights, or two bright ideas, behind the new company.

If your brain is turning to mush from too much US Weekly and your eyes are tired from too much online reading, it might be time to hit the beach, or even the couch, with a book! If you’re in the mood for something Jewish, look no further than The Jewish Book Network, an organization of the Jewish Book Council, it sends Jewish authors across the country to promote their work.

Over the past year, while walking or running under the Bryn Mawr underpass at Lake Shore Drive, I’ve admired the sparkling colors and tiles, wondering who was responsible for this gorgeous mural. Then, a few months ago, my friend Orit mentioned that she was hiring teens to create another mural for the Bryn Mawr underpass.

… indicates a continuation, a sign that there’s more to say, more to come. And for Adam Blair and his band Dot Dot Dot, that couldn’t be more true. From the band’s inception, things moved fast. The Chicago-based power pop-rock band played to 1,300 people at its third show. Within five months Dot Dot Dot landed a spot on Fox’s reality TV competition, The Next Great American Band and released a CD.

I draw inspiration from lost roots, genealogy, old urban and farm architecture, residential history, sociological photography, the Midwest at night, resistance fighters, people that get me in the gut, ghosts, and music that settles somewhere between my sternum and abdomen.

Local comedian Mike Tureff originally turned to comedy in high school with an ulterior motive—to get girls. “I don’t think it’s so much that I realized I was funny as that I realized I wasn’t good looking enough to get girls without being funny,” he says.

Long before Adam Sandler and Sasha Baron Cohen became famous for their impersonations and manic comedic styles, there was Danny Kaye, a Jew from Brooklyn who made it big in Hollywood.

Ravinia is about to be blessed with reggae’s most unlikely rising star: an Orthodox Jewish beatboxer who skipped out on his senior year of high school to follow the hippie jam band Phish. Born Mathew Miller, Matisyahu (the Hebrew version of "Matthew,” and the name he adopted on becoming observant), certainly doesn’t fit the stereotypical reggae profile.

A hipster is not simply a skinny musician in tight pants and Chuck Taylors with a PBR in one hand and a cigarette in the other. A young Jewish professional is not always a well-dressed, curly-haired, no-nonsense woman. And an artist is not always a tormented waif with a crazy haircut and a half sleeve tattoo. I don’t fully fit into any of these subcultures, but they are all a part of me.

On January 2, 1948, Golda Meir stood, unexpected, before Chicago’s Council of Jewish Federations to appeal for the financial support necessary to arm the Jewish forces fighting for an Israeli state. Today, actress Janet Ulrich Brooks stands on the stage of Pegasus Players’ production of Golda’s Balcony, reenacting this pivotal moment in Israel’s history. “I have no speech,” she says, giving voice to Meir’s historic words. “I’ll tell you what’s in my heart.”

When Annie Coleman takes the stage in her cowboy boots and bright red lipstick instructing people to form squares for ”Dip the Oyster,” some couples fall right into place, secure in their knowledge that a square is composed of four pairs and that your position at the dance's start is "home." Many of these confident types are rockin' cowboy hats.

Inspiration struck Chicago novelist Amy Guth while she was touring the country to promote her first novel, Three Fallen Women. Encouraged by the camaraderie she found at various small-press literary and book festivals and readings nationwide, she wanted to create a similar experience for writers in Chicago. “My experience with literary festivals has been so positive,” she says. “Writing is such a solitary thing to do. It’s easy to forget that there are other people out there working and hoping for the same things.”  The Pilcrow Lit fest was born.

On a typical weekend, almost-famous Chicago Jewish comedian Jena Friedman races by bike from gig to gig, performing standup all over the city. Recently, she opened three shows for Chicago native and manic comic genius Robin Williams.

Joey Garfield says he thinks in pictures. And lucky for us, he makes a living sharing those images with the world through his documentary films. After directing a documentary on graffiti art, Garfield realized he could make films about more stuff he liked. Like beatboxing.

Emil Sher’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s book records the real life experiences of a Czechoslovakian family’s life under Nazi occupation, a history that might have been lost were it not for the efforts of Japanese school children sixty years later, and half a world away.

Growing up in Kfar Saba, Israel, Idan Raichel was attracted to music at a young age. After serving in the Israeli army, he worked as a counselor at a boarding school for immigrants and troubled youth. The school was home to many young Ethiopian Jews who introduced Raichel to Ethiopian folk and pop music.

Joe Goodkin, founder of Chicago-based Quell records, is your regular renaissance guy. In addition to holding down jobs as a paralegal and guitar teacher, he plays in bands, runs a record label and travels to local high schools performing his original folk opera based on Homer’s Odyssey.

Ari Sandel’s 2007 Academy Award-winning “West Bank Story” is a musical comedy about Israelis and Palestinians that takes place between two competing falafel stands in the West Bank. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and has since screened at over 115 festivals worldwide and earned 26 awards, is a humorous, hopeful take on a very serious and controversial subject, and Arab, Jewish and international audiences have overwhelmingly embraced the film and its message.