Arts & Culture Archives - Chicago Reader

A group of six artists from Kokandy Productions's Sweeney Todd are pictured on the red carpet at the Non-Equity Jeffs. They are holding their awards. There are three men on the left, a woman in the center, and two men on the right.

The return of “theater prom”

by Kerry Reid March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

The Non-Equity Jeff Awards, affectionately known as “theater prom,” came roaring back after a four-year hiatus at the Park West on Monday, March 27. And it’s safe to say the program, directed by Adrian Abel Azevedo, was a lovefest through and through. The awards show (coming on the heels of the packed opening of the […]

At left we see a white woman with red hair, wearing a long red gown. She is holding a sword. Next to her is a bearded white man in a tan tunic and black trousers and boots, also holding a sword. On the right is a line of three men in gray tunics and trousers, challenging them with swords. At the far left is a throne covered in garlands of flowers. A furskin is beneath it, and red banners hang on the walls behind it.

Theater Review

Guineverean legend

by Albert Williams March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

Idle Muse Theatre Company’s The Last Queen of Camelot, scripted and directed by Idle Muse artistic director Evan M. Jackson, plays like an Arthurian fantasy graphic novel come to life. Jackson’s take on the tale of legendary sixth-century British King Arthur Pendragon (Joel Thompson) focuses on Queen Guinevere (Caty Gordon-Hall), Arthur’s wife through an arranged […]

A Black man wearing a silvery cross-strapped top over his chest and sequined loincloth, with sparkly sneakers, stands next to a futuristic figure in a black coat with pointy silver shoulders, a silver codpiece, and leather boots with many buckles. The man on the right carries a silver striped pole.

Theater Review

Out in orbit

by Dan Jakes March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

Originally developed by the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theatre Company in 2015, this queer adventure drag alt-comedy feels both like a natural fit for Hell in a Handbag Productions and a reach light-years away from its usual projects—sisters from across the multiverse, you could say. Depressed and apathetic about modern dating, a young gay man (Robert […]

A bearded white man wearing a vertically striped black-and-white shirt with a belt and black trousers stands center, holding a vodka bottle up in one hand, with a gun held in his other hand down by his side. He is surrounded by nine other people of various races, ages and genders, who are looking on at him from benches and porches. He appears to be in a courtyard of some kind. At the rear we see a couple of people in "peasant" garb with musical stringed instruments. At the right is a seated woman in a black dress, wearing a scarf around her eyes like a blindfold. She is bent over at the waist. At the left are men in overcoats, and one who appears dressed as a soldier.

Theater Review

Soviet slapstick

by Emily McClanathan March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

Heading into opening night of Dying for It at Artistic Home, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Moira Buffini’s adaptation of The Suicide, a 1928 satire by Soviet playwright Nikolai Erdman that was banned by Joseph Stalin. Frankly, the subject matter sounded a bit niche—or maybe I was just feeling rusty on Soviet history […]

At left is a figure in a white costume representing a stork. The mask looks a little like one worn by a "plague doctor." At right is a Black woman in a blue top, patterned yoga pants, and a long gray cardigan. She is holding a glass and looking at the stork creature with a mix of fear and confusion.

Theater Review

A perfect nightmare

by Amanda Finn March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

Like the people in the allegorical Tower of Babel, the citizens of Jacqueline Goldfinger’s futuristic Babel are seeking oneness. The kind of oneness that mankind has never reasonably come close to, because each person is born with a set of characteristics, skills, and behaviors—unless we engage in eugenics. In an eerily not-so-distant-seeming future, Goldfinger’s world […]

Dance

Trilogy of terpsichore

by Irene Hsiao March 30, 2023March 29, 2023

In 2016, the Chicago Cultural Center presented the exhibition Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen. Built by the Dutch inventor since 1990 and described by their maker as “new forms of life,” strandbeests surpass their man-made material—PVC pipes—to become something animate and other, each with dozens of narrow yellow legs. Simultaneously archaic and advanced, […]

Arts & Culture

Lyric Opera’s Proximity

by Deanna Isaacs March 29, 2023March 29, 2023

Spectacle? It’s long been the grand opera’s calling card. But never quite like this. Lyric Opera’s world premiere production of Proximity—closer to Immersive Van Gogh or Art on the Mart than to Aida—opened at the opera house last week. Directed and “mixed” by Yuval Sharon (creator of the parking garage Wagner, Twilight: Gods, which he […]

A convertible overflowing with people sits in a city street in this color photo. The people wear natural hairstyles and 60s-era casual clothing. Children and adults crowd around outside the car.

Arts & Culture

Black culture as a force for change

by Vasia Rigou March 29, 2023March 22, 2023

“Things Well Worth Waiting For” is a small-scale, deeply comprehensive exhibition that transports you to a different time where women wore flamboyant dresses, men drove classic cars, segregation prevailed, and the power of soul music was palpable. Photojournalist and activist Kwame Brathwaite was there, documenting it all—in words and in photographs. Occupying two galleries at […]

Jonathan Michie, a white man with short light hair, sits left. He is wearing a red silk dressing gown and biting into an apple. On the right is a table filled with glass flasks, rubber tubing, and other lab equipment.

Arts & Culture

A timely Turing

by Deanna Isaacs March 28, 2023

After a promising Chicago workshop performance four years ago, Chicago Opera Theater’s The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing returned for a two-performance world premiere at the Harris Theater last week, conducted by COT music director Lidiya Yankovskaya. It’s a gut-wrenching piece in a well-crafted production, with two major themes that couldn’t be more contemporary: […]

Arts & Culture

The Girls shows Chicago, warts and all

by Dmitry Samarov March 27, 2023March 29, 2023

What can a book about three generations of unmarried women in Chicago, set between the Civil War and World War I, originally published over 100 years ago and now out in a new edition by Belt Publishing, have to say to a contemporary resident of our city? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Its […]

The book cover shows an abstracted body, its limb unconnected, and with no head.

Arts & Culture

Steeped in history

by Emily McClanathan March 24, 2023March 22, 2023

In the most famous lines of his 1855 poem “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman writes, “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” After reading S. L. Wisenberg’s insightful new book, The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home, it’s clear that she, too, contains […]

Four people sit on orange rolling office chairs. They are wearing a mix of "professional" clothing (jackets and ties) with shorts. At the far left, the person in the chair holds a cement block. The next person to the right is beating against a suitcase with a drumstick. The two people toward the right of the photo are staring ahead, looking a little disgruntled

Theater Review

Fire sale

by Dmitry Samarov March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

What does material success look like to young people in 2023? Is it possible to attain the lifestyle they see in 80s TV shows? Is that something to aspire to? A talented Neo-Futurist troupe takes on capitalism, parents’ expectations, their own hopes and dreams, and whether it’s even possible to just get by in this […]

Two Black men stand facing each other in what looks like a wooden cabin set with rough wooden plank walls. The man on the left is bald, wearing dark trousers, a light shirt, and a dark vest. The man on the right is wearing overalls and a plaid shirt. Both are bearded. They look as if they are caught mid-laugh. The man on the left is holding what looks like a diploma or some sort of certificate. Behind them we also see light green curtains and a set of shelves with various household implements on them. A table with a lace tablecloth and a chair covered in light red patterned upholstery is visible at the lower left.

Theater Review

The pain of history

by Sheri Flanders March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

I cannot recommend this play without caveats. At least to Black people. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad play. As a matter of fact, it’s a very good play. It’s clever, well-written, timely, and it makes good use of unusual devices. The quality of the play is not the problem. The problem […]

Three figures are seen onstage. A young white woman with long brown hair is seated at the left, wearing vaguely medieval clothing and holding a long wooden pole in both hands. She is smiling. Seated next to her toward the right of the photo is a young Black woman in similar garb, who looks alarmed. In front of her is a person wearing a mask like a dragon or unicorn, holding a cane and also wearing glittery sleeves. The floor underneath is filled with patches of bright color, and there is a glittery wall hanging in the background.

Theater Review

Interactive inclusivity

by Kimzyn Campbell March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Filament Theatre’s Think Fast, Jordan Chase!, written by Sonia Goldberg and directed by Jamal Howard, is full of plot twists which weave in and out of schoolyard and fantasy. Addressing difficult social scenarios that kids encounter, it opens with a plucky Jordan (Christabel Donkor) and her majestic bestie Mahari (Joolz Stroop) on the playground. Relations […]

Kayla Boye, a white woman with dark hair piled on her head, sits at a table in a black slip dress and a pearl necklace. She holds a pair of horn-rimmed glasses in one hand and what appears to be an orange toothbrush in the other. A black plastic garbage bag is on the table in front of her, and a series of lights dangle behind her.

Theater Review

Beckettian summit

by Jack Helbig March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Dame Peggy Ashcroft considered the role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s notoriously difficult Happy Days a “summit part,” one of those roles, like Hamlet or King Lear, that tests an actor’s mettle and proves her alpha status in the pack. (Ashcroft played Winnie in a 1975 production at the Old Vic Theatre in London.) Chicago […]