Stages of Survival is an occasional series focusing on Chicago theater companies, highlighting their histories and how they’re surviving—and even thriving—in a landscape that’s become decidedly more challenging since the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown. Last month’s report from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and SMU DataArts, “Navigating Recovery: Arts and Culture Financial […]
Category: Performing Arts Feature
Posted inArts & Culture
La Casa de Satanas wants you to get hysterical
I spent Valentine’s Day on my back at Co-Prosperity getting waterboarded by a sassy little Cupid with a glittering beard and sumptuous breasts. There was a wet pillowcase over my head and a specimen cup in my mouth in a room that smelled of hot piss (my group and I had poured our urine into […]
Posted inTheater Preview
Rats—now and forever
Rats run rampant on Chicago streets, but on Chicago stages? Not so much. Kids’ productions of Charlotte’s Web may shine a light now and again on Templeton, the sneaky (but ultimately praiseworthy) barn rat who helps save Wilbur’s life, as well as Charlotte’s progeny. Some versions of The Nutcracker go with a Rat King instead […]
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Little Amal invites Chicago to walk a little closer together
Although Amal, a towering 12-foot puppet representing a ten-year-old Syrian refugee girl, is silent, she speaks a universal language of empathy that has shifted countless perspectives, including in our Windy City. “From the very first journey, it was apparent that this was something the community was craving,” says associate artistic director Khadijat Oseni. A collaborative […]
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Theo lights up a new Asian American musical with Baked!
Happily ever after for an Asian American high school girl isn’t getting the captain of the football team to take you to prom—it’s getting into Harvard. So let’s get one thing straight from the jump: Jane Huang, a Chinese American girl from Minnesota Valley (a midwestern town that is not in the state of Minnesota), […]
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Season of plenty
Despite rumors of its demise, live performance is still happening in abundance on Chicago stages this season. Here are just a few suggestions in opera, dance, theater, and comedy to consider in the months ahead. And as always, be sure to check out our updated reviews and features every week for the latest comprehensive coverage. […]
Posted inStages of Survival
‘We don’t want to get bigger. We want to get deeper.’
This week, we’re kicking off a new occasional series, Stages of Survival, spotlighting theater companies that are, despite the pervasive gloom-and-doom narratives about the performing arts, still producing. The plan is to eventually encompass a broad range of companies: Equity and non-Equity, those that are itinerant and those that have their own spaces, and companies […]
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Shaking your ass for the revolution
It was a gorgeously sunny and breezy Sunday afternoon, and I was tucked into a corner at Fort Knox Studios on the far northwest side. As I settled into my plastic folding chair, the lighting crew —helmed by veteran Fly Honey lighting director Slick Jorgensen, recording the show onto their phone—assembled around me. As it […]
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Clowns over easy
The invite to a clown brunch arrived at a pivotal point in my summer, when the thought of clowning and eating made perfect sense. I accepted, and invited along a clown friend as well, so we could dine and laugh together, making hot clown summer suddenly seem feasible—thanks to the heat wave and air pollution […]
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Landree Fleming plants her feet in musical comedy
Until recently, Landree Fleming was best known as a comic actor. She has appeared in over 20 local productions, including stints at the Marriott Theatre, Drury Lane, Chicago Shakespeare, and Porchlight. But over the last year and a half she has begun to branch out into directing. Last season Fleming codirected Paramount’s “Bold” series production […]
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The art of access
On Sunday, August 13, from 1 to 4 PM, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted Cripping the Galleries, a series of live gallery activations through the lenses of crip culture, access, and belonging by Chicago dance artists in collaboration with Bodies of Work: A Network of Disability Art and Culture and the Museum of Contemporary […]
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Puppet wisdom
“Did they have puppets 10,000 years ago?” I asked in response to a story Blair Thomas, founder and artistic director of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, was telling us about humanity’s long-term relationship with puppets. Thomas replied without missing a beat. “Yes! Do you know how we know?”“How?”“Past life regression!” Seven artists from different […]
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DisFest comes to the Chicago Cultural Center
Ladonna Freidheim wants Chicago to know that there’s a dynamic community of disabled performers and artists here in the city that are ripe for discovery. That’s the motivation behind DisFest, a free celebration of disabled creativity taking place at the Chicago Cultural Center this Saturday. Freidheim, a wheelchair dancer with Oak Park’s MOMENTA Dance Company […]
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Jinkx Monsoon: Drag, witchcraft, and Doctor Who
Just like magic, Jinkx Monsoon is coming to Chicago for their latest show, Everything at Stake. The reigning champion of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7: All Winners has a brand-new title. All hail Jinkx Monsoon—queen amongst queens, legal spouse of a husband, cat mother of Tildee Swintee, avid advocate for therapy—and as always, a […]
Posted inPerforming Arts Feature
Something Wonderful once again
First published in 1978, Jeffrey Sweet’s Something Wonderful Right Away, an oral history of the Second City, and its precursor, the Compass Players, has inspired generations of comic actors and improvisors to try to become part of the Second City or to create their own theater to rival Second City—or both. Ask any prominent contemporary […]