Congo Square Theatre Archives

Charlique Rolle is pictured wearing black clothing and sitting on a stool.

Charlique Rolle takes over at African American Arts Alliance of Chicago

by Kerry Reid September 28, 2023September 30, 2023

Charlique Rolle knows what it takes to keep a strong vision going in challenging times. The executive director of Congo Square Theatre Company came into that role in the summer of 2020, when nobody even knew when it would be safe to return to live performance. Rolle worked with artistic director Ericka Ratcliff and the […]

A Black man and woman stand left in front of a sofa, looking across the living room at another Black man and woman.

Theater Review

You won’t be my neighbor

by Kerry Reid September 21, 2023September 28, 2023

“Well, look who’s come to dinner!” bellows Gerald (Ronald L. Conner) to the neighbors he and wife Patricia (Sydney Charles) have invited to their home in Inda Craig-Galván’s WELCOME TO MATTESON! But the neighbors here aren’t white or interracial, and nobody’s trying to marry anyone else’s daughter. That aside, the parallels to Guess Who’s Coming […]

Ghost Light

Artemisia and Congo Square celebrate Inda Craig-Galván

by Kerry Reid August 30, 2023September 6, 2023

Writer, performer, and Second City vet Inda Craig-Galván has been away from Chicago for a dozen years. But she’s having a homecoming celebration of sorts with two shows—both set in the Chicago area—opening on local stages. This week, Artemisia Theatre opens Craig-Galván’s A Hit Dog Will Holler at the Den Theatre. Next week, Congo Square […]

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 […]

Sixteen people seated and standing in a group on the set, which features white plastic folded to resemble paper, upon which are written the names of people lost to police violence and racism. Candles glow behind them. The group is mostly Black and Brown people.

Arts & Culture

To heal and hear

by Kerry Reid October 5, 2022October 5, 2022

Aleshea Harris’s 2018 performance piece, What to Send Up When It Goes Down, had its local premiere this past spring with Congo Square Theatre Company in a production that played both in West Town (at GRAY Chicago) and the south side (Rebuild Foundation Stony Island Arts Bank). It’s back now in a short residency with […]

Theater Review

What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a bracing experience

by Jack Helbig April 5, 2022April 19, 2022

Early in Congo Square’s powerful hybrid theatrical event—a part healing ritual, part sensitivity session, part exuberant dance theater freak-out, and part explosive agitprop political satire written by Aleshea Harris, directed by Ericka Ratcliff, and performed by a sharp ensemble of nimble actors—one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and pointedly tells “non-Black” audience members, […]

City Life

These events ain’t for fools

by Salem Collo-Julin, Micco Caporale and Kerry Reid April 1, 2022April 1, 2022

Even though we’re posting this on April 1, we’re not foolin’: we think you’ll find something to enjoy in this week’s list of upcoming events. FRI 4/1 Chicago Repertory Ballet celebrates its tenth anniversary with a program called, appropriately enough, Ten. The lineup includes three world premieres: Transcending Quiet, a pas de deux and “study […]

Audrey Francis, a white woman in blue jeans and a black jacket, is standing left, and Glenn Davis, a Black man in dark trousers and shirt, is standing right in front of the empty new theater at Steppenwolf.

Performing Arts Feature

Plays in a pandemic

by Kerry Reid December 22, 2021January 6, 2022

By the time this year ends (it is gonna end, right?), Reader critics will, by my count, have reviewed 69 live theater and dance performances. That’s far less than in most years, but a veritable cornucopia after the onstage famine that began in March 2020. But just when we think it’s safe to go back […]