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 […]
Tag: Ericka Ratcliff
Posted inTheater Review
What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a bracing experience
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, […]
Posted inTheater Review
Art and appropriation
Of the two plays exploring race that Steppenwolf has on stage right now—King James and WHITE—the latter definitely stands out for being not only funnier, but more complex and satisfying in its critique of race, privilege, and power. Written by James Ijames and directed by Ericka Ratcliff, Definition Theatre’s production is a delightfully silly yet […]
Posted inGhost Light
More changes at the top for Chicago-area theaters
Goodman, Congo Square, and Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights all announce major changes at the top.
Posted inArts & Culture
Lanise Antoine Shelley is opening up the House
The new artistic director wants to take ‘amazing feats of storytelling’ into more diverse realms; Rick Bayless wants to give more money to local theaters.
Posted inArts & Culture
Plantation! uses a sitcom sensibility to explore the case for reparations
The Lookingglass world premiere strives to be a very special episode.