Helen Young Archives - Chicago Reader

Beth Lacke as Heidi Schreck stands center in front of a podium. To her left is Raymond Fox as an American Legion member, seated ina. chair.

The state of our rights

by Kerry Reid May 24, 2023May 26, 2023

To say that Heidi Schreck’s 2017 Pulitzer-and-Tony-nominated play What the Constitution Means to Me hits differently in a post-Roe v. Wade world is a huge understatement. TimeLine’s current production (the first by a local company—Schreck’s piece, which she originally performed, has been seen here twice on tour, pre- and post-COVID shutdown), moves the show from […]

An Asian man sits left, looking at a Chinese woman. Both are in what appears to be traditional Chinese clothing of the 19th century.

Theater Review

The price of exposure

by Sheri Flanders May 20, 2022June 7, 2022

In Viola Spolin’s seminal work Improvisation for the Theater, the very first exercise listed is named “exposure.” During this exercise, a group of actors are divided into halves and instructed to simply look at others and allow others to look at them. This deceptively difficult task often challenges new performers greatly; not only do they […]

An Asian man in a green jacket, blue trousers, and a black baseball cap sits left next to an Asian woman in black trousers and top with a pink blouse. Her hair is in a ponytail. They are looking at each other quizzically.

Arts & Culture

‘Afong Moy was a real person’

by Irene Hsiao May 11, 2022May 11, 2022

The year was 1834. Indigenous communities were being displaced from their ancestral homelands on the forced march known as the Trail of Tears. Over two million people of African descent were enslaved. And America’s first model minority, Afong Moy, was imported to New York: a 14-year-old girl with bound feet, made to perform for the […]