Steppenwolf for Young Adults brings its acclaimed production of 1919, J. Nicole Brooks’s stage adaptation of Eve L. Ewing’s poems about the “Red Summer” race riots and white supremacy in America, from their Halsted Street venue to a short tour this week with Chicago Park District’s “Night Out in the Parks” program, starting tonight at […]
Tag: J. Nicole Brooks
Posted inTheater Review
Unraveling Chicago’s racist past (and present)
J. Nicole Brooks’s adaptation of 1919, Eve L. Ewing’s collection of poems published a century after the “Red Summer” race riot in Chicago sparked by the murder of Eugene Williams, is the first live show since the pandemic for Steppenwolf for Young Adults. There are only a handful of public performances, but it should not […]
Posted inTheater Review
The resurrection of Her Honor Jane Byrne
Right before the stay-at-home order hit Chicago in March of 2020, Lookingglass Theatre opened Her Honor Jane Byrne, written and directed by ensemble member J. Nicole Brooks. I called that production “a rich, riotous, and soul-searching world premiere,” and mourned its truncated run. Well, you can’t keep a good show down. After winning the prestigious […]
Posted inGhost Light
The Fine Arts theater team makes no little plans
Back in the Pleistocene era (that is, 1986), I spent a few months living downtown in the now-gone Herman Crown Center, a Roosevelt University residence hall that also sheltered students from Columbia College Chicago (where I was enrolled) and the School of the Art Institute. (The building was torn down to make room for Roosevelt’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Carlo Lorenzo García creates a solo tribute in A Portrait of My Mother
The onetime Chicago theatermaker premieres his digital show for Mother’s Day; plus major awards for playwrights and designers and a tribute to Russ Tutterow
Posted inArts & Culture
Ghost Light: a roundup of offstage performing arts news and notes
Victory Gardens and Raven name new leadership; J. Nicole Brooks wins a prestigious playwriting grant.
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago ain’t ready for reform in Her Honor Jane Byrne
Lookingglass delivers a stunning world premiere about Chicago’s first woman mayor, public housing, and race.
Posted inArts & Culture
Her Honor Jane Byrne remembers when the mayor moved to Cabrini
Lookingglass produces the first in J. Nicole Brooks’s planned quartet of Chicago plays.
Posted inArts & Culture
HeLa turns the story of Henrietta Lacks into a key to the universe
Playwright J. Nicole Brooks weaves together race, medicine, and basic humanity into a heartfelt drama.
Posted inArts & Culture
Gift Theatre’s Ten 2018, Filament Theatre’s Forts!, and four more new stage shows
A festival of ten-minute plays and an interactive kids’ show are among this week’s best bets.
Posted inArts & Culture
Today’s news yesterday
Three black icons debate in Lookingglass Theatre’s “Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting”
Posted inArts & Culture
You Gotta Have Guilt
A review of Fedra: Queen of Haiti, a futuristic retelling of the Phedre myth by J. Nicole Brooks, given its world premiere production at Lookingglass Theatre Company under the direction of Laura Eason.