Lookingglass Theatre Archives

The cast of Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon at Lookingglass Theatre stand and sit center stage, with several of them playing musical instruments.

Lookingglass goes on hiatus, and Raven gets a new artistic director

by Kerry Reid July 7, 2023August 4, 2023

The return of Chicago theater (theater everywhere, really) since the pandemic continues to be a white-knuckle experience for many companies. Last Friday, 35-year-old Lookingglass Theatre (winner of the 2011 Tony Award for best regional theater) announced that they were putting all programming on pause until at least spring 2024 and cutting their staff by over […]

An Asian American woman and man sit on a sofa that stands in for a car. He is driving, with a guitar in his lap. They both wear leather jackets and jeans.

Theater Review

Asian American renegades

by Irene Hsiao June 8, 2023June 8, 2023

When you hear “Charlie Chan,” do you think of a Honolulu police detective with a penchant for fortune cookie proverbs in pidgin English, who was made into an American icon in six novels by Ohioan Earl Derr Biggers and portrayed in yellowface by mostly white actors, including Swedish actor Warner Oland (who also played the […]

A group of people seated at a table with scripts in hand. At center are Matthew C. Yee, an Asian American man, and to the right is Aurora Adachi-Winter, an Asian American woman.

Arts & Culture

In Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon, renegade lovers are on the lam

by Jack Helbig May 17, 2023May 17, 2023

Actor, writer, composer, musician, lyricist, visual artist, short film director, and stop-motion animator Matthew C. Yee is no still water. But he does run deep. Yee is currently playing the lead male in Lookingglass Theatre’s Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon, a country-and-western musical about an Asian American couple on the lam from the law. He also […]

A red-headed woman in a pale checked dress and a brocade vest stands left, looking left. Next to her is a woman with dark hair in a long gray cloak who is holding a black-and-gold valise. The wall behind them is covered in old cursive writing resembling a letter.

Theater Review

Take that, Jane!

by Kimzyn Campbell February 23, 2023February 22, 2023

Lookingglass Theatre Company’s world premiere of Villette, a modern adaptation (written by Sara Gmitter and directed by Tracy Walsh) of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, explores the travails of a woman determined to stand on her own and not live in a fairy-tale world of romance. Graced with a rock-solid work ethic, Lucy Snowe is unwilling to […]

Six actors of various races and genders stand in a row against a white backdrop. Five of them are wearing light-colored clothing. Mi Kang, who plays protagonist Lucy Snowe, is dressed in a dark Victorian-like dress in the center.

Arts & Culture

Beyond Jane Eyre

by Emily McClanathan January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Although Charlotte Brontë’s Villette has long been overshadowed by Jane Eyre—its “more popular younger sister,” in Sara Gmitter’s words—the 1853 novel takes the spotlight at Lookingglass Theatre next month in a world premiere adaptation written by Gmitter and directed by Tracy Walsh. Based on a period of bereavement, homesickness, and unrequited love in Brontë’s own […]

A Black actor in a toy soldier's costume stands center. Two people holding a long piece of rippling blue fabric stand in front of him. The orchestra is in the foreground. The scene is washed with green and blue lighting effects, as if they are underwater.

Theater Review

A Steadfast seasonal favorite

by Kimzyn Campbell November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

It begins festively enough with a giant advent calendar revealing hints of the story to come. Some symbols are cheering, like wreaths and a violin. But others are mysterious—why a giant fish and a wheelbarrow? In The Steadfast Tin Soldier, created and directed by Mary Zimmerman (from the story by Hans Christian Andersen), we soon […]

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 […]

Agenda

Sunset 1919, CUFF, Atomic Sketch, and more

by Micco Caporale, Salem Collo-Julin and Kerry Reid July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

Atomic Sketch, which bills itself “Chicago’s original drink and draw” event, celebrates its 14th birthday today in the best way it knows how: a special anniversary drinking and drawing session from 6-10:30 PM tonight at Green Eye Lounge (2403 W. Homer). Featured artists Cecilia Jane, Rebeca Soto, Vivian Jones, Mel Valentine, Morgan Hall, and Megan […]

Top image is of Kenilworth Beach, shot from an elevated viewpoint. The bottom image is of a sign from the Winnetka Park District reminding visitors of the need for beach and boat passes.

On Culture

Sun, sand—and segregation

by Deanna Isaacs July 20, 2022July 20, 2022

So, a bicyclist walks up to a beach on the North Shore. It’s hot, he’s been riding, he just wants to put his feet in the cool Lake Michigan water that he can see sparkling behind a booth and a prominent “beach pass required” sign. A hapless kid with a summer job is manning the […]

Four people in folding chairs onstage enacting the Tea Party. The first two are men in suits with hats, then Alice in a white dress and black-and-white striped stockings, with a man in a pink and white pinafore at the far right. The men all have their hands raised in the air, while Alice looks on with delight.

Theater Review

Chess, circus, and the game of life

by Kimzyn Campbell May 19, 2022May 19, 2022

Here is a riddle for you: What do a game of chess and life have in common?* Inside the tidy, rule-driven universe of a chess board, seven-year-old Alice stumbles upon the inexplicable and absurd rules of a new world. Every fledgling chess player will empathize as Alice is met with surprise after surprise in this […]

Jane Byrne behind a podium with her staff behind her and Cabrini-Green residents seated in folding chairs in front of her. A sign reading "Welcome Mayor" is behind her

Theater Review

The resurrection of Her Honor Jane Byrne

by Kerry Reid November 16, 2021November 20, 2021

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 […]