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Key Reviews: ‘Hoodoo Love’ at Raven Theatre

The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program is back with our fifth set of reviews, and this set is all about  Hoodoo Love at Raven Theatre! This year’s cohort: Ada Alozie, Alisa Boland, Anyah Royale Akanni,  Hannah Antman, Mariah Schultz, and Yiwen Wu. Read selections from each critic below, and click through to their author profiles to read the full critique and learn more about them! The Key is co-facilitated by Regina Victor and Oliver Sava. 

Alisa Boland: “Hoodoo Love, directed by Wardell Julius Clark at Raven Theatre, adds a bit of extra enchantment to Katori Hall’s debut script, a cocktail of blues singing, conjure, and inevitable tragedy. Set in Memphis, Katori Hall’s play follows Toulou an aspiring singer, played with spirit and tenderness by Martasia Jones. The young country girl turns to the supernatural help of her friendly, grandmotherly neighbor and hoodoo practitioner Candylady (played by the audience favourite, Shariba Rivers) to hold down her lover Ace (Matthew James Elam), a restless blues artist. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of Toulou’s older brother Jib (Christopher Wayland Jones), a preacher with a wolfish eye and an appetite for unholy, distilled spirits.” –  Read Alisa Boland’s full critique and learn more about the author!  Continue reading “Key Reviews: ‘Hoodoo Love’ at Raven Theatre”

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Key Reviews: Multimedia Edition

The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program is back with this year’s Multimedia Edition. After a class session with Vulture staff writer Angelica Jade Bastien, we encouraged our students to write about any piece of art that was not live theatre. The topics chosen range from the legacy of Breaking Bad in media, to the Joffrey Ballet’s Jane Eyre, to William Tyler’s album cover art. Finding your passion is a key component of a sustainable career in arts journalism!  This year’s cohort: Ada Alozie, Alisa Boland, Anyah Royale Akanni,  Hannah Antman, Mariah Schultz, and Yiwen Wu. The viewpoints of the authors are entirely their own. The Key is co-facilitated by Oliver Sava and Regina Victor. 

Ada Alozie, Breaking Bad: “When Breaking Bad was airing, it was hard to escape the personification of Walter White as an anti-hero: the word critics used to describe a white man with nebulous ethics, involved in shady (albeit) criminal activity. The anti-hero felt like it was everywhere in the early 2010s. I accepted the anti-hero label without thought when I was younger. As I was rewatching the series now, I couldn’t help thinking why the word anti-hero had been used to describe this character when it was so clear to me that Walter White was a straight-up villain.” – Read Ada Alozie’s full critique and learn more about the author!  Continue reading “Key Reviews: Multimedia Edition”

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Key Reviews: ‘Hope: Part II of a Mexican Trilogy’

The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program is back for our third year, and with a new format! This year’s cohort: Ada Alozie, Alisa Boland, Anyah Royale Akanni,  Hannah Antman, Mariah Schultz, and Yiwen Wu. The third show of our session was Hope: Part II of a Mexican Trilogy produced by Teatro Vista at The Den Theatre. Read selections from each critic below, and click through to their author profiles to read the full critique and learn more about them! The Key is co-facilitated by Regina Victor and Oliver Sava. 

Hannah Antman: “Directors Bruce and Gutierrez landed some evocative and heartfelt moments. Hope is a true period piece, in the sense that it showcases the past in order to illuminate something about our world today. I found Betty’s deep fear of the atomic bomb to be especially prescient, reflecting many young people’s current fears about climate change – in 1961 or 2019, being a teenager comes with the threat of the world ending. As an extension of that fear, Betty (excellently portrayed by Caraballo), has a series of imagined phone calls between herself and JFK (and later, Fidel Castro). I found these fantasy phone calls to be particularly compelling, and I wish the rest of the play delved as deep in its theatrical risk-taking.” –  Read Hannah Antman’s full critique and learn more about the author!  Continue reading “Key Reviews: ‘Hope: Part II of a Mexican Trilogy’”

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Key Reviews: The Brothers Size

The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program is back for our third year, and with a new format! This year’s cohort: Ada Alozie, Alisa Boland, Anyah Royale Akanni,  Hannah Antman, Mariah Schultz, and Yiwen Wu. The first show of our session was The Brothers Size at Steppenwolf for Young Adults. Read selections from each young critic below, and click through to their author profiles to read the full critique and learn more about them! The Key is co-facilitated by Regina Victor and Oliver Sava. 

Yiwen Wu: “Present, but invisible. For over 2.3 million imprisoned Americans, their life and struggle against the profound racial and social-class biases in our criminal justice system are often overlooked. At Steppenwolf for Young Adults, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s poetically thrilling The Brothers Size strives to confront the brutal legacy of incarceration, through a tender story of brotherhood and love–how the intimate ties that bind us together can free us in a world that fails to be free.” – Read Yiwen Wu’s full critique and learn more about the author! Continue reading “Key Reviews: The Brothers Size”

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Rescripted Announces Third Session of The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program

Rescripted is thrilled to announce the third session of The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program, September 25 – December 4 and hosted for the second year at Steppenwolf Theater, 1650 N. Halsted. Regina Victor, founder of the online arts journalism platform Rescripted, and entertainment critic Oliver Sava created the 10-week training program for Chicago youth in arts criticism. In league with The Chicago Inclusion Project, The Key has successfully held two sessions, educating young writers on the skills and industry knowledge needed to pursue careers in arts criticism. Alumni of The Key have written for outlets like Chicago Reader, Howlround, The Windy City Times, and Rescripted.

Continue reading “Rescripted Announces Third Session of The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program”

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‘Fuente Ovejuna’ at City Lit Revisits a Different Kind of Golden Age

Let me start off by saying how happy I am that City Lit Theatre is doing Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega. I love this script, I’ve always loved this script, and all of me wishes that it was done more. A huge booming “THANK YOU” to City Lit and director Terry McCabe for taking on their own adaptation of a painfully underproduced classic. From Spain’s golden age of drama, Fuente Ovejuna is Lope de Vega’s best-known work. A village revolts against a predatory authoritarian who uses his military and religious “power” to justify and prey upon the women of the rural town. The revolutionaries in this story are the women, which is particularly refreshing once you remember that the script was first published in 1619. This play has everything: love, war, drama, humor, history, and relevance. Continue reading “‘Fuente Ovejuna’ at City Lit Revisits a Different Kind of Golden Age”

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Meet The Keys – Elon Sloan

Get to know Elon Sloan, a recent Alumni of The Key Young Critics Mentorship Program! Each writer wrote a multimedia review about a piece of pop culture currently capturing their imagination that you can read at the end of Elon’s profile. We’d like to thank Angelica Jade Bastien at Vulture for sharing her insights on media reviewing with us. Check out more of Elon and their cohort’s writing in our Key Reviews section!

Name: Elon Sloan

City/State: I grew up in Oak Park, Il, but now I live in Chicago

Age: 24

Racial / Ethnic Identity: Black and Nigerian-American

Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: Queer Enby

Why do you want to write for Rescripted?: I love that Rescripted gives artists a chance to create a dialogue about one another’s work. Taking conversations that might only happen between theatre professionals or artists and making them public and accessible invites people to think about criticism in a whole new way. I also love that Rescripted writes about the shows and artists that otherwise might not get the spotlight. Continue reading “Meet The Keys – Elon Sloan”

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Meet The Keys – Sierra Carlson

Get to know Sierra Carlson, a recent Alumni of The Key Young Critics Mentorship Program! Each writer wrote a multimedia review about a piece of pop culture currently capturing their imagination that you can read at the end of Sierra’s profile. We’d like to thank Angelica Jade Bastien at Vulture for sharing her insights on media reviewing with us. Check out more of Sierra and her cohort’s writing in our Key Reviews section!

Name: Sierra Carlson

City/State: Chicago, IL

Age: 22

Racial / Ethnic Identity: White

Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: Female, Hetero

Why do you want to write for Rescripted?: I want to write for Rescripted because I want to support a platform for socially-conscious culture writing that questions the status quo and celebrates the revolutionary. Continue reading “Meet The Keys – Sierra Carlson”

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Meet The Keys – Lonnae Hickman

Get to know Lonnae Hickman, a recent Alumni of The Key Young Critics Mentorship Program! Each writer wrote a multimedia review about a piece of pop culture currently capturing their imagination that you can read at the end of Lonnae’s profile. We’d like to thank Angelica Jade Bastien at Vulture for sharing her insights on media reviewing with us. Check out more of Lonnae and her cohort’s writing in our Key Reviews section!

Name: Lonnae Hickman

City/State: Originally from Milwaukee, WI, but now in Chicago, IL

Age: 20

Racial / Ethnic Identity: Black/Native American

Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: Cis Queer Woman

Why do you want to write for Rescripted?:
I want to write for Rescripted because I’m dedicated to reviewing all types of theatre, not just the ones in the loop. Rescripted’s mission is working on giving honest and appropriate reviews for shows that are normally left out – shows that I believe are fundamental to Chicago and the theatre world. Continue reading “Meet The Keys – Lonnae Hickman”

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Meet The Keys – Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel

Get to know Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel, a recent Alumni of The Key Young Critics Mentorship Program! Each writer wrote a multimedia review about a piece of pop culture currently capturing their imagination that you can read at the end of Yasmin’s profile. We’d like to thank Angelica Jade Bastien at Vulture for sharing her insights on media reviewing with us. Check out more of Yasmin and her cohort’s writing in our Key Reviews section!

Name: Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel
Age: 22, Aries 

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

What, in your opinion, is the purpose of arts criticism?: Arts criticism is the way by which the ephemeral production of artists can be stamped into a place and time for posterity. By writing on the arts, we are creating a separate cannon that serves to document the who, what, where, when, how, and why of art for the present and future. Though criticism is viewed as assessing the quality of the work, it should also aim to root the production in our world. This means writing on the artists and acknowledging their social locations, their personal lenses. Continue reading “Meet The Keys – Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel”