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Victory Gardens Theater Playwrights Withdraw From Ignition Festival of New Plays

All four playwrights have pulled their plays from the 2020 Ignition Festival at Victory Gardens’ Theatre. Read the full letter below, originally published on Medium.

As the 2020 Ignition Festival of New Plays at Victory Gardens approaches, we four emerging playwrights have decided to pull our respective plays from this development opportunity. We demand that leadership in Chicago theaters dispense with hollow gestures of solidarity, hold themselves accountable for past mistakes, and listen to the needs of their community and artists. Continue reading “Victory Gardens Theater Playwrights Withdraw From Ignition Festival of New Plays”

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‘Sugar in our Wounds,’ an Ode to Black Love in a Time of Great Pain

Sugar in our Wounds by Donja R. Love at First Floor Theater is nestled in the upstairs of the Den Theatre, a space designed by Joy Ahn to hold its audience tightly through the events of the play. Seemingly endless branches that source from an ancient tree glow from within, arching over the space as if to say come closer, I have a story in my roots. If you listen closely, Sam Clapp’s sound design will have you thinking you hear the ancestors murmuring to you as the wind whistles through the branches. Continue reading “‘Sugar in our Wounds,’ an Ode to Black Love in a Time of Great Pain”

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The Spectacle of Suffering in ‘Through the Elevated Line’

 

Set in Chicago, the play centers on the arrival of Razi Gol (Salar Ardebili)  to his sister’s apartment in Uptown, right off of the Lawrence CTA Red Line. Soraya (Catherine Dildilian), Razi’s sister, has been in the United States for more than a decade after leaving her family in Shiraz, Iran to attend school and lives with her white Irish-American husband Chuck (Joshua K. Volkers).   Continue reading “The Spectacle of Suffering in ‘Through the Elevated Line’”

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Aziza Barnes’ ‘BLKS’ Gets Up Close and Personal

This review is written by Logan McCullom, an alumni of The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program.

Stumbling through the seemingly unending crowds and stairs that make up Steppenwolf’s theatre, I was frazzled and bewildered by how many folks I saw waiting to be seated for the opening night of BLKS. At first glance I found the title to be easy and not very enticing at all, but it was quickly redeemed as I saw the set. Like the title would prove to be, it was comprised of… well… everything. There was no shortage of couches, there were even couches on the walls! Set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer draped long blue curtains on the stage, making distinct isolations that served as different rooms within the same stage. It was messy, chaotic, a perfect representation of life on your own, and I loved it. Continue reading “Aziza Barnes’ ‘BLKS’ Gets Up Close and Personal”

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Fists Up: An Interview with Fight Choreographer & Actor Almanya Narula

This week Editor-In-Chief Regina Victor sat down with notable fight choreographer, dancer, and actor Almanya Narula to discuss the art of stage combat, her history as a performance artist in Bollywood and the United States, and what the field needs now. Victor and Narula first met on the set of Ricardo Gamboa’s Brujos. Victor was impressed by Narula’s ability to design impressive combat that was easily taught in a short time frame, as well as the vast career Narula has cultivated in a male-dominated industry.  Continue reading “Fists Up: An Interview with Fight Choreographer & Actor Almanya Narula”

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A Smart and Touching Journey in Jessica Dickey’s The Rembrandt

Hallie Palladino

In a gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Henry (Francis Guinan) guards Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer. If it really depicts Aristotle at all. Henry is partial to the argument Rembrandt may have substituted the Greek painter Apelles in the philosopher’s place as an affront to the wealthy Italian who commissioned it. Were artists the true philosophers in Rembrandt’s opinion? For Henry, a scholarly man who has spent his life studying paintings and loving a poet, this seems about right. So begins Jessica Dickey’s funny and touching play, The Rembrandt, now enjoying its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre in an elegantly designed production directed by Hallie Gordon.

Continue reading “A Smart and Touching Journey in Jessica Dickey’s The Rembrandt”

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Rescripted Announces ‘The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program’

CHICAGO (September 8, 2017) – Greenhouse Theater Center’s Artistic Director Jacob Harvey is pleased to announce The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program, a training program for Chicago youth in arts criticism created by national online arts platform Rescripted, The Chicago Inclusion Project and entertainment critic Oliver Sava and hosted by the Greenhouse. Launching this fall, the ten-week initiative for youth ages 16 – 20 will include arts criticism workshops and lectures with the program’s creators, as well as guest speakers from all facets of the Chicago theater community. Students will attend Chicago theater productions throughout the fall season, write original critiques, undergo one-on-one editing sessions and create personal blogs to host their writing portfolio and multimedia reviews. Select critiques will also be published on Rescripted.

Continue reading “Rescripted Announces ‘The Key: Young Critics Mentorship Program’”

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Love and Talent Burn Fiercely in ‘Bright Half Life’

(Photo Copyright: Michael Brosilow)

By Regina Victor

Bright Half Life at About Face Theatre directed by Kiera Fromm is an elegant exploration of queer love and the quirks of relationships. A two-person play penned by Tanya Barfield, Bright Half Life centers around the intertwined lives of two women, Erica (Elizabeth Ledo) and Vicky (Patrese D. McClain). The play jumps back and forth through time to tell us the story of Vicky and Erica’s decades long love affair, from their first encounter at the job where Vicky is the only black female supervisor, to the marriages of their children. Fromm’s direction and Barfield’s sequence of events made it clear from the beginning that this love would be complicated and messy, that it would end and perhaps begin again. But whether or not they see a happy ending almost doesn’t matter. Bright Half Life  believes that it’s not about the result, it’s about the journey. Continue reading “Love and Talent Burn Fiercely in ‘Bright Half Life’”