Stage
Act II
While the group’s mission has not waivered since it was founded in 1971, eta’s leadership is currently going through a major transition. The foundation’s long-time president and co-founder, Abena Joan Brown, stepped down this past March, on the 40th anniversary of the opening of the theater. She passed the reins to Philip Thomas, a... »
Nightmare Theatre
Dream Theatre’s Halloween-inspired production, “Audience Annihilated: Women Only Train”—a powerful and surreal theatrical experience that’s part psychological thriller, part horror film, and part haunted house, was performed five times a night for the ten nights leading up to Halloween, each cycle welcoming an audience of four people at maximum. »
Floating the Dope
Veteran radio journalist Victoria Lautman is no stranger to the drawn-out pleasures of the symposium. She’s the Chicago Humanities Festival’s go-to interviewer and has recorded tete-a-tetes with literary bigwigs like Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, and Martin Amis. Nevertheless, before sitting down with Amitav Ghosh last Sunday, she confessed to a full house at Mandel... »
Night of the lifeless dead
Theater-Hikes’ open-air production of “Night of the Living Dead,” which ran last weekend in Hyde Park on a patch of land on the southwest corner of 58th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, could have used a little more chaos and a lot more gore. »
A New Song
The flashing disco lights signal that a musical performance is about to begin. An artist picks up the mic, singing one of his old Mexican favorites, barely even looking at the screen for the correct lyrics. And this tradition is part of a larger project, called the People’s Stage. »
Equal opportunity offender
Comedy is like sex” began South African standup comedian Trevor Noah. This opening line from last Thursday’s event, which was sponsored by the UofC’s Students Promoting Interracial Networks and the African-Caribbean Students’ Association, earned both gasps and chuckles. »
Shouts ring out
Last Friday night, this performance, called “Ladies Ring Shout,” brought a crowd of South Side residents out of a cool rain and into the Experimental Station at 61st and Blackstone. »
It Ain’t Necessarily So
When it first debuted in 1935, the Gershwin brothers’ ”Porgy and Bess” raised one of the biggest stinks in musical theater history. With its controversial portrayal of love in an impoverished African-American community, the work was famously decried by academic Harold Cruse as “the most contradictory cultural symbol the Western world has ever created,”... »
