Theater
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Opera-Matic’s New Moon on the Lagoon
In this audio piece, I eavesdrop on rehearsals for Opera-matic’s very cool New Moon on the Lagoon, an “evening lullaby parade”, featuring a 15 foot tall giant moon that will be lit up from within by projections of facial expressions. It’ll be happening Friday May 10th and 11th, 2013 at the Humboldt Park Lagoon in…
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Opportunity Please Knock Chorus: oscar brown, jr.’s collaboration with the blackstone rangers
In 1967, members of the Blackstone Rangers, a notorious Gang in Chicago, collaborated with singer/composer/playwright/activist Oscar Brown Jr. to create a Musical Revue called “Opportunity Please Knock”. About eight thousand people went to the show during the first weeks of performance (at Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church). Photos in this post are from that first run.…
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Ladies Ring Shout: performance as a way to community
The Ladies Ring Shout as a Performance was born of a weekly workshop, dialoguing space, and “jam session” for women. Participants talked, wrote and moved in the spirit of collaborative experimentation and explored what an urban feminine discourse looks and feels like. What are our notions of an Urban Feminine? What is her legacy to/for…
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Passing Strange: a righteous afro-rock opera comes to Chicago!
“Passing Strange“, the Tony-winning black rock-opera is righteous, and it’s being staged in Chicago featuring local soul revivalists JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound… and my chica: LaNisa Frederick. Amen. Passing Strange is the coming-of-age story of “Youth” (Daniel Breaker), a kid growing up somewhere in LA in the seventies. He is disillusioned because he doesn’t fit the common…
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In the Blood: susan lori parks’ remix of “scarlet letter” in chicago
“My life’s my own fault. I know that. But the world don’t help.” — Hester La Negrita “In the Blood”, the “bold re-imagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, embraces the yearning for love, family, and the price of moral absolutes” according to the UIC Performing Arts website. The rework centers on Hester La…
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Under the Spell of Red and Brown Water
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “In the Red and Brown Water,” now playing at Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theater, is an exercise in duality that lends itself to complete immersion, an exercise in which you’re left like a used bag of orange pekoe (feeling purposefully spent). Reality blends with chorus-driven fantasy, magic with carnality, and comedy with tragedy in this…
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Tofu Chitlin Circuit presents: Black Thang
THE SYNOPSIS: “Black Thang” by Ato Essandoh is the story of Sam, a black man, and Mattie, a white woman, and what happens when their relationship progresses from merely a one-night stand to something more…but not without some controversy. Meanwhile, Keisha (Mattie’s best friend), struggles to hold onto her relationship with her long-time boyfriend Omar, and Jerome (Sam’s best…
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Passing Strange: a righteous afro-rock opera
“Passing Strange“, the Tony-nominated black rock-opera is righteous…. Amen. Passing Strange is the coming-of-age story of “Youth” (Daniel Breaker), a kid growing up somewhere in LA in the seventies. He is disillusioned because he doesn’t fit the common definition of blackness. Floating above the city, getting high in his choir director’s blue Volkswagen beetle, “Youth” decides to…
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Ten Square: play that portrays ‘a different world’
In class recently, I played a piece of audio by Damali Ayo called “Living Flag” in which Ms. Ayo attempts to Panhandle for Reparations: collecting from whites, distributing her change to fellow Blacks. You can listen to the piece here. At the culmination of the piece, I tried to convince my teenage students that the idea…
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Tofu Chitlin Circuit presents the Mac and Cheese Edition
From the Tofu Chitlin Circuit: a Theater Conservatory based in Bronzeville: A Panel Discussion featuring you… Our October A La Carte features J. Nicole Brooks, playwright of “Fedra” at Lookingglass Theater and African-American Illusionist Walter King Jr. We’re talking about SPECTACLE. What is it? How does it work? Is it low-brow theater? Is it a…
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