“Where in the world do they love a Black girl It was fun and heartbreaking. We are There has been a lot of sniping between for being herself?” Mahogany L. Browne asks the worlds of traditional poetry and in her introduction. “We are so easy to love.” separated by time zones, but we found a performance poetry. What’s that about Newcity interviewed Browne via email. way to connect consistently. The timeline The first BreakBeat Poets anthology always challenged us as we all have vigorous do you think? Do you think it is snobbery, was edited by three men and featured writing schedules, a misunderstanding of beat and form, poets of various ethnicities and underlying racism inherent in ideas genders. Why did you see a need careers and to focus solely on black women in artistic endeavors, of the superior written word versus this anthology? but we knew this oral traditions? Other things? Have I spoke with Kevin Coval in passing after you encountered it? writing a poem by the same name (“Black was a labor of Girl Magic”) for some students at Young love. We wanted I think it’s cute and divisive. There are Chicago Authors and the response was to make sure we poems that are written well and then so visceral, I knew there was a room and there are poems that are written well and need for the discussion of blackness and kept an eye on womanness and the many bodies we performed equally well. I think it’s funny that have and the way in which we walk in the the women in world versus the way we are seen in the the conversation changes, morphs and alters world. Jamila Woods has an amazing the world and song (“Blk Girl Soldier“) which also talks the discourse of “what is good” when the about the magic of black women and showcased as Idrissa is writing short stories and poems “traditional” forms and voices are challenged. while raising a young black daughter. It was many voices perfect timing to align our forces and really Poems published in journals today have dig into what it means: Black Girl Magic. (marginalized double work to do, because the gatekeepers How did you make choices about and othered) what to include— both stylistically and are changing and the landscape is changing content-wise? The three of you are from as possible. different genres and sensibilities—how and the idea that social status and pedigree does the collaborative process work between you? Is hip-hop holding space for mediocrity is no longer still perceived accepted. So yeah, good luck on reading as a boys’ that incredibly tight and creatively dead club? How much is gender an issue, piece of art—we’ll see whose soul it saves. how so? What about people who don’t see themselves in a binary? Is there a difference between what happens in “The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl music versus poetry performance versus what happens on the page? Magic” Edited by Mahogany L. Browne, Idrissa Simmonds and Jamila Woods, This book is about the women that love Haymarket Books, 264 pages, $19.95 hip-hop. While we may have complicated There will be a “Black Girl Magic” relationships with the genre, it informs how reading on April 9 at the Poetry Foundation, we move and love; what we refuse to accept 61 West Superior, (312)787-7070. and how we fight.Live at The Book Cellar IN THE FORMER BOOKMAN’S ALLEY SPACE AT 1712 SHERMAN AVE, EVANSTON Sean Penn David Berner Independent Bookstore Day APRIL 2018 Newcity“Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff” “A Well-Respected Man” is Saturday, April 28 in conversation with Stuart Dybek April 14, 6:30pm April 5, 7pm at Everybody’s Coffee Join us throughout the day for treats, surprises, Essay Fiesta! one-of-a-kind merchandise, and events includingTim Hanley April 16, 7pm 10:30 a.m.“The Many Lives of Catwoman” Special Storytime: April 5, 7pm Local Author Night Reading of Maisy Goes to the Local Bookstore Robert Kurson featuring Poetry for 3 p.m. Poetry Month Edition What’s With Chicago? Trivia Contest with author Ellen Shubart“Rocket Men” April 18, 7pm April 5, 7pm at the Museum 5 - 7 p.m. of Science and Industry Sam Weller Celebrate the Power of Pop: A Book Launch Event Storytime with Miss Jamie! “Listen To the Echoes: by the Great Books Foundation for their new The Ray Bradbury Interviews” Big Ideas in Popular Culture anthologies April 6, 11am April 19, 7pm Featuring authors Devin McKinney (Beatlemania:The Interview Show Debby Shanahan A Love Story) and Walter Podrazik (Pursuit of the featuring Gillian Flynn and Eve Ewing “Cracked Shell” Public Interest in the Vast Wasteland) April 6, 6:30pm at The Hideout April 20, 7pm For more events and news visit us atAmelia Brunskill Tell Me A French Story WWW.BOOKENDSANDBEGINNINGS.COM“The Window” Storytime in French and English April 6, 7pm April 21, 10:30am Where you can also order from us 24/7Matt Baron Deirdre McAfee and BettyJoyce Nash“Songs for Learning! Playbook” April 7, 11am “Lock and Load: Armed Fiction” April 21, 6pmThe Kates!! Estelle Laughlin April 13 and April 28, 7pm “Transcending Darkness”Chicago Young Adult April 22, 10:30am Book Festival at Emanuel Congregation April 14, 2:30pm Independent Bookstore Day! April 28Go to our website for event details, book clubs and more!Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square!4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com 51
THE HANGAR at Fort Knox Studios 7,200 square feet of flexible production space and all of the resources needed for your creative project. A truly integrated space for film, video, music, photography and special events.For more informationcall (630) 689-6969
Music Lucy Dhegrae / Photo: Ariadne GreifMUSIC TOP 5 Defiantly In our own realm, I used to teach a composi- APRIL 2018 Newcity1 King Krule. Riviera Theater. Undefined tion student who was obsessed with defining This ferociously gifted everything he wrote. He would come in with twenty-three-year-old British A New Music Festival a piano piece and I’d play through it with him singer-songwriter-rapper has Flouts Categorization and he would get frustrated if he didn’t know pulled a gorgeous sonic arsenal exactly what a chord he had written was from postmillennial media By Seth Boustead called. But he was fond of atonal harmonies, onslaught. April 27 so most of the time I would just make up a Humans are marvelously contradictory name to satisfy him. “Oh that? That’s an2 Keb’ Mo’. City Winery. creatures. On one hand we’re wildly A#9sus13.” No such chord exists; I mean Decades of mainstream creative, while on the other we can’t stand how do you suspend a 13? But he would success haven’t scrubbed the the notion that something could be created instantly relax his shoulders and become gravel from the Delta bluesman’s that couldn’t be labeled, identified and visibly calm, secure in the knowledge that performances. Listen to him, thoroughly understood. Take the Bible: what he wrote was a thing and it had a name. and hear the decades fall away. instead of just kicking back and enjoying his newly created paradise, the first thing Adam This tendency to reduce things to understand-April 26-27 does is go around giving everything a name. able bites is largely useful, but it can hamper It’s like he can’t rest until he’s thoroughly creativity, too. I’d be comfortable not defining3 Kevin Morby Thalia Hall. reduced the garden to a collection of finite, anything. It would solve an enormous number The former Babies frontman carefully defined, named things. of philosophical issues at once, like the whole is crafting languid, liquid, desolate problem of universals. Then again, how would music that recalls Dylan and you order a gluten-free crust on your pizza? Leonard Cohen at their most How would you even order a pizza? irresistibly introspective. April 284 Subramania. SPACE. Indian singer-songwriter Bindu Subramaniam and violinist-composer Ambi blend traditional and popular musical forms with uncanny freshness and wit. April 235 Kate Nash. Park West. The British singer-songwriter tours her new album, “Yesterday Was Forever,” a self-described“teenage diary” that manages decidedly adult bite and brio.April 20 53
At any rate, the problem with who are doing interesting work, over-defining things is that it and rather than bring them all to limits them. If you experience New York City, we wanted to a Beethoven symphony as a come to Chicago and celebrate pure, joyful mass of sound, then them in their hometown. There it’s an overwhelming, wonderful aren’t too many cities in the experience. If you jadedly say, United States where there’s such “Ludwig’s Fifth? Yeah, I know that,” a high concentration of vocalists then you’ve reduced the sympho- in one place; but when there is ny and are no longer experiencing one, such as in Chicago, we it on the level that it deserves. want to do a festival there!” I think about these things a lot So what will happen when these because I’m a creative person creative singers are given total and because I’m in the business freedom? One highlight will be a of trying to get people to go out piece by Jenna Lyle on opening and experience events I produce night, inspired by the work of that late abstract expressionist and write about. But everyone sculptor Louise Nevelson. Lyle, wants to know what they’re whose work often incorporates going to see before they go. movement and physicality, here They need to know, is it jazz? Modern classical? Shoe-gazing works with the Sonic Fabric garment (invented and designed minimalist emo? What is it? by Alyce Santoro and Scarlet Le), It’s getting harder and harder analogue electronics, and live for those of us who produce video projection to make a concerts and festivals to deal three-part work exploring the with this, because if you have aural properties of textiles. a success, then people build an image in their minds of what it is, Also performing the first night is the wonderfully diverse soprano and they come to expect that Nina Dante, whose contributions every year. How then to run a include a piece she wrote recurring event that keeps especially for the festival, and creativity front and center? Renaissance man Alejandro Singer and producer Lucy Acierto performing two of his Dhegrae has found an answer new works. The second night to this question in her Resonant features Tony Arnold working Bodies Festival, a fest of experi- with International Contemporary mental vocal music that has done Ensemble on an orchestrated well in New York and now comes version of Olivier Messiaen’s “Songs of Earth and Sky,” which to Chicago. Lucy chooses a handful of wildly creative vocalists is not to be missed, and Amanda DeBoer Bartlett’s collaboration and gives them complete with fellow members of Ensemble freedom, so creativity is baked into the model. “The chance for Dal Niente. a vocalist to choose their own program is actually pretty rare,” The festival will close with a showstopper: Pamela Z singing she says. “Often we are hired an eclectic mix of her own works on a one- or two-piece basis per concert—such is the freelanc- for live electronics and voice, and er’s life. So in Resonant Bodies, arrangements of pieces by iconic artists Björk and Meredith Monk. I find that our artists give really compelling, energetic, dedicated All of these great concerts are by performances. They’ve given artists living and working in, or them a lot of thought because it’s a special space to perform in: with deep ties to, Chicago; but it’s all about vocal music, and we you won’t see them all in one want to get a sense of who this place anywhere else and, with the deep pool of talent in Chicago, artist is right now—or—where this is a model for a festival that they’re headed artistically.” could return year after year andNewcity APRIL 2018 This is a novel idea for a music never become predictable. Yeah, festival, the formats of which so Adam and my former compo- often exist to show off the sition student would hate it, but, curatorial expertise of their as the adventurous person you directors. So when Resonant are, I know that you’ll love it. Bodies comes to Chicago, it’s not really coming to Chicago; Resonant Bodies runs April 6, 7 it’s more a framing device for and 8 at Constellation, 311 North what’s already here. “I know of Western. $11-$15 per event, so many vocalists in Chicago or $35-$35 for a festival pass.54
LONDON’S AWARD-WINNING PRODUCTION MAKES ITS U.S. PREMIERE ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER & TIM RICE “ADRENALINE- PUMPING” - THE NEW YORK TIMES “ELECTRIFYING” - DAILY MAILOPENS APRIL 27 | LIMITED ENGAGEMENTWATCH THE TRAILER AT JCSUPERSTAR.ORG 3 1 2 . 8 2 7 . 5 6 0 0PRODUCTION SPONSORSLEAD SPONSOR THE NEGAUNEE COSPONSORS ANONYMOUS MR. AND MRS. J. JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR MUSIC BY ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER LYRICS BY TIM RICE FOUNDATION DONOR CHRISTOPHER REYES IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE REALLY USEFUL GROUP LIMITED PRODUCTION BY THE REGENT’S PARK THEATRE LONDONROCKEFELLER CHAPEL PRESENTS . . . JAMES KALLEMBACH & THE CHAPEL CHOIR: MUSIC OF EXILE SUNDAY APRIL 22 | 3 PM A choral concert featuring the world première of Kala Pierson’s Mother of Exiles, with Pierson’s She Was Warned, and music of Britten, Hildegard, Hindemith, Byrd, Brahms, and DeMonte. $20 at the door, free to students.AUDRIUS V. PLIOPLYS: MEETING OF TWO SEASCOLUMNS OF THOUGHT 2.0 FEATURING RIYAAZ QAWWALIMARCH 27 THROUGH APRIL 10ARTIST’S RECEPTION SATURDAY APRIL 28 | 7:30 PMWEDNESDAY APRIL 4 AT 7:30 PMA series of light sculptures, each incorporating Music, dance, and poetry from India andmultiple layers of assemblage, representingwriters and artists, including Hieronymus Pakistan—a concert celebrating the jointBosch, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, SigmundFreud. In pigmented inks on polycarbonate, contributions of Hindus and Muslimswith LED color-changing lights. Free. to the artistic traditions of South Asia. To be followed by a catered dinner. Free and open to all.ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL 5850 S. WOODLAWN AVE., CHICAGO, IL 60637 rockefeller.uchicago.edu
Stage Anne Sheridan Smith, Sharriese Hamilton, STAGE TOP 5 Sara Reinecke in a promotional still for “9 to 5: The Musical” at Firebrand Theatre/Photo: Tyler Core 1 Birdland. Steep Theatre. Jonathan Berry directs Women’s France has no such qualms. Under her this sexy, searing exploration Work direction, Firebrand’s “9 to 5” will celebrate of empathy and the impact of feminism rather than shy away from it. unchecked privilege by Olivier- Firebrand Theatre Artistic and Tony Award-winner Simon Director Harmony France “It’s not a perfect show. It’s very flawed, but it Stephens. Opens April 5 On Celebrating Feminism has a lot of heart,” France says. “What we’re In “9 to 5: The Musical” doing is, we’re not making fun of [workplace 2 Roots in the Alley. gendered harassment]. It’s still gonna be Adventure Stage Chicago. By Emma Couling funny, it’s still gonna be a good time. But A reinvention of Mayan creation some of the stuff we’re talking about is pretty myths told through two heroic serious and deserves a moment or two to Chicago sisters who navigate focus on before we get back to the hijinks.” through an online game, learning about their heritage and family Following their highly successful inaugural along the way. Opens April 7 The election of Donald Trump has production of “Lizzie,” the expectations for 3 9 to 5 The Musical. Firebrand Theatre. spurred a lot of artistic response, “9 to 5” are high, but France is up for the Based on the 1980 hit movie of the same name, this musical which is inspiring and overwhelming in challenge, even if she’s happily overwhelmed. follows three unlikely friends as they take control of their office equal parts. Perhaps the most successful “It’s unbelievable to me the debut that and learn there is nothing they Firebrand has had. There’s no way that it can’t do, even in a man’s world. acts of artistic resistance have come from could have happened without people being Opens April 10 the least expected places. ready for it. People are hungry for it.” 4 33 to Nothing. A Red Orchid Theatre. Taking “I decided on ‘9 to 5’ right after the election,” Firebrand is the brainchild of France and place during a real-time band practice, this new play is an says Harmony France, artistic director of longtime friend Danni Smith. “We would have anthem of forgiveness, loyalty and resilience when your world the acclaimed feminist musical theater is being torn by the seams. company Firebrand Theatre and director of these epic all-night-long talks on the couch the upcoming production. “I wasn’t going to where we would talk about inequity in Opens April 16 program it into our first season but then right musical theater and how we were treated. after the election I was like, ‘We have to do it. I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I got fat-shamed last week’ 5 The Madres. Teatro Vista. and she’d be like, ‘I had to negotiate this The empowering story of We have to. Because it’s still happening.’” three generations of women and male ego in the rehearsal room the other their desperate attempt to keep their family intact in the face of Based on the 1980 film, “9 to 5” is a musical day.’ But we kind of accepted it. So for ten state-sponsored intimidation, comedy about three secretaries who, after years we’re having these conversations on kidnappings and murder.Newcity APRIL 2018 my couch. And when I got back from surviving sexist infractions from their boss, Opens April 27 [performing in] the national tour of ‘Sister haphazardly kidnap him and take over the office. The film was produced by Jane Fonda, Act,’ it was in the middle of the [2016 presidential] primaries and we were talking who starred in it along with Lily Tomlin and about what was going on and it became Dolly Parton. Fonda’s original idea was to make a drama but as the script developed this big conversation and one of us said, ‘We’re gonna start a theater company right?’ she and her producing partners changed And we laughed, but then we incorporated the angle, for fear of being “too preachy” a month and a half later.” or holding too hard to the “feminist line.”56
The fact that Firebrand was the World War II escapism. It’s THE DOPPELGÄNGER result of a powerful connection completely tailored to white between two women makes their male escape. It’s getting better, (an international farce) choice of second show all the obviously, but we’re still reviving more apt. Like the women in ‘My Fair Lady’ and ‘Carousel’ “9 to 5,” France and Smith saw on Broadway and making a system of patriarchal oppres- musicals out of ‘Pretty Woman.’ sion and decided to do some- The canon doesn’t support our thing about it. mission. I don’t have a plethora of titles to pick from. So part of the challenge is you get a piece 25% FIRST WEEKEND that’s not exactly what you would off 4/5, 6, 8 @ 7:30pm 4/7, 8 @ 3pm want it to be, but you can’t write use code: NEWCITYFIRST one in its place. So you try to repurpose it to make it as feminist and empowering as possible. And I think ‘9 to 5’ could be enormously empowering. It’s about taking down the Wein- steins, taking down the Trumps.” It’s haunting that a story written almost forty years ago is still so familiar. Talking with France I was reminded of the constant workplace harassment I have experienced; leering bosses, comments about my appearance, promotions I was up for being handed to white men less qualified than myself. France shares a story of her own. “I worked at an office this summer and ended up getting laid off. They eliminated the position, but then in one of the line notes it said ‘and she’s not really personable enough.’ I was working with computers. I was essentially an IT person. When have you known one of those dude IT people to be really well-adept at dealingFirebrand Theatre Artistic Director Harmony France/Photo: Joe Mazza Firebrand makes several vows to with people? I guess I didn’t its audience with every production: laugh at the dumb jokes the boss made, or whatever.” • That there will always be as many women on stage as men. For France the time couldn’t be more right for “9 to 5” in Chicago. • To employ women behind “It’s so relevant to what’s the scenes in every aspect happening right now with of theater and particularly in the #MeToo movement and A world premiere by Matthew-Lee Erlbach leadership roles. everything that’s going on. It’s (Showtime’s Masters of Sex) • To program shows that right out of the newspapers, Directed by ensemble member Tina Landau showcase and empower to the point that in a lot of the (Broadway’s The SpongeBob Musical, Tracy Letts’s Superior Donuts) A side-splitting farce about first-world greed and backroom deals women from many different first articles about Weinstein featuring actor and comedian Rainn Wilson walks of life. [reporters] were using quotes (The Office, Juno) as the Doppelgänger from ‘9 to 5.’ So I’m willing to with ensemble members Celeste M. Cooper, Audrey Francis, • To do this in a safe, creative work with some of the problemat- Ora Jones, Sandra Marquez and James Vincent Meredith and collaborative environment. ic spots so that the important April 5 – May 27 | steppenwolf.org | 312-335-1650 part of the story comes through. Major Production Sponsors It sounds simple enough, but We’re telling a story from the past APRIL 2018 Newcity Firebrand is fighting against the that is still relevant today. I don’t really want to do any other kind compiled history of a theatrical of theater. That’s the only kind of form that’s excluded women theater that really fulfills me.” from the beginning. “Musical theater is the most Chicago eagerly awaits this behind, I would say, of all the next artistic response to the theatrical genres,” says France, world we’re living in, led by a “because the golden age of visionary with a mission and an musical theater came from enormous heart. 57
Newcity APRIL 2018 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado58
2018 Schedule Logan Center Family Saturdays Sat, Jan 6, 2-4:30pm Visions of Peace: Past, Join us for fabulous and fun family programs on the first Saturday of each month Present and Future October 2017–June 2018! Sat, Feb 3, 2-4:30pmSouthside Legends: Untold Stories Explore your child’s artistic curiosity with hands- Sat, Mar 3, 2-4:30pm on art workshops designed to stimulate creativity Animation and Imagination and play. Workshops designed around engaging Sat, Apr 7, 2-4:30pm themes are led by local artists, art organizations, and Kidpreneurs: Children Making Creativity into Business UChicago students. Sat, May 5, 2-4:30pm These interdisciplinary workshops are exciting for Sweet Home UChicago the entire family, offering activities from music to Sat, Jun 2, 2-4:30pm Going Global: Exploring arts and crafts for youth ages 2-12. Come learn something new and bring friends! Creative Traditions Appropriate for families with children ages 2-12. *Themes may be subject to change. Registration is encouraged at tickets.uchicago.edu MORE INFORMATION Call the Logan Center Box Office at 773.702.ARTS or visit arts.uchicago.edu/loganfamilysaturdays. Free admission and free parking in the lot on 60th and Drexel.LOGAN CENTER 915 E 60TH ST AT DREXEL AVE Logan Center Family Saturdays programming is made possible through the support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, Michael and Patricia Klowden, and friends of the Logan Center, as well as partnerships with local and national arts organizations and performing artists.
12 3MADE YOU LOOK1 HOWARDENA 2 OKWUIC WHAT REMAINS 3 THE MCA IS TO BE SEEN Museum ofFEB 24–MAY 20 Contemporary ArtHowardena Pindell | Globular Cluster (detail), 2014 | Mixed media on paper;A 9 x 11 3/8 in. | Courtesy of the artist and ChicagoGarth Greenan Gallery, New YorkPINDELL OKPOKWASILI OPEN LATE MCAChicago.org/Look #MCAMadeYouLook STAGE PERFORMANCE TUESDAY & FRIDAY April 12–15 10AM–9PM Okwui Okpokwasili, Poor People’s TV Room | Photo: © Ian Douglas
Search
