Fundraisers are a time to put a group’s best foot forward, brag a little, and offer tempting examples of the kind of performances your organization is known for. There was all that and more for the Chicago Sinfonietta’s online fundraiser this past weekend.
Porchlight Music Theatre was all set to hold its 25th-anniversary gala at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on March 23.
"The Allure of Matter," an art exhibition documenting material usage among contemporary Chinese artists, has reopened at the Smart Museum of Art through Aug. 9, but all reservations to see it have been booked.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has given the Muddy Waters Mojo Museum a $50,000 grant to begin renovations on legendary bluesman's long-derelict former home in North Kenwood.
The opera and classical music communities continue to grapple with coronavirus restrictions that make live performances nearly impossible. Planning for future performances remains a tricky enterprise because no one knows when venues will be able to reopen.
Court Theatre is revamping its 2020/2021 season again, only this time the changes are a lot more substantial than just shuffling shows and dates.
No one who saw the world premiere of Manual Cinema's “Frankenstein” at Court Theatre in late 2018 will forget the unique blend of shadow puppetry, 3D puppetry, actors, old-fashioned cinematic techniques, sound design, and live music that brought both Mary Shelley's novel and parts of her bio…
The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) will open on Aug. 1 for the first time since March with timed admission tickets, limited capacity, required face coverings and some modified exhibits to create physical distancing.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began to seriously affect everyday life earlier this year, museums and galleries that were forced to close responded by moving their collections online, creating viewing rooms for digital visitors. (In Hyde Park, the Museum of Science and Industry launched a websit…
There won't be free popcorn this year, but the Chicago Park District is moving forward with its 20th annual "Movies in the Parks" season, with two screenings planned in Hyde Park-Kenwood.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company had an ambitious 45th-anniversary season planned for 2020-2021 with six main stage productions, the opening of a brand-new, in-the-round theater, and lots of other activities, but the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying uncertainty have changed much of that.
The Rush Hour concerts began 20 years ago as a brief respite of music between the end of the Chicago workday and the beginning of a warm summer evening. The International Music Foundation (IMF), the organization putting on these concerts, knew that government coronavirus rules wouldn’t allow…
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and WFMT have announced the extension of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra radio broadcast series launched in April of this year. The programs air under the somewhat bulky title, “From the CSO’s Archives: Maestro’s Choice—For All Music Lovers in These …
When I got the press release about Court Theatre's latest plan to engage audiences, I thought it might be a joke. Called “The Liminal Space,” the project is a 24-hour live video feed of the stage of the Abelson Auditorium as it was in mid-March right after Ibsen's “The Lady from the Sea” was…
As the emerald ash borer — the beetle called “the most destructive forest pest ever seen in North America” by the Chicago Parks District (CPD) — continues to chew through the city’s trees, artists are continuing their own efforts to salvage something out of the remains. Last month, Jackson P…
Coronavirus may have caused the Chosen Few Picnic to be a virtual festival this July 4, but 90,000 people watched the 30th annual event nevertheless — more than twice the typical audience in Jackson Park.
Current plans call for the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, last of the neighborhood's warm weather cultural events, to be the only one with in-person events. Alongside a big virtual concert on Sept. 26, artists are slated to perform at mobile stages across Hyde Park on Sept. 27.
The University of Chicago Presents continues at the forefront of classical music here in Chicago during the pandemic. While venues remain closed to live audiences, UCP has kept its audiences engaged with top-quality online streaming concerts. Last week they joined with several other organiza…
When Michael Weber wrote “The War of the Well(e)s” a decade ago, he was thinking about how the public's panicked reactions to the infamous Oct.30, 1938, radio broadcast of Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air's adaptation of H.G.Wells' novel “The War of the Worlds” related to the ph…
Several Hyde Park museums have confirmed they will remain closed after Friday, June 26, when the city and state will enter the next phase of their coronavirus response plans that allow movie theaters, museums, zoos and performance venues to reopen.
While theaters and theater artists have been coming up with all sorts of inventive programs to connect with each other and audiences on the internet, a key element has mostly been missing: live theater.
A composer based in Hyde Park has written what may be the first work based on the coronavirus pandemic, which has been released on YouTube with a fascinating video.
The Chicago theater movement that has grown to more than 250 companies and garnered international recognition really started in Hyde Park, according to Mark Larson's recently published “Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater”.
Court Theatre is revising its schedule again since we last reported on it (April 10, 2020), and the theater is brainstorming about options, among them outdoor performances, digital courses surrounding classic titles, and virtual possibilities. An announcement about programming is expected ne…
In the world of opera and classical music the biggest effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been the shutting down of all live performances with an audience. But another huge effect has been the uncertainty of what will follow in not just the days and weeks ahead, but the months and years a…
Actor John Tufts' two professional passions come together in “Fat Rascals: Dining at Shakespeare's Table,” his recently released cookbook bringing the food of the Bard's plays and days to life.
Because the Hyde Park Youth Symphony could not have a live spring concert as they would normally do, they decided to have an online one. On May 20, they unveiled a 20-minute video that featured both music and spoken word. Both of the leaders of the organization, Matthew Sheppard and Lindsay …
University of Chicago Presents has been a local leader in offering Chicagoans alternative ways to experience classical music during the pandemic. Late last month they joined with the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Academy of Early Music (Ann Arbor), and WFMT to present a free livestre…
Muralist Dorian Sylvain has been an artist for 40 years. Born in South Shore, she is a Kenwood graduate and mom as well, having raised three sons, Kahari, Kari, and Katon Black. For the past 10 years the family have lived in Hyde Park.
The 57th Street Art Fair has gone virtual, after canceling its annual in-person show due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hyde Parker August Tye is a ballet dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She is ballet mistress at Lyric Opera of Chicago and the founder of the Hyde Park School of Dance (originally, the Hyde Park School of Ballet, which expanded its offerings and necessitated a name change). She began winnin…
Live theater is essentially ephemeral, but digital technology can provide permanence, and the COVID-19 pandemic makes these recorded performances preferable to no theater at all.
The biggest April event for American musical theater lovers was “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration” on April 27. Although belated (Stephen Sondheim's birthday was March 22) and plagued by a half-hour delay and technical difficulties at the start, the live stream on Y…
Erick Williams is a finalist for a James Beard Award as the best chef in the Great Lakes region.
The Grant Park Music Festival announced on May 4 that it has cancelled its entire 2020 season.
Classical music fans received bad news only days ago when the Ravinia Festival announced on May 1 that it was cancelling its entire 2020 season. Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so all those concerts will be lost along with the other concerts at the leafy, north …
Luther Vandross soundtracking a Greater Grand Crossing block party. Kids rollerblading over Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” A young couple sitting and laughing with each other while Curtis Mayfield sings “I wanna go back, to the sweetness of time/I wanna go back, and reminisce what was mine.”
Hyde Parker Wilbur Pauley has sung around the world, in opera, musical theater, and as a soloist with symphonies. He has voiced songs in several Disney films and occasionally takes small acting roles.
When the COVID-19 pandemic closed down Lookingglass Theatre Company's world premiere of J. Nicole Brooks' “Her Honor Jane Bryne” just a few days after it had opened, the theater also had to cancel everything it had scheduled around the production. This included a series of post-show panel di…
Katherine Davis has been learning the piano at home the last month. In fact, she’s been learning the piano for years, despite the fact that, as a blueswoman, she’s tended to stay downstage with the audience during her performances. “I let the musicians play the music, and they let me sing an…
Dennis Watkins wants to put some magic back in our lives.
When the coronavirus shut down Chicago theaters, Court Theatre canceled its production of Henrik Ibsen's “The Lady from the Sea,” which was supposed to begin previews on March 12.
James Ijames is a playwright to watch.
This week was the scheduled opening of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new production of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,” the final opera in the Ring Cycle. But the three full Ring Cycles as well as two performances of “Götterdämmerung” were cancelled due to restrictions on large gatherings enacted by G…
With coronavirus largely closing the public sphere, parents are seeing more of their kids and, with schools and other institutions closed, taking an enhanced role in educating them. The Museum of Science and Industry has stepped up to the times, publishing a website, www.msichicago.org/scien…
This Saturday, the Grammy-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion will offer a free, live-streamed performance from its studio in Chicago. The University of Chicago Presents, along with the 92nd Street Y and the Chamber Music Society of Detroit are jointly sponsoring the concert.
Trust the theater community to come up with a creative way to survive in a time of plague.
A group of 50 or so Apsáalooke in full Crow regalia led by Chicago’s American Indian Center honor guard marched to the steady beat of drums as they moved east across the University of Chicago’s central quadrangle on March 12.
If you are looking for middlebrow entertainment geared toward a mature middle class (mostly white) audience, “Middletown” at the Apollo Theater may be just the ticket.
For over 60 years the Hyde Park Youth Symphony has served the South Side of Chicago by offering an orchestral experience for kids. Saturday afternoon at the Logan Center a good-sized audience was on hand for the HPYS’s spring concert that featured three different ensembles: the Preparatory S…
Lynn Nottage's 2018 “Mlima's Tale” is a powerful piece of political theater that will make you see the perfidy of the illegal ivory trade in a whole new way.
