Shamel Pitts and the Brooklyn-based arts collective TRIBE debut an electrifying new live performance in their ongoing Red Series exploring Black multiplicity and human connection.
The new work, titled Touch of RED, is a duet for two Black men set inside a contemporary boxing ring—a space that might traditionally suggest an aggressive competition between male athletes for entertainment purposes. Yet in Touch of RED, the two dancers imbue this boxed-in site with an intense energy drawn from the power of vulnerability, effeminacy, and the healing that occurs when Black men are allowed to soften, together. During the performance audiences will be seated around the four sides of the ring, which strategically conceals or frames the action. Transforming the space into a pulsing night club dance floor, Touch of RED invites the audience to experience the anticipation, energy, and collective softening that accompanies a good party—and reframe their expectations of time, space, and normative identity.
Accessibility: ASL interpreted, assistive listening devices, audio description, captioning
To commemorate Women’s History Month, the Arts & Culture Project at Access Living is partnering to host a virtual film screening and panel discussion of the My Girl Story documentary on Saturday, March 25 from 12-2pm.
This event will explore the importance of mental health care among Black girls and resources available to them and their families.
My Girl follows the lives of two Black girls from Detroit, Monay and Shokana, who are fighting to become the girls they want to be. The documentary aims to give context to what Black girls across the country are experiencing today and to challenge the institutional and systemic barriers that prevent black girls especially those with disabilities from achieving their potential.
Register via Eventbrite to get the Zoom link:
Access Information:
Live CART captioning and ASL will be provided during the panel discussion.
Partners:
My Girl Story
Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition
Access Living
Empowered Fe Fe’s
Sponsor Information: This event is brought to you by the Arts and Culture Project at Access Living, an independent living center for people with disabilities, Bodies of Work: Network of Disability Art and Culture, Shirley Ryan Abilities Lab, and the Disability Culture Activism Lab (DCAL), a teaching lab housed under the department of art therapy and counseling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Bodies of Work is a part of the Department of Disability and Human Development within the College of Applied Health Sciences at University of Illinois-Chicago. The contents of this film were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90RTCP0005). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this film do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
LabE is a series of monthly cohort meetings addressing particular needs of disabled dance artists.
The LabE gathering on April 2nd is designed to be a safe, disability-centric space where artists can come together to share a work-in-progress, try out new ideas, workshop concepts, and experiment with new scores. Hosted by Maggie Bridger, this inclusive event is open to all artists who seek a supportive community where they can connect with peers who share similar experiences and offer and receive support, encouragement, and constructive feedback.
This gathering aims to foster community connections among Deaf, disabled, sick, neurodivergent, and Mad artists while providing a platform for artists to explore their creativity and showcase their unique perspectives.
In-progress projects will be presented by Sydney Erlikh & Deb Goodman.
If you are an artist who is interested in showcasing your art or working through new ideas, please reach out to Maggie at mbridg8@uic.edu to participate in this event.
LabE is open to all Chicago-area dance artists who self-identify as Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, sick, mad, neurodivergent, disabled or living with a disability, and/or who have lived experience with disability or impairment. This space is particularly meant for those interested in exploring disability and impairment-informed modes of practicing dance.
Additional Access Information is available at https://highconceptlabs.org/news-2/labe-launches-at-experimental-station. For any other questions or requests regarding accessibility accommodations, please contact HCL’s Accessibility Coordinator, Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla (yolanda@highconceptlabs.org).
Accessibility: captioning, sensory-friendly, quiet spaces, wheelchair accessible
Charlotte Brontë’s undiscovered gem, Villette, offers a hero unlike any you’ve encountered before.
Suddenly without family, friends, or funds, Lucy travels alone to an unfamiliar land, determined to carve a path for herself. An eclectic carousel of characters (and one mysterious ghost!) soon draws Lucy into a complicated maze of multiple doorways leading towards fulfillment or peril – which door should she choose?
From the author of the captivating classic Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s Villette finds brash, honest life in this adaptation by Lookingglass Artistic Associate Sara Gmitter (In the Garden) and directed by Lookingglass Ensemble Member Tracy Walsh (The Old Curiosity Shop).
Accessibility: captioning
Don’t miss the 24th annual festival of the best independent films created by Irish filmmakers celebrating diversity and creativity through short, documentary and feature films.
The Chicago Irish Film Festival proudly presents our Opening Night feature “The Sparrow” at Theater on the Lake on March 2, starting at 6:30pm. Enjoy other films at AMC New City from March 2-5 with director chats, and virtual tickets available from March 6-16, 2023.
All virtual films will have subtitle options. In-person captioning will not be available, however is available depending on the theater.
Curb Appeal Gallery is pleased to announce their inaugural exhibition and the Chicago debut of Molly Joyce’s Perspective. Begun in 2019, Perspective is a sound and video work that captures perspectives of the disability experience. Created through interviewing over 40 participants around topics that encompass elements of disability—including care, interdependence, weakness, and cure—Joyce has composed and performed a work that invites audiences to consider the kaleidoscopic and nuanced experiences that inform what it means to be disabled. Created with disability aesthetics and accommodations in mind, Perspective features open-captioned videos, lending a sense of visual primacy to the stories of the disabled participants and their valuable perspectives. In addition to screening Perspective, Curb Appeal is delighted to host a brief conversation between Joyce and one of the project interviewees, Chicago artist Andy Slater (from 7:00-7:30pm).
Accessibility: Curb Appeal is wheelchair accessible. In addition to open captioning on the video work, we will provide ASL interpretation and CART-captioning for remarks and a brief conversation between Molly Joyce and Andy Slater. Masks are required for entry and will be provided if needed. Please note, Curb Appeal is an apartment gallery and doubles as a home to our gallery dog.
Join us for an Open Door reading with Ari Banias, Joss Barton, Alex Jane Cope, and KOKUMO, The Queen of Queer Soul. The Open Door series highlights creative relationships in Chicago, including mentorship and collaboration.
This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
Ari Banias is the author of A Symmetry, winner of the 2022 Publishing Triangle Award for Trans & Gender Variant Literature, and Anybody. Banias’s poems have appeared in Bæst, Georgia Review, The Nation, The New Republic, Triple Canopy, Verse, Washington Square, and The Yale Review. His work has been supported by fellowships and residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, among others. He lives in Chicago.
Joss Barton is a writer, journalist, and spoken word performance artist exploring and documenting queer and trans* life, love, and liberation. Barton’s work blends femme-fever dreams over the soundtrack of the American nightmare. Combining prose poetry, non-fiction confessional essays, drag artistry, and spoken word stage performances, Joss examines the myriad states of queer trans womanhoods from historical, political, and pop cultural identities of death, desires, dreams, and disco. Joss Barton’s performance will include special lighting design by Dazzler.
Alex Jane Cope is a poet and translator originally from West Michigan and currently based in Chicago; they previously lived in and around Paris, where they organized a multilingual queer and feminist reading series. Cope ran the Suppertime Writing Workshop through the PO Box Collective, which brought people together monthly for a free meal, a discussion of a few short texts, and accompanying writing prompts. Their work has appeared in publications by The Rumpus, Voicemail Poems, Asphalte Magazine, Pilot Press London, and Hooligan Magazine.
KOKUMO is The Queen Of Queer Soul! And the CEO & Founder Of Born Worthy Records! The world’s first record company dedicated to black, non-cis women, and those who support us!
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the live-stream details, please register in advance here. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-door-ari-banias-joss-barton-alex-jane-cope-kokumo-tickets-524709499237?lang=en-us&locale=en_US&status=30&view=listing
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Accessibility: ASL interpreter, captions
Join us for a reading and celebration of the diverse voices, rich experiences, and powerful words of poets from around the country, and the world. Poets working in the online poetry workshop and discussion, Forms & Features, will share work created in this online creative community.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Accessibility: ASL interpreter, captions
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-the-poets-of-forms-features-online-tickets-525944653617
Join us in person for a lecture by distinguished alum Athena LaTocha followed by an audience Q&A.
Location: The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Athena LaTocha (BFA 1992) is an artist whose massive works on paper explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. The artist incorporates materials such as ink, lead, earth, and wood while looking at correlations between mark-marking and displacement of materials made by industrial equipment and natural events. LaTocha’s process is about being immersed in these environments while responding to the storied and, at times, traumatic cultural histories that are rooted in place.
Presented in partnership with SAIC Alumni Engagement.
This event is free, non-ticketed and open to the general public.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and hearing assisted devices are available. For additional access requests, visit saic.edu/access.
Accessibility: live captions, assistive listening devices, wheelchair accessible
Join us for a reading with Raquel Salas Rivera and Angel Dominguez as part of the Poetry Coalition’s annual nationwide programming series. The Poetry Coalition’s theme for 2023 is Poetry & Grief, taking inspiration from these lines in Ed Roberson’s poem “once the magnolia has blossomed:”“and so much lost you’d think / beauty had left a lesson.”
This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
Raquel Salas Rivera’s honors include the 2023 Sundial Literary Translation Award, the 2022 Juan Felipe Herrera Award, a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry, the inaugural Ambroggio Prize, and serving as the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, among others. Salas Rivera has published six poetry collections and edited Puerto Rico en mi corazón and the literary journal The Wanderer. Among his translations are The Rust of History and The Book of Conjurations. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania and works as head of the translation team for The Puerto Rican Literature Project.
Angel Dominguez is a Latinx poet and artist of Yucatec Maya descent, born in Hollywood and raised in Van Nuys, CA by their immigrant family. Dominguez lives amongst the Santa Cruz Mountains in Bonny Doon, CA. They are the author of Desgraciado (the collected letters), RoseSunWater, and Black Lavender Milk. Their work has been published in BOMB Magazine, The Berkeley Poetry Review, FENCE, Prolit Magazine, SFMOMA Open Space, and elsewhere. You can find Angel in the redwoods or ocean.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Accessibility: ASL interpreter, live captions
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-grief-raquel-salas-rivera-angel-dominguez-tickets-539584039387
Join us for a conversation continuing the Poetry Foundation’s celebration of Copper Canyon Press’s 50th anniversary. Executive editor Michael Wiegers will moderate a discussion of Copper Canyon’s legacy and future in the poetry world with panelists Arthur Sze, Chris Abani, Tishani Doshi, and Alison C. Rollins.
This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream. Copies of A House Called Tomorrow, Copper Canyon’s special 50th anniversary anthology, will be available for sale.
Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother, he grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria, received a BA in English from Imo State University, Nigeria, an MA in English, Gender and Culture from Birkbeck College, University of London and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He has resided in the United States since 2001.
Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, essays and fiction. Recent books include the poetry collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and a novel, Small Days and Nights, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and a New York Times Bestsellers Editor’s Choice. For fifteen years Tishani worked as a dancer with the Chandralekha group in Madras, India. A God at the Door, her fourth full-length collection, is published by Copper Canyon Press, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Poetry Prize.
Alison C. Rollins was named a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in 2019. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, she was a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. In 2018, she was a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award and in 2020, the winner of a Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Library of Small Catastrophes was a 2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award nominee.
Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems; Sight Lines, which won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry; and Compass Rose, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Sze is the recipient of many honors, including a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Michael Wiegers has been editing poetry at Copper Canyon Press for 30 years, advocating for poets at every stage of their writing lives. He is the editor of A House Called Tomorrow as well as What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Accessibility: ASL interpreter, live captions
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-house-called-tomorrow-copper-canyon-at-50-tickets-519984466537
Join us for the Chicago celebration of Copper Canyon Press’s 50th Anniversary with readings by Copper Canyon authors Chris Abani, Tishani Doshi, Alison C. Rollins, Arthur Sze, and Javier Zamora.
This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother, he grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria, received a BA in English from Imo State University, Nigeria, an MA in English, Gender and Culture from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He has resided in the United States since 2001.
Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, essays and fiction. Recent books include the poetry collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and a novel, Small Days and Nights, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and a New York Times Bestsellers Editor’s Choice. For fifteen years Tishani worked as a dancer with the Chandralekha group in Madras, India. A God at the Door, her fourth full-length collection, is published by Copper Canyon Press and was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Poetry Prize.
Alison C. Rollins was named a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in 2019. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. A Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, she was a 2016 recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship. In 2018, she was a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, and in 2020, the winner of a Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Library of Small Catastrophes was a 2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award nominee.
Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems; Sight Lines, which won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry; and Compass Rose, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Sze is the recipient of many honors, including a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. In his debut New York Times bestselling memoir, Solito, Javier retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually through the Sonoran Desert. Zamora was a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O’Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign. Javier lives in Tucson, AZ.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Accessibility: ASL interpreter, live captions,
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/copper-canyon-50th-anniversary-reading-tickets-519975008247
Join us in person for a lecture by artist Torkwase Dyson followed by an audience Q&A.
Location: The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Working in painting, drawing, and sculpture, Torkwase Dyson combines expressive mark-making and geometric abstraction to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Dyson deconstructs, distills, and interrogates the built environment, exploring how individuals—particularly Black and Brown people—negotiate, negate, and transform systems and spatial order. Throughout her work and research, Dyson seeks to confront issues of environmental liberation, envisioning a path toward a more equitable future.
This event is free, non-ticketed and open to the general public.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and hearing assisted devices are available. For additional access requests, visit saic.edu/access.
Join us for a reading and celebration of the diverse voices, rich experiences, and powerful words of poets from around the country, and the world. Poets working in the online poetry workshop and discussion, Forms & Features, will share work created in this online creative community.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-the-poets-of-forms-features-online-tickets-525887893847
Join us for an intimate look at the painter Alex Katz’s extensive collaborations with poets, followed by a poetry reading by his son, Vincent Katz. This event will feature the premiere of a video dialogue between Alex and Vincent, looking closely at some of the works on view in this exhibition. Spanning works created over the past 60 years, the exhibition includes print portfolios, editioned books, portraits of poets and unique cutouts, all centering on poets and poetry.
Organized by the Poetry Foundation with guidance from the artist and his son, and with support from GRAY, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to experience Katz’s deep interest in an art form whose forms and tactics he considered “more stimulating than painting.”
Alex Katz Often associated with the Pop Art movement, Katz began exhibiting his work in 1954; since that time he has produced a celebrated body of work that includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints. His earliest work took inspiration from various aspects of mid-century American culture and society, including television, film, and advertising.
Vincent Katz is a poet, translator, curator, and critic. Katz is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Broadway for Paul, Southness, Swimming Home, and Rapid Departures . He is also coauthor of Fantastic Caryatids, a collaboration with Anne Waldman, and his book collaborations with artists include Alcuni Telefonini with Francesco Clemente and Judge with Wayne Gonzales, among others. Katz also edited and wrote the introduction to Poems to Work On: The Collected Poems of Jim Dine.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
Join us for a virtual reading featuring the 2022 Forms & Features Visiting Teaching Artists: Cecilia Caballero, Christiana Castillo, Antoinette Cooper, Sara Elkamel, Ernest Ogunyemi, and Chessy Normile. Forms & Features is the Poetry Foundation’s series of free online creative writing workshops for adults.
Cecilia Caballero, PhD, is a poet, essayist, Ethnic Studies lecturer, and co-editor of The Chicana Motherwork Anthology. Caballero is teaching faculty with Catapult, and she has taught poetry workshops for the Puente Project, the University of Arizona, East Los Angeles College, and elsewhere. Her work appears in Dryland, Raising Mothers, The Acentos Review, among others; her honors include an Authentic Voices fellowship with the Women’s National Book Association and nominations for Rhysling, Pushcart, and Best of the Net Awards.
Christiana Castillo is a Mexican-Brasilian-American poet, educator, abolitionist, and gardener.
Antoinette Cooper is a writer and TEDx speaker committed to the liberation of Black bodies through arts, ancestral healing, social justice, and medical humanities. Born on the island of Jamaica and raised in the NYC Housing Projects, Cooper holds a Cornell BA, a Columbia MFA, and sits on the board of Narrative Medicine at CUNY School of Medicine. Her honors include a grant from Café Royal Foundation, a residency with BLKSPACE, and work in The Amistad, Intima: Journal of Narrative Medicine. www.antoinettecooper.com
Sara Elkamel is a poet and journalist living between her hometown, Cairo, Egypt, and New York City. Elkamel earned an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from New York University. She is author of the chapbook Field of No Justice.
Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí writes from Nigeria. Ogunyemi’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from AGNI, Kenyon Review, The Sun, Banshee, Mooncalves: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, among others. His debut chapbook, A Pocket of Genesis will be published in 2023. He is working toward a BA in History and International Studies at Lagos State University.
Chessy Normile is a writer from New York currently living in Madison, Wisconsin as the 2022–23 Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Normile received an MFA in poetry from The Michener Center for Writers at University of Texas at Austin, and her first book of poems, Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party, was selected by Li-Young Lee for the 2020 APR/Honickman First Book Prize. She edits a zine series called Girl Blood Info.
The Zoom link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Captions, ASL Interpreter, and Virtual
Join us for our first gathering of LabE, a series of monthly cohort meetings addressing particular needs of disabled dance artists, such as studio access, development and production support, and platforms for promoting Chicago’s sick, Deaf and disabled dance artists.
During our initial meeting on February 5, we’ll gather to collectively compile a list of accessible dance studios, classes and performance spaces in Chicago. We’ll come together and build community while crowdsourcing our favorite spaces to rehearse, take class and perform in the Chicago area.
When: Sunday, February 5, 2023, 1-3pm Central
Where: This is a hybrid event. The in-person portion will take place at the Experimental Station (6100 S Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL 60637). The online portion will take place via Zoom, with the zoom link sent out to all registrants in advance of the event. We are still experimenting with our hybrid setup and appreciate your patience and collaborative spirit in working out the kinks!
Who: Open to Chicago-area dance artists who self-identify as Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, sick, mad, neurodivergent, disabled or living with a disability, and/or who have lived experience with disability or impairment. This space is particularly meant for those interested in exploring disability and impairment-informed modes of practicing dance.
Access Information: AI Captioning available via zoom. The first floor of Experimental Station, where the event will be held is wheelchair accessible, including accessible bathrooms.
We ask that all attendees wear masks for the duration of the event, but please note that Experimental Station is a public building and that there will likely be unmasked people in the building. For those unable to mask or to risk being in a public space, we are offering a virtual option to join the event via Zoom. Attendees will be asked to indicate whether they prefer to attend online or in-person upon registration, though the are welcome to switch their registration type and all registrants will be provided the link to attend on Zoom.
This event is intended to be relaxed, welcoming and comfortable for all in the space. We will have multiple forms of seating available, as well as a few stim tools. You are welcome to come and go, bring your own access tools, and move about the space as needed during the event.
Please refrain from wearing any scented perfume, cologne, lotion, etc.
Contact: Please reach out to Maggie Bridger at magbridger@gmail.com with any questions about access needs or requests for access services/tools not mentioned here.
Captions (virtual only), Sensory Friendly, Wheelchair Accessible, and Virtual
Chicago Opera Theater (COT) kicks off their 50th year with Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten and a libretto by Eric Crozier.
The ~Vibe~ – Finding oneself, indie film comedy, breaking societal expectations
This comedic coming-of-age story celebrates COT’s rich history of presenting Britten works including the Chicago premiere of this piece in 1979. Coming back to Chicago after 33 years, this new production will be conducted by the world-renowned Dame Jane Glover and staged by leading musical theatre director Stephen Sposito.
Envisioned by Sposito as an indie film in the vein of Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers, we invite you to the town of Loxford, England where none of the young ladies live up to Lady Billows’ inscrutable moral standards to be crowned May Queen. In a strange twist, it turns out the grocer’s son, Albert Herring, fits the bill and a May King is crowned instead! After being mocked by his friends for receiving the honor, Albert takes his first steps into independence by embarking on a night of debauchery.
Sung in English with English subtitles.
An interactive touch tour will begin at 1 PM on the stage
COT will no longer require patrons attending performances to provide proof of full vaccination. Masks are no longer required for audience members to wear, but we strongly recommend your use of masks throughout the theater.
Captions and Touch Tour
Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. Every year, the Japanese American community in Chicago comes together to commemorate E.O. 9066 as a reminder of the fragility of civil liberties in times of crisis and the importance of remaining vigilant in protecting the rights and freedoms of all.
The film “Resettlement: Chicago Story” tells an intergenerational story of the Yamamoto family several years after camp, as they struggle to rebuild their lives and make ends meet through their family dry cleaning business.
The film screening will be followed by a presentation of the companion learning website and Q&A. There will be a reception with complementary food and beverages following the program. The program will have ASL and CART/Live Captioning provided, the film will be presented with Open Captions and Open Audio Description.
Reception: ASL interpreter and CART
Film: Open Caption and Audio Description
On February 10th & 11th, Three Brothers Theatre will present open captioned performances of MUFFED by Zack Peercy. This text-display service is provided for any d/Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or “Captions On” audience members interested in seeing a new mockumentary comedy about Maine, community, and earmuffs. The theatre space is ADA accessible and the captions are displayed to the left of the playing space, visible from all seating areas. The production runs about 90 minutes with no intermission.
Open Captions
Join us for a celebration of University of New Mexico Press’s landmark anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, featuring editor Ruben Quesada and poetry readings from ten contributors. This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry collects personal and academic writing from Latino, Latin American, Latinx, and Luso poets about the nature of poetry and its practice. At the heart of this anthology lies the intersection of history, language, and the human experience. The collection explores the ways in which a people’s history and language are vital to the development of a poet’s imagination and insists that the meaning and value of poetry are necessary to understand the history and future of a people. The Latinx community is not a monolith, and accordingly the poets assembled here vary in style, language, and nationality. The essays not only expand the poetic landscape but extend Latinx and Latin American linguistic and geographical boundaries.
Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of Revelations and Next Extinct Mammal and the translator of a collection of selected poems by Luis Cernuda titled Exiled from the Throne of Night. He has served as an editor and coordinator for The Rumpus, Kenyon Review, AGNI, Pleiades, and the National Book Critics Circle board. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Daniel Borzutzky is a poet and translator who lives in Chicago; his most recent book is Written after a Massacre in the Year 2018. Borzutzky’s 2016 collection, The Performance of Becoming Human won a National Book Award in Poetry. He teaches in the English and Latin American and Latino Studies Departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Blas Falconer is the author of three poetry collections, including Forgive the Body This Failure, and a coeditor of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. Falconer’s poems have been featured by Poetry, Kenyon Review, and The New York Times, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and Poets and Writers.
Sean Frederick Forbes is an assistant professor-in-residence of English and the director of the creative writing program at the University of Connecticut. Providencia, his first book of poetry, was published in 2013. He serves as the poetry editor for New Square, the official publication of the Sancho Panza Literary Society, of which he is a founding member. In 2017, he received first place in the Nutmeg Poetry Contest from the Connecticut Poetry Society.
Raina J. León, PhD, is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia. A poet and writer, she is the author of Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. León has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Obsidian Foundation, and Vermont Studio Center, among others. She also is a founding editor of the Acentos Review, an international online quarterly journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts.
Sheryl Luna’s Magnificent Errors received an Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize from University of Notre Dame; her other collections include Seven and Pity the Drowned Horses. Luna has received fellowships from Yaddo, Anderson Center, and CantoMundo, and she has received an Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Award, and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.
Carlo Matos is the author of twelve books, including As Malcriadas or Names We Inherit and We Prefer the Damned. Matos has received grants and fellowships from Disquiet ILP, CantoMundo, Illinois Arts Council, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and La Romita School of Art. He is a founding member of the Portuguese American writers collective Kale Soup for the Soul and a winner of the Heartland Poetry Prize.
Orlando Ricardo Menes is professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches in the MFA program and edits the Notre Dame Review. Menes is the author of seven poetry collections, including The Gospel of Wildflowers & Weeds, Memoria, and Fetish. His poems have appeared in several prominent anthologies and in such literary magazines as Poetry, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Yale Review, Harvard Review, and Hudson Review, among others.
Tomás Q. Morín is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Machete and the memoir Let Me Count the Ways. Morín’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Poetry, Slate, and Boston Review. He is a Civitella Fellow and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and teaches at Rice University and Vermont College of Fine Arts.
ire’ne lara silva is the author of four poetry collections, including furia and Blood Sugar Canto, two chapbooks , and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won a Premio Aztlán. silva coedited Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúa Borderlands with Dan Vera. Her awards include a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, a Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction.
Born in Mexico, Natalia Treviño grew up in South Texas, and is the author of the poetry collections VirginX and Lavando la Dirty Laundry, which has been published in a dual-language edition in Albanian and Macdonian. Treviño’s honors include an Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and a Menada Literary Award. She is a professor of English and an affiliate Mexican American studies faculty member at Northwest Vista College.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/latinx-poetics-anthology-launch-celebration-tickets-470342827057
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/latinx-poetics-anthology-launch-celebration-tickets-470342827057
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
Join us for an Open Door reading with José Olivarez, Britteney Black Rose Kapri, Vic Chávez, and Raych Jackson, celebrating the launch of Olivarez’s book, Promises of Gold. The Open Door series highlights creative relationships in Chicago, including mentorship and collaboration. This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
José Olivarez is a writer from Calumet City, IL. He is the author of Promises of Gold and Citizen Illegal.Citizen Illegal was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize; it was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. His poems are featured alongside photographs by Antonio Salazar in the multi-disciplinary poetic work, Por Siempre.
Britteney Black Rose Kapri is a semi-retired teaching artist, writer, performance poet, and playwright from Chicago. She has been published in Poetry, Vinyl, Day One, Seven Scribes, The Offing and Kinfolks Quarterly. She is a 2015 Rona Jaffe Writers Award Recipient. Her debut book Black Queer Hoe was released in 2018 through Haymarket Books.
Rachel “Raych” Jackson is a writer, educator, and performer whose poems have gained over 2 million views on YouTube. Jackson continues to instruct workshops through the Poetry Foundation, InsideOut Literary Arts, and more. She pushes educators to implement culturally relevant poetry within their curriculum using her five years of experience teaching in Chicago Public Schools. Jackson’s work has been published by many— including Poetry, The Rumpus, The Shallow Ends, and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection Even the Saints Audition won Best New Poetry Collection by a Chicagoan from Chicago Reader in 2019. Jackson currently lives in Chicago.
Vic Chávez is a queer Mexican poet from the Chicago suburb of Berwyn. They have a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, where they were an assistant editor for Columbia Poetry Review and an assistant copyeditor for Hair Trigger. Their work has been published in Southside Weekly, Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, and in Columbia College’s Poetry Review and Allium Journal. Find Vic on Twitter and IG at @_vichavez.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-door-jose-olivarez-britteney-kapri-vic-chavez-raych-jackson-tickets-488760745547
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-door-jose-olivarez-britteney-kapri-vic-chavez-raych-jackson-tickets-488760745547
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/visit/accessibility
About the Virtual Event
Join us for a conversation with artist Martine Syms, whose solo exhibition Martine Syms: She Mad Season One is on view at the MCA through February 12.
Syms is joined by exhibition curator Jadine Collingwood, assistant curator at the MCA, and Dr. Allyson Nadia Field, professor at the University of Chicago, whose research focuses on African American film from silent-era cinema to the present. The three discuss Syms’s practice, extending their dialogue to include the past—and the present—of Black cinema and media production.
MCA Talks highlight cutting-edge thinking and contemporary art practices across disciplines. This presentation is organized by Daniel Atkinson, Manager of Learning, Adult Interpretive Programs, and the MCA’s Visual Art and Learning teams. Special thanks to Dr. Michael Anthony Turcios, Mancoch Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, for development of this program.
This event takes place on Zoom. ASL interpretation and CART captioning provided
Cost: Free or Pay What You Can
A poetic journey of a dancer/artist/father questioning the balance of his passions—art, culture, family.
From the streets of Brooklyn to Russia’s ballet training studios, Antonio struggles to reconcile multiple ethnic identities. He wrestles with the legacy of stereotypes of masculinity while discovering the beauty of becoming a father. Powerful poetry is intermixed with original movement, music and projected imagery to create an evocative, wholly unique performance.
This performance offers captioning.
A young violinist and her song collector boyfriend flee the confines of their Brooklyn apartment to the mountains of North Carolina, where the Appalachian music of Mira’s childhood is just the authentic inspiration they’re searching for. When they descend on her old family home, and an estranged grandfather she’s never mentioned, the unexpected complexity of past pain, prejudice, joy, and discovery reveals itself through the music that binds them. Featuring bluegrass favorites and the foot-stomping, hand-clapping finest of American roots music.
This performance includes ASL interpretation and open captions. If you would like a good view of the ASL interpreters, please contact Community Engagement Manager Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 as the placement of the interpreters will vary from show to show.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
The groundbreaking pop-culture musical sensation is reimagined in a new production.
Myth and spectacle combine in a fresh reinvention of The Who’s exhilarating 1969 rock concept album, Tommy—including the unforgettable anthems “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Sensation” and “Pinball Wizard.” After witnessing his father shoot his rival, the young Tommy Walker is lost in the universe, endlessly and obsessively staring into the mirror. An innate knack for pinball catapults him from reticent adolescent to celebrity savior. Tony Award-winning composer Pete Townshend and Tony Award-winning original director Des McAnuff find powerful resonance reexamining this classic story for today.
https://www.goodmantheatre.org/show/the-whos-tommy/
Accessibility: captioning
A young violinist and her song collector boyfriend flee the confines of their Brooklyn apartment to the mountains of North Carolina, where the Appalachian music of Mira’s childhood is just the authentic inspiration they’re searching for. When they descend on her old family home, and an estranged grandfather she’s never mentioned, the unexpected complexity of past pain, prejudice, joy, and discovery reveals itself through the music that binds them. Featuring bluegrass favorites and the foot-stomping, hand-clapping finest of American roots music.
This performance includes audio description and open captions. A touch tour will begin 2 hours before the show at 12:30pm.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
If no audio description tickets have been reserved 48 hours before the performance, the audio description service will be canceled for that performance. Please contact Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 to confirm that the audio description service is still available.
https://northlight.org/events/the-porch-on-windy-hill-a-new-play-with-old-music/
Accessibility: audio description, touch tour, open captions
Hailed as the “Godmother of Rock ‘n Roll,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe influenced rock icons from Elvis Presley to Jimi Hendrix. Bringing fierce guitar playing and sizzling swing to gospel music, Rosetta was a trailblazer, a young Black woman singing at church in the morning and the Cotton Club at night. This play with music chronicles Rosetta’s first rehearsal with a young protégée, Marie Knight, as they prepare for a tour that would establish them as one of the great duet teams in musical history.
This performance includes audio description and open captions. A touch tour will begin 2 hours before the show at 12:30pm.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
If no audio description tickets have been reserved 48 hours before the performance, the audio description service will be canceled for that performance. Please contact Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 to confirm that the audio description service is still available.
https://northlight.org/events/marie-and-rosetta/
Accessibility: audio description, touch tour, open captioning
Hailed as the “Godmother of Rock ‘n Roll,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe influenced rock icons from Elvis Presley to Jimi Hendrix. Bringing fierce guitar playing and sizzling swing to gospel music, Rosetta was a trailblazer, a young Black woman singing at church in the morning and the Cotton Club at night. This play with music chronicles Rosetta’s first rehearsal with a young protégée, Marie Knight, as they prepare for a tour that would establish them as one of the great duet teams in musical history.
This performance includes ASL interpretation and open captions. If you would like a good view of the ASL interpreters, please contact Community Engagement Manager Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 as the placement of the interpreters will vary from show to show.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
https://northlight.org/events/marie-and-rosetta/
Accessibility: ASL interpreted, open captioning
Raven Theatre presents a new play about privacy in the digital age. Closed Captioning will be included in this performance for those who need it, but be sure to contact us ahead of time to reserve your device.
The internet never forgets, and Derril Lark’s mistake at 17 haunts him online a decade later. Desperate for a normal life, he goes to extraordinary lengths to erase his indiscretion. But freedom of information is a big business, and the tech companies aren’t going down without a fight. Secrets, lies, and political backstabbing abound in this riveting new drama about one man’s fierce battle to reclaim his privacy by Primus Prize winning playwright Sharyn Rothstein (By the Water, Northlight Theatre). Don’t miss this striking Chicago premiere about human forgiveness in the age of the internet.
Livestream with captioning available.
Dance-maker Cat Mahari shares a new performance process, Blk Ark: the Impossible Manifestation, which ruminates on ties, binding, and community. Through Mahari’s movement practice of anarcho-choreographic hip-hop, Blk Ark asks: “What will it take to get free?” and “Can we see a new world from here?”
In Progress is a series designed to give artists, thinkers, and curators a platform for developing new works with input from audiences, and to give patrons a glimpse into the creative process. This program is organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator.
Livestream with captioning available.
Dance-maker Cat Mahari shares a new performance process, Blk Ark: the Impossible Manifestation, which ruminates on ties, binding, and community. Through Mahari’s movement practice of anarcho-choreographic hip-hop, Blk Ark asks: “What will it take to get free?” and “Can we see a new world from here?”
In Progress is a series designed to give artists, thinkers, and curators a platform for developing new works with input from audiences, and to give patrons a glimpse into the creative process. This program is organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator.
Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood is filled with an abundance of cultural and historical knowledge and is surrounded by a diverse community and innovative history that is often overlooked. In this talk, Pullman artists F.A.B.L.E, Joe Nelson, Steve Soltis, and Nailah Stevenson gather for a conversation moderated by Otez Gary, Community Engagement Manager at the MCA. All four artists are awardees of Pullman: Laboring Together, an initiative of the Chicago arts alliance Voice of the City, which aims to bring Pullman residents together in dialogue around the work of the neighborhood’s artists. The 2022 series is themed around the past, present, and future of Pullman, and in this final event—titled “Where We Are Going?”—the artists reflect on the work, community, diversity, art, and culture of Pullman, and what it meant to be laboring together through each phase of the yearlong project.
The talk is free to the public and takes place at Greenstone United Methodist Church, located at 11211 S St Lawrence Ave, Chicago, IL, 60628, and online via Facebook Live. If you are attending the in-person person, enjoy some refreshments beforehand, from 4 to 4:25 pm. Then stay afterwards for a reception sponsored by the MCA Community Engagement Team from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.
Voice of the City was awarded a Neighborhood Access Grant by the Department of Cultural Affairs for Pullman: Laboring Together.
This talk is organized by Community Engagement Manager Otez Gary and the Community Engagement team in collaboration with Dawn Marie Galtieri and Christopher E Ellis from Voice of the City.
ASL interpretation and captioning are available.
A family verges on bankruptcy while their country stands on the brink of revolution.
Endings and beginnings. Bittersweet departures. The comedy of life. When Madame Ranevskaya returns to her heavily-mortgaged estate on the eve of its auction, the aristocratic widow finds that the fate of much more than her beloved orchard hangs in the balance. Anton Chekhov’s canonical masterpiece is an exploration of loss, love and how to live in a society that’s changing fast. Following his critically-acclaimed productions of Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya, director Robert Falls takes on the last of Chekhov’s four major plays.
Captioning will be provided for this performance.
About the Event
Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood is filled with an abundance of cultural and historical knowledge and is surrounded by a diverse community and innovative history that is often overlooked. In this talk, Pullman artists F.A.B.L.E, Joe Nelson, Steve Soltis, and Nailah Stevenson gather for a conversation moderated by Otez Gary, Community Engagement Manager at the MCA. All four artists are awardees of Pullman: Laboring Together, an initiative of the Chicago arts alliance Voice of the City, which aims to bring Pullman residents together in dialogue around the work of the neighborhood’s artists. The 2022 series is themed around the past, present, and future of Pullman, and in this final event—titled “Where We Are Going?”—the artists reflect on the work, community, diversity, art, and culture of Pullman, and what it meant to be laboring together through each phase of the yearlong project.
The talk is free to the public and takes place at Greenstone United Methodist Church, located at 11211 S St Lawrence Ave, Chicago, IL, 60628, and online via Facebook Live. If you are attending the in-person person, enjoy some refreshments beforehand, from 4 to 4:25 pm. Then stay afterwards for a reception sponsored by the MCA Community Engagement Team from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.
Voice of the City was awarded a Neighborhood Access Grant by the Department of Cultural Affairs for Pullman: Laboring Together.
This talk is organized by Community Engagement Manager Otez Gary and the Community Engagement team in collaboration with Dawn Marie Galtieri and Christopher E Ellis from Voice of the City.
This event is free and open to the public. Attend in person at Greenstone UMC, located at 11211 S St Lawrence Ave in Chicago, or virtually via Facebook Live.
ASL interpretation and CART captioning provided
What is the Caribbean? What does Caribbeanness mean to artists of the Caribbean diaspora?
On opening day of the MCA exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora 1990s-Today, join Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator Carla Acevedo-Yates and artists Christopher Cozier, Teresita Fernández, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons for a roundtable discussion. Building upon an in-depth conversation included in the catalog accompanying this exhibition, the curator and artists explore ideas behind the exhibition, how they see themselves as artists, and how they work within certain parameters, frameworks, and structures of the art world.
MCA Talks highlight cutting-edge thinking and contemporary art practices across disciplines. This presentation is organized by Daniel Atkinson, Manager of Learning, Adult Interpretive Programs, and the MCA’s Visual Art and Learning teams.
This program includes ASL interpretation and captioning.
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/talk-on-thinking-and-being-caribbean-a-roundtable-discussion/
After a nearly 3-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the A.B.L.E. ensemble is producing their first ever full-day festival in partnership with Chicago Shakespeare Theater. RECONNECT will feature the work of 58 members of the A.B.L.E. community – 33 performers with disabilities, 17 volunteer facilitators, and 8 Teaching Artists.
Over the course of a 10 week rehearsal process, each of A.B.L.E.’s 3 ensembles have collaborated to develop original monologues, scenes, movement pieces, and songs inspired by their own lives and experiences with connection. Pieces range from touching letters to loved ones we’ve lost, to celebrations of our closest friends, to humorous dream dates, to meditations on the good and bad of social media, as well as poignant reflections on the fears and miscommunications that get in the way of true connection. They are sharing their work in two distinctive multimedia shows, blending live performances with filmed content from A.B.L.E.’s virtual ensemble.
Between the shows, the public is invited to participate in an interactive workshop with A.B.L.E.’s Creative Associates and Teaching Artists to experience how A.B.L.E. brings their ideas to the stage.
You can buy a ticket for one, two, or all three events. How do you want to RECONNECT?
Event Details:
Saturday November 19, 2022
Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
800 East Grand Avenue
Chicago IL 60611
Event Schedule:
11am: Performance by the Sunday ensemble with members of the Virtual Ensemble
2pm: Public Workshop
7pm: Performance by the Monday ensemble with members of the Virtual Ensemble
Tickets:
All tickets are pay-what-you-can general admission starting at $15
Online: ableensemble.com/reconnect
Phone: 312.595.5600
In person: at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater box office
Access: All 3 events are live captioned, and the 11am and 7pm performances will be ASL interpreted.
COVID Policies: To ensure A.B.L.E.’s immunocompromised performers and community members feel safe and welcome, all audience members must remain masked for the duration of their time in the theater complex.
PLAID AS HELL is an honest, slightly raunchy, queer comedy which introduces us to Cass, who is hoping her annual camping trip will go well this year. But with her best friend Emilie sniping at Cass’s new girlfriend Jessica, not to mention the serial killer on the loose, the weekend is off to a rocky start.
https://babeswithblades.org/fall-2022-plaid-as-hell/
This event is a collaboration between the MCA Chicago and the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Join us for a conversation with one of the great literary voices of our time, Elizabeth Alexander.
In her latest book The Trayvon Generation, Alexander tenderly writes about the young people whose worldview has been indelibly shaped by persistent and visible racially motivated violence and asserts the unresolved problem of the color line at the center of the American experience. Join Alexander for a wide-ranging discussion about the power of art and culture to understand and confront issues of race, class, and injustice, and the ways in which Black artists, scholars, and activists have always revealed the “problem, the hope, and the possibility of America.” Moderated by Romi Crawford, Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This Dialogue presentation is organized by Daniel Atkinson, Manager of Learning, Adult Interpretive Programs, and Otez Gary, Curatorial Assistant, in collaboration with the Chicago Humanities Festival.
This event will be ASL interpreted and captioned.
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/dialogue-keynote-elizabeth-alexander-on-the-trayvon-generation/
Set on the night in 1940 that Hattie McDaniel made history at the Oscars, a story of dreamers striving to overcome considerable obstacles and fighting for recognition amidst the racism and inequity of Hollywood.
IT IS FEBRUARY 29, 1940, the night of the Academy Awards in Hollywood, California. Bartender Arthur Brooks, an ambitious Black man from rural Alabama, dreams of becoming a movie director. His best friend, Dottie Hudson, is a maid at the Ambassador Hotel who finds herself to be a cynic of all dreams. But when the actress Hattie McDaniel stops in at the bar and decides not to attend the biggest event in show business, Arthur and Dottie must do everything in their power to convince her to go and claim her historic win—all while confronting their dark past and making their own dreams come to life.
This play about race, class, gender, and the ever-changing landscape of Hollywood has previously had public readings at The Echo Theatre Company (featuring TimeLine Company Member Mildred Marie Langford) and Morgan-Wixson Theatre’s New Works Festival. TimeLine’s production will be its world premiere.
by LaDarrion Williams
directed by Malkia Stampley
This event includes captioning.
A cutting yet humorous behind-the-curtain drama that examines pervasive racial dynamics within the American theatre and the tolls of superficial representation on stage.
ACCLAIMED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES as “a rich, unsettling play that lives up to its title [and] lingers in one’s memory long after its conclusion.”
At a Broadway theater in New York City in the mid-1950s, a group of actors has gathered for their first day rehearsing a new play called Chaos in Belleville, an anti-lynching Southern drama. But as the cast rehearses, tensions flare between Wiletta, the Black actress in the starring role, and her white director about his interpretation of the play. What emerges is an explosive investigation of interracial politics and the need for a cultural shift in theatre and America.
Written by Alice Childress—the first Black woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City—Trouble in Mind recently enjoyed an acclaimed Broadway production nominated for four 2022 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play. The critics raved that this “masterpiece of astonishing power” (New York Magazine) is “the play of the moment” (The New York Times) and “will take your breath away” (Associated Press).
by Alice Childress
directed by Ron OJ Parson
Open Captioning available.
The County Fair is coming, and the grand prize in the talent competition is a trampoline! Duck wants that prize, but with Farmer Brown watching around every corner, how will he hold singing and dancing rehearsals for Cow, Pig and Ewe? Hop aboard Farmer Brown’s truck and travel to the fair with this hit musical about sharing your talents and reaching for your dreams. From the team that brought you Giggle, Giggle Quack and Duck for President.
Open captioning is available.
Based on the popular bestseller by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin
Adapted by James E. Grote
Music and Lyrics by George Howe
Directed by Heather Currie
http://lifelinetheatre.com/performances/2022-2023/dooby-dooby-moo-2/
Presented in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera Guild
Mozart’s The Magic Flute demonstrates the incredible effect of contrast, whether good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, or indulgence vs. sacrifice. The composer’s final opera is heavily inspired by folk traditions and his involvement in freemasonry. Join the Met Opera Guild to watch clips and learn more about this Enlightenment-era piece, which contains many beloved characters and some the highest and lowest notes sung in all of opera!
This event is part of Lincoln Center Moments, a free performance-based program specially designed for individuals with dementia and their caregivers.
Virtual programs are 90 minutes long, including live and recorded performances and activities facilitated by educators and music therapists that explore the work through discussion, movement, music, and art-making. These programs are open to audiences impacted by dementia anywhere in the country with access to Zoom.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact the Access Team at 212-875-5375 or access@lincolncenter.org.
Presented in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera Guild
Mozart’s The Magic Flute demonstrates the incredible effect of contrast, whether good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, or indulgence vs. sacrifice. The composer’s final opera is heavily inspired by folk traditions and his involvement in freemasonry. Join the Met Opera Guild to watch clips and learn more about this Enlightenment-era piece, which contains many beloved characters and some the highest and lowest notes sung in all of opera!
This event is part of Lincoln Center Moments, a free performance-based program specially designed for individuals with dementia and their caregivers.
Virtual programs are 90 minutes long, including live and recorded performances and activities facilitated by educators and music therapists that explore the work through discussion, movement, music, and art-making. These programs are open to audiences impacted by dementia anywhere in the country with access to Zoom.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact the Access Team at 212-875-5375 or access@lincolncenter.org.
Presented in collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera Guild
Mozart’s The Magic Flute demonstrates the incredible effect of contrast, whether good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, or indulgence vs. sacrifice. The composer’s final opera is heavily inspired by folk traditions and his involvement in freemasonry. Join the Met Opera Guild to watch clips and learn more about this Enlightenment-era piece, which contains many beloved characters and some the highest and lowest notes sung in all of opera!
This event is part of Lincoln Center Moments, a free performance-based program specially designed for individuals with dementia and their caregivers.
Virtual programs are 90 minutes long, including live and recorded performances and activities facilitated by educators and music therapists that explore the work through discussion, movement, music, and art-making. These programs are open to audiences impacted by dementia anywhere in the country with access to Zoom.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact the Access Team at 212-875-5375 or access@lincolncenter.org.
DIRECTED BY Klaus Härö
RUN TIME 103 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Concerned for the welfare of her irascible father (James Cosmo), a retired sea captain, harried nurse Grace (Catherine Walker) hires local widow Annie (Brid Brennan) as his housekeeper. When the pair embark on an unexpected romance, Grace is forced to face the feelings of resentment and hostility she’s harbored since childhood. As old wounds and closely guarded secrets come to light, the future of Howard and Annie’s budding relationship is threatened. Can the love between them flourish amid Grace’s accusations of betrayal? Acclaimed Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö (Letters to Father Jacob, The Fencer) makes his English-language debut with a sensitively observed, beautifully crafted drama about wrestling with the weight of family obligation and finding love in the twilight of life.
DIRECTED BY Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir
RUN TIME 87 minutes
SYNOPSIS
If This Is Spinal Tap had been centered on an all-female group of Icelandic performance-artist musicians, it would look a lot like Band. singer-turned-filmmaker Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir’s hilarious and poignant portrait of the misadventures of her Post Performance Blues Band. Renowned in the underground Reykjavik music scene since 2016 for their electro-punk sound and spandex-clad modernist dance moves, Álfrún and her friends Saga and Hrefna, nearing 40, double down on their artistic pursuits: They give themselves one year to become avant-garde pop stars—or relinquish their ambitions once and for all. Filled with absurdist humor and hard-to-believe-it’s-real moments, Band is a colorful, zany, and subversively heartfelt celebration of adult friendship and an ode to boldly, if also somewhat recklessly, pursuing your dreams.
The Visitors Návštěvníci
DIRECTED BY Veronika Lišková
RUN TIME 85 minutes
SYNOPSIS
After a young Czech anthropologist, Zdenka, moves with her family to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to study how life is changing for this unique polar community, she quickly falls in love with her new home. But all is not sweeping Arctic beauty and quiet serenity in one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas. Besides the threat of melting glaciers and thinning permafrost, Zdenka soon discovers a central tenant of Svalbard’s social policy—which allows citizens from all over the world to work there without a visa—is fueling deep-seated tensions in the area. With a mixture of beautiful Nordic vistas and icy psychological conflict, The Visitors is a remarkably prescient and humanistic story illuminating how the climate crisis, economics, and immigration are inextricably intertwined.
DIRECTED BY Mercedes Kane
RUN TIME 88 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Art Johnston and Pepe Peña are civil rights leaders whose celebrated gay bar Sidetrack has helped fuel movements and create community on Chicago’s Halsted Street for decades. Bringing together a wealth of archival video footage, photographs, and lively animated sequences, Art and Pep chronicles the story of Sidetrack, beginning with its humble origins in 1982 as a single storefront, and the lives of its proprietors. The couple fought on the frontlines of the AIDS crisis, helped co-found Equality Illinois, and have continued to serve as a beacon for equal rights through the pandemic and beyond. Mercedes Kane (2015 Festival hit Breakfast at Ina’s) returns with another loving tribute to an iconic Chicago establishment and the individuals who have transformed the site into a haven of joy and solidarity.
DIRECTED BY Alex Heller
RUN TIME 95 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Making her darkly funny assured feature debut, Chicago filmmaker Alex Heller writes, directs, and stars as a defiantly independent woman struggling to get her life back on track. Kicked out of college for bad behavior, cranky and acerbic Clemence returns to her suburban Chicagoland home where she learns she has bipolar disorder. Clashing with her loved ones and trying to hold down a job, Clemence strives to find a new equilibrium in life—with uneven results. Featuring memorable supporting performances from Steve Buscemi and J. Smith-Cameron (Succession) as Clemence’s parents, The Year Between deftly balances biting humor with the serious realities of mental illness to create a sharply comic and fiercely honest portrait of early adulthood.
DIRECTED BY Christopher Burke
RUN TIME 82 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Chicago power-couple Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya, who met and fell in love during the 2008 Obama campaign, found their world upended by Brian’s diagnosis of ALS when he was only 37. Given just six months to live, the otherwise healthy former athlete and lawyer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago forms an awe-inspiring partnership with his wife to challenge the broken medical establishment and take to the halls of D.C. to fight for his life. No Ordinary Campaign follows Brian and Sandra as they move with astonishing speed to build a patient-led revolution and show us that victory is possible even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
Join us in person for a lecture by art critic Holland Cotter followed by an audience Q&A.
Location: The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave. (doors open at 5:45pm)
Holland Cotter is co-chief art critic and a senior writer at the New York Times. He has received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art from the College Art Association, and the inaugural award for Excellence in Criticism from the International Association of Art Critics. Cotter is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services. For additional access requests, visit saic.edu/access.
The Notebook is a new musical based on the bestselling novel that inspired the iconic film. Allie and Noah, both from different worlds, share a lifetime of love despite the forces that threaten to pull them apart, in a deeply moving portrait of the enduring power of love.
Broadway directors Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, RENT) and Schele Williams (Aida, Motown the Musical) team up with multi-platinum singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson on music and lyrics, book by playwright Bekah Brunstetter (writer and producer on NBC’s This Is Us), and choreography by Katie Spelman.
A surprising new play about how families fall apart—and find each other again—amidst turbulent global and social change.
In 2003, newly-wed Layal and her family prepare to immigrate from Baghdad, Iraq, to a Chicago suburb. Seventeen years later, Layal’s life looks unimaginably different from what she had envisioned two decades prior, as she and her siblings explore queerness, face their grief, and discover what it takes to make home in a new place. Don’t miss this moving, powerful new play’s world premiere on the Owen Stage—fresh from Goodman’s New Stages and Future Labs programs.
Captioning is available.
The Gift Theatre presents the world premiere of The Locusts at Theater Wit.
When a serial killer frightens Ella’s small hometown of Vero Beach, Florida, she’s called down from FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. to come help. At home, she’s confronted by the life she left behind: her struggling family and the dark events of her childhood. A play that explores how lost souls manage their fear, and their desperate search for a way to survive in a world that threatens their existence.
Performing at Theater Wit-1229 w. Belmont, Chicago, IL 60657
Tickets available at theaterwit.org or by calling 773-975-8150
https://thegifttheatre.org/shows-events/the-locusts
Tickets: Previews $25. Regular run $38 – $45. Students $25. Seniors $35. Tickets are currently available at www.thegifttheatre.org, by calling (773) 975-8150 or in person at the Theater Wit Box Office.
Captioned performances: Saturday, November 12 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, November 13 at 3 pm
Play ball! The sensational true story of the first woman to play professional baseball knocks it out of the park as a can’t-miss theatrical event.
Toni Stone is an encyclopedia of baseball stats. She’s got a great arm. And she doesn’t understand why she can’t play with the boys. Rejected by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League because of her race, Toni sets out to become the first woman to play in baseball’s Negro Leagues. Challenges on and off the field—from hostile crowds to players who slide spikes-first—only steel her resolve to shatter racist and sexist barriers in the sport she’s loved since childhood. An original play inspired by the book Curveball, The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone by Martha Ackmann, this New York Times Critic’s Pick will have you cheering along.
Captioning is available.
A family responds to injustice and a daughter reckons with her political inheritance in this new play by “a poet, a playwright to pay attention to” (Variety).
Janice’s parents are prominent activists fighting for the integration of public swimming pools in 1960s Kansas. As injustice penetrates the warm bubble of her childhood, Janice grows apart from her family and starts a new life far away. When she receives a call asking her to speak at a ceremony honoring her father, she must decide whether she’s ready to reckon with her political inheritance—and a past she has tried to forget.
A Co-Production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Captioning is available.
In 1976, the artist Andy Warhol, having re-invented himself as the portrait painter of the rich and famous, travels to Tehran to take Polaroids of the Shah of Iran’s wife. Amidst taking in the Crown Jewels and ordering room service caviar, Warhol encounters a young revolutionary who throws his plans into turmoil, and opens the pop icon’s eyes to a world beyond himself.
This performance includes audio description and open captions. A touch tour will begin 2 hours before the show at 12:30pm.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
If no audio description tickets have been reserved 48 hours before the performance, the audio description service will be canceled for that performance. Please contact Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 to confirm that the audio description service is still available.
Patti Smith is one of America’s most acclaimed singer-songwriters, and she is also a beloved photographer and poet. In A Book of Days, Smith shares over 365 photographs – inspired by her wildly popular Instagram – to take readers through a year in the legendary life of this visionary poet, writer, and performer. Join Patti Smith for an intimate performance and conversation charting Smith’s life, music, and passions.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/patti-smith/
It’s often said that social media is bad for our mental health, and while that can be true, the full story isn’t so cut and dry. At CHF, Nicole Wetsman, Health Tech Reporter for The Verge moderates a panel between Dr. Megan Moreno, a leading researcher on adolescent social media, and Margot Lee, a high-profile young adult influencer about how curating public images affect our well-being.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/verge-social-media/
You probably know that algorithms play a huge role in what we see online, but what happens to society when this type of curated content begins to influence our real lives? Join The Verge Deputy Editor Alex Heath and a special guest for a conversation about how personalized and relatable content on social media is redefining our feeds and creating a new lens through which millions view the world.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/future-feed/
We’ve all been told too much social media is bad for us, but why is that? At CHF, New York Times investigative reporter and author of The Chaos Machine Max Fisher explains how, through the pursuit of unfettered profits and maximum engagement, Big Tech has rewired our minds, and instigated a cultural shift toward polarization and misinformation. Join him and David Pierce (editor at large at The Verge) for a behind-the-scenes look at how social networks prey on psychological frailties, driving people to extreme opinions and actions.
A book signing will follow this program.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
Join Reza Aslan (No god but God and Zealot) for the spellbinding tale of a martyr for democracy. Howard Baskerville was a 22-year-old missionary who went to Iran in 1907 and died fighting in the Persian Constitutional Revolution. Was he the “American Lafayette of Iran” or a naive “white savior”? In this talk, Aslan explores what Baskerville’s story illuminates about how seriously we take our democratic ideals and whose freedom we actually support.
Pre-order your book and gain access to a book signing and meet and greet with Aslan following this program.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
In the wake of the midterm elections, join former presidential candidate, political activist, and spiritual thought leader Marianne Williamson for an intimate conversation with Sen. Nina Turner about the state of American politics. In an era of divisiveness, Williamson comes to CHF with a new vision for American politics built on social responsibility, democracy, and deep human values.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/marianne-williamson/
Despite the isolation, degradation, and cruelties of the criminal justice system, American prisons are filled with the art of the people incarcerated in them. At CHF, Nicole R. Fleetwood (Marking Time) is joined by interdisciplinary artist Maria Gaspar for a conversation about how these artists use limited supplies in harsh conditions to create elaborate works with an important political message.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/nicole-r-fleetwood-maria-gaspar/
In 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed thousands of classified US military and diplomatic records to the public while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Since her initial sentencing and conviction, followed by early release, Manning has become a globally recognized whistleblower and activist. Join her in conversation with Nadya Tolokonnikova (of the feminist protest and performance art group, Pussy Riot) for a conversation about Manning’s memoir README.txt; and her journey fighting for institutional transparency, political activism, government accountability, and trans rights.
A book signing will follow this program.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/chelsea-manning/
Jim Jarmusch isn’t just the director and screenwriter for classics of independent cinema, including Stranger Than Paradise, and star studded films like The Dead Don’t Die, he’s also a prolific collage artist. At CHF, Jarmusch chats with writer Jonathan Ames (creator of HBO’s Bored to Death and author of You Were Never Really Here, A Man Named Doll, and The Wheel of Doll) about being a dilettante and art in its many forms.
A book signing will follow this program.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/jim-jarmusch/
Picture an art critic, and you probably think of Jerry Saltz: a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on the importance of art in our cultural lives. At the top of his field, Saltz has a knack for making contemporary art cool and accessible in a way few critics have before. In a conversation with Michael Darling, Saltz looks at how visionary artists have documented and challenged our culture, our times, and our lives.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/jerry-saltz/
Join Saturday Night Live alum, standup comedian, and caricature artist Kevin Nealon for an evening of stories: from backstage at SNL with Chris Farley and Dana Carvey to hanging out in Tiffany Haddish’s vegetable garden. At CHF, Nealon will chat with former SNL castmate Tim Meadows about his new book I Exaggerate: My Brushes with Fame (Abrams), a collection of original, full-color portraits drawn by Nealon himself alongside endearing personal stories of his famous friends.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
A book signing will follow this program.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/kevin-nealon/
What happens when people get their news from the pulpit? At CHF, Bonnie Kristian (author of Untrustworthy and columnist at Christianity Today), Russell Moore (Editor in Chief at Christianity Today), and David French (senior editor at The Dispatch) unpack this question. Join them for a discussion about the power the evangelical church wields in shaping the political ideologies of its worshippers and the impact of this on America’s already prevalent knowledge crisis.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
A book signing will follow this event.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/church-state-information-crisis/
Heralded as the “best short-story writer in English” by Time, and winner of the Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders is the perfect author to help us make sense of our era through fiction. At CHF, Saunders sits down with Peter Sagal for a chat about his latest collection Liberation Day, featuring timely short stories exploring power, ethics, and justice through his trademark prose.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/george-saunders/
Heralded as the “best short-story writer in English” by Time, and winner of the Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders is the perfect author to help us make sense of our era through fiction. At CHF, Saunders sits down for a chat about his latest collection Liberation Day, featuring timely short stories exploring power, ethics, and justice through his trademark prose.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/george-saunders/
“If a law can’t protect a person from lynching, isn’t lynching the law?” asks Margaret A. Burnham, director of Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, in her new book By Hands Now Known. At CHF, Burnham and Courtney Pierre Joseph (Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Lake Forest College) explain the ways America’s legal system allowed and encouraged racial violence during the Jim Crow era, how those atrocities extend into today, and what we can do to repair a broken system.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/margaret-burnham/
Seymour Hersh has been at the forefront of investigative journalism ever since his Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé of the Vietnam War’s Mỹ Lai Massacre. At CHF, Hersh sits down with David Greising, President of the Better Government Association, to talk about what Hersh has learned over the course of his storied career—from Vietnam to Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and beyond—and why the public service of a free press is so important to protecting democracy.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/seymour-hersh/
Mass media rarely tells a three-dimensional story of violence in Chicago, but sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh does. At CHF, Venkatesh goes beyond perfunctory news coverage for a story about a community coming together to save a group of teenagers from gun violence. Join him for a conversation with Rudi Batzell about a national crisis and what it would be like to live in a society without guns.
Open captions and assistive listening devices available.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/sudhir-venkatesh/
The public has always been fascinated by conspiracy theories, but lately more people have started believing in them: from speculations about John F. Kennedy’s assassination to notions that 9/11 was an inside job. At CHF, Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic magazine) talks with Meghan Daum (The Problem With Everything, The Unspeakable Podcast) about the personality traits and societal factors at play in conspiratorial thinking and how we can counteract these narratives.
Open captions and assistive listening devices are available.
A book signing will follow this program.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/michael-shermer/
We often hear the legends of a musician’s “big break,” but what happens before that? In her memoir Maybe We’ll Make It, Grammy-nominated country singer-songwriter Margo Price gets real about the struggles to survive and succeed in a music industry that is often unkind to women. Aspiring musicians, join Price and CHF at the Old Town School of Folk Music for an intimate chat with Jes Skolnik about building a career, followed by a solo performance.
A book signing will follow this program.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/margo-price/
Jeff Garlin is a man of many talents: he is a writer, producer, director, actor, photographer, and stand-up comedian. His impressive filmography includes: Curb Your Enthusiasm, WALL-E, Toy Story 3 & 4, and Paranorman, among others. At CHF, Garlin returns home for a chat with fellow comedian Susie Essman about his career, his city, and his stand-up special: Our Man in Chicago, which features his signature style of storytelling and improv.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/jeff-garlin/
America is witnessing a frightening trend: the rise of extremist groups, like the Proud Boys, infiltrating our politics. At CHF, leading extremism reporter Andy Campbell (author of We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism) sits down with Michael Fanone, a former Trump supporter, DC Metropolitan police officer, and author of Hold the Line. Together with Kathleen Belew (Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University and author of Bring the War Home), they’ll discuss how extremist groups have influenced violence in America and abroad, and what we can do to organize against the radicalism they espouse.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/extremism-america/
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Will Bunch calls higher education the great political and cultural fault line of American life. Join Bunch and Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Anthony S. Chen, as they explore the central question of Bunch’s latest book After the Ivory Tower Falls: How has the fracturing of American people into two groups (one educated and the other not) contributed to political, cultural, and economic unrest; and what can we do to bridge the divide?
At CHF, renowned legal scholar Daniel S. Medwed explains how America’s judicial system is stacked against the innocent. Join him and Lake Forest College legal studies professor Stephanie Caparelli for a conversation demystifying the procedural rules, systemic bias, and court culture that make up the barriers to exoneration. We’ll discuss how our justice system operates, what justice actually looks like, and possible solutions for the future.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/daniel-medwed/
Miranda July has gained a cult following over the span of her award-winning career as a filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire), writer (No One Belongs Here More Than You), and artist (her latest project, Services, is both a sculpture and a book). Chill with July at CHF for a chat about her life so far – as recently highlighted in the release of her mid-career retrospective.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/miranda-july/
For artist and MacArthur Fellow Rick Lowe, art doesn’t only hang on walls in museums, art is all around us. Art is street murals celebrating Black-owned businesses. Art is the Project Row Houses in Houston’s historic Third Ward. Art is the act we take as members of our communities. At CHF, Lowe reflects on community-based creative practices and the power of art to remake our public lives.
Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All, on-air political analyst for MSNBC, and publisher of The.Ink joins CHF for a conversation with David Corn, Washington DC Bureau Chief for Mother Jones, about how to change people’s minds in order to change how things are. If you’ve been up at night wondering how to save democracy and communicate effectively with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, come pick Giridharadas’s brain (and pick up a copy of his new book The Persuaders) for answers.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/anand-giridharadas-persuaders/
It’s time—and long overdue—for everyone to acknowledge Black women’s unrivaled contribution to American life and democracy. At CHF, trailblazing White House correspondent April Ryan highlights the incredible work of “sheroes” like Valerie Jarret, Kamala Harris, Brittney Packnett Cunningham, and LaTosha Brown. Join her for a conversation with Valerie Jarrett about how Black women will save the world and a reminder that it’s not fair to expect them to do it alone.
Comedian and actress Iliza Shlesinger, fresh off of filming her sixth Netflix special, is known for her no holds barred stand-up and hyper-relatable storytelling. Shlesinger, who recently wrote and starred in the Netflix film Good on Paper, takes CHF’s stage to speak with Britt Julious for a hilarious and insightful evening on her new book, a collection of essays titled All Things Aside: Absolutely Correct Opinions.
A book signing will follow this program.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/iliza-shlesinger/
In 1976, the artist Andy Warhol, having re-invented himself as the portrait painter of the rich and famous, travels to Tehran to take Polaroids of the Shah of Iran’s wife. Amidst taking in the Crown Jewels and ordering room service caviar, Warhol encounters a young revolutionary who throws his plans into turmoil, and opens the pop icon’s eyes to a world beyond himself.
This performance includes ASL interpretation and open captions. If you would like a good view of the ASL interpreters, please contact Community Engagement Manager Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 as the placement of the interpreters will vary from show to show.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
Chicago’s favorite holiday tradition for four decades.
Nearly two million theatergoers have experienced Chicago’s must-see annual holiday tradition, Goodman Theatre’s A Christmas Carol. With first-rate performances— starring award-winner Larry Yando as Ebenezer Scrooge for the 15th year—and “amazing sets, gorgeous costumes and eye-popping effects” (Chicago Reader), the heartwarming story of generosity’s triumph over greed comes to vivid life. Don’t miss this 45th anniversary production of “the best Christmas story ever told” (Time Out Chicago).
A Christmas Carol is appropriate for ages 6 and up. The production contains loud noises, bright lights, and images that may frighten very young children. Children under 5 are not permitted in the theater. For more information contact the box office at 312.443.3800
The beloved characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice return for a third and final installment of the Pemberley trilogy (Miss Bennet, The Wickhams). The youngest Darcy and Bennet sisters have become fast friends, and eagerly await the arrival of Georgiana’s secret correspondent. Mixups of manners and overprotective big brother Mr. Darcy keep romance from unfolding easily. But music, ambition, friendship, and sisterhood lead to happiness… and a love story that spans a lifetime.
This performance includes ASL interpretation and open captions. If you would like a good view of the ASL interpreters, please contact Community Engagement Manager Ruben Carrazana at rcarrazana@northlight.org or 847-324-1615 as the placement of the interpreters will vary from show to show.
To purchase tickets, use the promo code NACCESS by phone 847.673.6300 or online to receive discounted tickets at a flat rate of $40 each (standard fees still apply).
THE ISLAND
BY ATHOL FUGARD, JOHN KANI, AND WINSTON NTSHONA
DIRECTED BY GABRIELLE RANDLE-BENT
Nov 11, 2022 — Dec 04, 2022
“[The Island] has the rough majesty of a classic… this short but potent play has lost little of its force” -The Guardian
John and Winston are political prisoners on South Africa’s infamous Robben Island, spending their days toiling at grueling, futile tasks in the prison’s quarry. At night, they secretly rehearse a two-man version of Antigone and find solace and strength in their burgeoning friendship. The Island is at once a sobering glimpse into the social, physical, and psychological wounds of Apartheid; a lesson in the complex work of liberation; and a testament to the transformative power of theatre.
Frequent collaborator Gabrielle Randle-Bent makes her solo directorial debut at Court, bringing her vision of resistance and resilience to the stage.
Accessible performances:
December 3, 2022 at 2:00pm/Touch Tour at 12:30pm (Touch Tour/Audio Description)
December 4, 2022 at 2:00pm (Open Captioning)
December 4, 2022 at 7:30pm (ASL Interpretation)
Subscriptions including this production are on sale now and can be purchased online or by calling (773) 753-4472.
Join us for a live in-person reading with Arnold Kemp, AJ McClenon, Ayanah Moor, and isra rene. The Open Door series highlights creative relationships in Chicago, including mentorship and collaboration.
Arnold J. Kemp is an artist and writer. Kemp has mounted solo shows at The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago; Joan, Los Angeles; M. LeBlanc, Chicago; and Martos Gallery, New York. His writing has appeared in Callaloo, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, Agni Review, MIRAGE #4 Period(ical), River Styx, Texte zur Kunst, October, and Spike Art Magazine, among others. He is the recipient of awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. In 2020 he received The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Kemp lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
Born and raised in “D.C. proper,” A.J. McClenon studied art and creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park and The New School prior to receiving a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Alongside artistic experiences, A.J. is passionate about teaching and community collaborations with the goal that all the memories and histories that are said to have “too many Black people,” are told and retold again. As a means to uphold these stories A.J. creates writings, performances, installations, objects, sounds, and visuals. These creations often revolve around an interest in water and aquatic life, escapism, Blackness, science, grief, US history, and the global future. A.J. is deeply invested in leveling the hierarchies of truth and using personal narrative to speak on political and cultural amnesia and their absurdities. A.J. currently works and lives in Chicago.
Ayanah Moor is a visual artist who centers Blackness and queerness in her approach to painting, print media, and performance. Moor’s artwork is held in the permanent collections of the DePaul Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Soho House (London); and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh. Moor’s recent exhibitions include, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, Cleve Carney Museum; t/here or t/here, Intermission Museum + Stand4 Gallery; and Direct Message: Art, Language and Power, MCA Chicago. Moor earned her MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
isra rene believes in you and in me. isra believes in weaved webs of dreams tufted by our inherent connections of love, vulnerability, and care. isra believes in deep research. isra believes in writing love notes. isra believes in reading as meditation and the space between words as a playground. isra believes in the power of studying and the power of not knowing. isra believes in invitation. isra believes.
This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream.
In-Person Attendance
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. If you cannot meet these requirements, you will not be granted entry to the event. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.
Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-door-arnold-kemp-aj-mcclenon-ayanah-moor-and-isra-rene-tickets-358693691487
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
Join us for a reading and celebration of the diverse voices, rich experiences, and powerful words of poets from around the country, and the world. Participants from the online poetry workshop series, Forms & Features, will share work created in this online creative community.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-the-poets-of-forms-features-online-tickets-388678266157
Al Filreis will conduct a collaborative close reading of poems from Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué’s book Madness (Nightboat, 2022). Participants include Laynie Browne, Al Filreis, Lisa Fishman, and Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué himself.
A recording of this event will be made available in a free open-to-all online course called ModPo (on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry) hosted by the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania. In ModPo, which has been offered to thousands of people for ten years, participants read poems and watch videos in which poets and others talk informally about those poems.
Laynie Browne’s recent and upcoming publications include Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022), A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat, 2021), Letters Inscribed in Snow (Tinderbox, 2022), and Apprentice to a Breathing Hand (Omnidawn, 2025). Browne’s honors include a Pew Fellowship, a National Poetry Series Award, and a Contemporary Poetry Series Award. She teaches and coordinates the MOOC Modern Poetry at University of Pennsylvania.
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor of English, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—all at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. Filreis’s publications include 1960: When Art and Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II and Remade the Modern, The Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems (with Anna Strong Safford), and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960. He produces and hosts a monthly podcast/radio program, PoemTalk, cosponsored by the Poetry Foundation, and teaches “ModPo,” an open online course. His honors as an educator include being named one of the Top Ten Tech Innovators in Higher Education for 2013 by the Chronicle of Higher Education and the 2000 Pennsylvania Professor of by the Carnegie Foundation.
Lisa Fishman is the author of several collections, including Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020), 24 Pages and other poems (Wave Books, 2015), and F L O W E R C A R T (Ahsahta Press, 2011). Fishman’s work is anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing (Omnidawn, 2014), The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press, 2013), The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012), and elsewhere. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing Columbia College Chicago
Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué is a poet and writer living in Chicago whose recent publications include Madness (Nightboat Books, 2022) and Losing Miami (The Accomplices, 2019), which was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. Ojeda-Sagué is the coeditor of An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989. He is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Chicago where he works in the study of sexuality.
All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask.
Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/modern-poetry-gabriel-ojeda-sagues-madness-tickets-385135309077
Direct from New York City and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this Chicago premiere features hundreds of illustrated puppets, fuzzy Muppet-style puppets, hilarious actors on live cameras, and a live music soundtrack which bring the popular children’s books by Mo Willems to life in a new Manual Cinema show the whole family will enjoy.
Leonardo is a terrible monster. He tries so hard to be scary, but he just…isn’t. Then Leonardo finds Sam, the most scaredy-cat kid in the world. Will Leonardo finally get his chance to scare the tuna salad out of an unsuspecting human? Or will it be the start of an unlikely friendship? They will need to make a big decision: will they be friends or will they be controlled by their fears?
12TH ANNUAL COUNTERBALANCE
SEPTEMBER 24TH & 25TH, 2022
presented by Access Living, Bodies of Work, MOMENTA, and ReinventAbility.
IN-PERSON PERFORMANCES
(A virtual viewing option will be available in October)
Hoover-Leppen Theatre
CENTER ON HALSTED
3656 N. Halsted
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
7:30pm
Doors open at 7:00pm
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
2:00pm
Sensory Friendly Performance
Doors open at 1:30pm
ACCESS FEATURES
Wheelchair Accessible, ASL Interpretation, Open Captioning, Audio Description, All Gender Restrooms
SAFETY PROTOCOLS
Masks Required
Proof of Vaccination
or Negative Covid Test
As Official White House Photographer for both Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan and author of The West Wing and Beyond, Pete Souza has a unique window into how our democracy really works. Using Souza’s photos as our guide, he and David Axelrod (former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Obama) take us behind the scenes of the American presidency for an inside look at the moments—big and little—that define the nation’s highest office.
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/pete-souza-david-axelrod/
It’s hard to know who your friends are in a world that’s more divided than ever.
Tony Award-winner Robert Falls and his longtime collaborator, Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Rebecca Gilman, team up again for their sixth Goodman production—a contemporary portrait of America’s heartland in a time when it feels like everyone’s way of life is in danger of disappearing.
Swing State is suggested for ages 14 and up. Please be aware that this production contains a gun shot and depictions of police violence and suicide. For more information contact the box office at 312.443.3800
Aligned with the mission of representing marginalized voices, BWBTC has partnered with UIC’s Disability Cultural Center to tell the tale of the malicious Richard of Gloucester. Casting both non-disabled and disabled actors, this production will not only examine stage combat as a storytelling tool, but interrogate the divide between “regular” theatre and “theatre for the disabled”.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://babeswithblades.org/summer-2022-bwbtc-shakespeare-richard-iii/
Use coupon code (Access) for 20% discount!
Please note:
– Live captions will be available for all performances.
– A pre-show Touch Tour will be available at 1:30pm prior to the October 9 performance.
– The October 9 performance will be followed by a talkback after the show with representatives from the UIC Disability Cultural Center
Aligned with the mission of representing marginalized voices, BWBTC has partnered with UIC’s Disability Cultural Center to tell the tale of the malicious Richard of Gloucester. Casting both non-disabled and disabled actors, this production will not only examine stage combat as a storytelling tool, but interrogate the divide between “regular” theatre and “theatre for the disabled”.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://babeswithblades.org/summer-2022-bwbtc-shakespeare-richard-iii/
Use coupon code (Access) for 20% discount!
Please note: Live captions will be available for all performances.
Aligned with the mission of representing marginalized voices, BWBTC has partnered with UIC’s Disability Cultural Center to tell the tale of the malicious Richard of Gloucester. Casting both non-disabled and disabled actors, this production will not only examine stage combat as a storytelling tool, but interrogate the divide between “regular” theatre and “theatre for the disabled”.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://babeswithblades.org/summer-2022-bwbtc-shakespeare-richard-iii/
Use coupon code (Access) for 20% discount!
Please note: Live captions will be available for all performances.