Eurydice is a play about newlywed and newly dead Eurydice arrives in the underworld without memories or language where she struggles to recover her humanity with the aid of the father she lost years ago. When Orpheus arrives to rescue her, Eurydice must choose between staying with her father or escaping with her husband—between life and death. Pulitzer & Tony nominated North Shore native Sarah Ruhl infuses the ancient myth with humor, poetry, hope & sneaky surprises as this classic heroine finds her voice.
Run time: 1 hour and 20 minutes, no intermission
Accessibility: Assistive Listening Devices, Open Captions, Digital Document, Wheelchair Accessible
https://www.writerstheatre.org/eurydice
WORLD PREMIERE BY NAMBI E. KELLEY
DIRECTED BY TASIA A. JONES
Civil rights activist Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael, was a towering icon; a man of immense domestic and international importance. But he was also just that: a man. Blending the historical and the personal, Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution asks: how can you trust someone with a movement when you can’t trust them with your heart? Tasia A. Jones makes her Court directorial debut with playwright Nambi E. Kelley’s evocative world premiere.
This event will have ASL interpretation, assistive listening devices, audio description, and wheelchair accessible seating.
Touch Tour will begin at 12:30pm.
BY SOPHOCLES
DIRECTED BY GABRIELLE RANDLE-BENT,
ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
As Antigone mourns her brothers, she must decide if she will sacrifice her life to balance the scales of justice. Associate Artistic Director Gabrielle Randle-Bent’s interpretation of Sophocles’ masterwork – featuring Aeriel Williams in the titular role and Timothy Edward Kane as King Creon – renders Antigone electrifyingly alive, situating this tale in our modern conversation about the price of democracy, and asking – crucially – if it’s a price we’re willing to pay.
This event will have ASL interpretation, assistive listening devices, audio description, and wheelchair accessible seating.
Touch tour will begin at 12:30pm.
A celebration of the disability arts with some of Chicago’s best disabled artists and performers! Join us after the parade for short-films, live music, dance, art activities, and a fun photo op in the magnificent and air-conditioned Chicago Cultural Center!
https://www.reinventability.com/disfest
Accessibility: ASL interpreted, audio description, captioning, quiet space, sensory friendly, wheelchair accessible
This spring, A.B.L.E. returns to the stage and our classical roots with a multimedia version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, updated for our social-media obsessed times. Our modern adaptation by A.B.L.E. teaching artist Emma MacLean focuses on the themes of connection and disconnection. The king and queen of the fairies are fighting, the mechanicals are rehearsing a play but no one knows their lines, and the Athenian teens keep changing their relationship status. Join ABLE’s ensembles – 34 actors with intellectual and developmental disabilities as we miss texts, drop calls, and wander love struck in the Athenian forest.
This multimedia production will weave Shakespeare’s words with original scenes, monologues, songs, and dances devised by our ensembles, as well as animated film sequences from VFX designer Brock Alter. The virtual ensemble will narrate the tale for us as the in-person ensembles take the stage Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
With your ticket, you have the option of participating in a 45 minute interactive workshop led by A.B.L.E.’s team of Creative Associates and Teaching Artists. Audiences can experience some of the games and activities A.B.L.E. used to bring their ideas to the stage, get a touch tour of key costume pieces and props, and try A.B.L.E.’s signature “dropping in” method. This exclusive opportunity is only available to 20 ticket holders each day – reserve your spot when booking your ticket.
Event Details:
Sunday June 11th at 2pm (pre-show workshop & touch tour at 12:30pm)
Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
800 East Grand Avenue
Chicago IL 60611
Tickets: All tickets are Pay-what-you-can, general admission
Online: ableensemble.com/events
Phone: 312.595.5600
In person: at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater box office
Access: Performances will be open captioned and dual 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.
This spring, A.B.L.E. returns to the stage and our classical roots with a multimedia version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, updated for our social-media obsessed times. Our modern adaptation by A.B.L.E. teaching artist Emma MacLean focuses on the themes of connection and disconnection. The king and queen of the fairies are fighting, the mechanicals are rehearsing a play but no one knows their lines, and the Athenian teens keep changing their relationship status. Join ABLE’s ensembles – 34 actors with intellectual and developmental disabilities as we miss texts, drop calls, and wander love struck in the Athenian forest.
This multimedia production will weave Shakespeare’s words with original scenes, monologues, songs, and dances devised by our ensembles, as well as animated film sequences from VFX designer Brock Alter. The virtual ensemble will narrate the tale for us as the in-person ensembles take the stage Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
With your ticket, you have the option of participating in a 45 minute interactive workshop led by A.B.L.E.’s team of Creative Associates and Teaching Artists. Audiences can experience some of the games and activities A.B.L.E. used to bring their ideas to the stage, get a touch tour of key costume pieces and props, and try A.B.L.E.’s signature “dropping in” method. This exclusive opportunity is only available to 20 ticket holders each day – reserve your spot when booking your ticket.
Event Details:
Saturday June 10th at 7pm (pre-show workshop & touch tour at 5:30pm)
Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
800 East Grand Avenue
Chicago IL 60611
Tickets: All tickets are Pay-what-you-can, general admission
Online: ableensemble.com/events
Phone: 312.595.5600
In person: at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater box office
Access: Performances will be open captioned and dual 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.
Writing Care Scenes: A Workshop & Skill Share with 2023 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency Fellow, Kennedy Dawson Healy
Thursday, May 4th, 4:30pm to 6:30pm (Or join us virtually at 5:00pm!)
Haymarket House
800 W Buena Ave, Chicago, IL 60613
Join us for a workshop on writing play scenes about care. Learn about how Kennedy found grounding in writing about issues surrounding care through her in-progress project Care: The Musical. Then take time to develop your own scene that volunteers can share back to the group.
RSVP: https://writingcarescenes.eventbrite.com/
Program:
4:30 – 5:00 pm: Light refreshments and creative printmaking & zine stations* will be available outdoors.
5:00 – 6:30 pm: Workshop & skill share will be hosted in door.
*Creative printmaking & zine stations will be presented by Soph Schinderle (they/them) and Lizzy Dixon (they/them), who have collaborated with Kennedy during her residency. Schinderle and Dixon are both graduate art therapy students in the Community Practice and Helping Relationship Class, department of art therapy and counseling, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).
Access Information: Haymarket House is located in Uptown on the corner of Buena and Clarendon. Please enter through the parking lot off Clarendon where there is a ramped side entrance. ASL interpreters, CART, and a Personal Assistant will be available at the event. Masks are required for all who are able to wear them. There are two accessible bathrooms and the large event space has an air filter. For any other accessibility requests, please reach out to Beth Bendtsen at bbendtsen@accessliving.org at your earliest convenience.
Host Information: This event is part of the 2023 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency Fellowship. 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.
Supporter Information:
This program received generous support from the Arts and Culture Project at Access Living, an independent living center for people with disabilities, Shirley Ryan Abilities Lab and Disability Culture Activism Lab at SAIC.
The contents of this event 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 event 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, as well as grants to 3Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Joyce Foundation.
Image description (attached flyer): Pastel pink and purple watercolor background with black, purple and blue text. There is a small circular photo of Kennedy, a white, fat, disabled femme, who smiles with their head turned slightly to the right. The back of their power chair is visible over their shoulder. Overlaid on the back ground is text with event information, including the bullet points: Outdoor refreshments, Creative printmaking & zine stations, and Scene writing workshop & sharing. Along the bottom are the logos for the event sponsors.
Join LYNX Project for the most-anticipated event of their 2022-23 season: the World Premieres of the 2022-23 Amplify Series. The Amplify Series commissions classical composers to set texts by autistic poets, who are primarily nonspeaking, to music. LYNX has commissioned over 40 writers and composers, generating over four hours of new music. The Amplify Series World Premiere Concert celebrates this year’s powerful and poignant new works, featuring the following poets, composers, and performers:
Poets:
Amelia Bell
Sofia Ghassaei
Matthew McGrath
John-Carlos Schaut
Parker Scheu
Composers:
Eugenia Cheng
Shane S. Cook
Corinne Klein
Paul Novak
Matthew Recio
Performers:
Veena Akama-Makia, mezzo-soprano
Pauline Tan, mezzo-soprano
Samuel James Dewese, baritone
Florence Mak, pianist
Michael Tran, clarinetist
Kimberly Jeong, cellist
Accommodations:
Relaxed performance atmosphere (movement, fidgets, stims welcome in our space)
Sensory-relief space outside concert hall
No clapping — handwaving and snapping for applause
For additional information about accommodations, or to make a request, please contact Michelle Ravitsky at michelle@lynxproject.org.
Limited capacity. Advanced registration is required.
Masking is required for this performance.
Using the pain scale as a primary source material, Scale places medicalized methods of quantifying pain in conversation with alternative ways of reading and attending to pain emerging from the disability community, ultimately proposing new ways of caring for the bodymind in dance. These complex interactions between medicalization, care, and community are explored through movement, video, and the use of access tools for both performers and audience members. Scale invites audience members to attend to their own embodied experience of the piece, offering pillows, blankets, and other care objects as tools for curating the way they engage with and experience the work. Scale poses questions around the ways that we perceive pain, ultimately reaching toward a more compassionate and disability-informed way of creating and performing dance.
Each performance is followed by a Crafting Care event that serves as a sort of informal “talk back” with some of the artists, as well as an opportunity to join in the crafting practice that informed much of the work of Scale. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own crafting projects, participate in a group embroidery project, or simply share space and chat about Scale in community with the artists and other audience members.
COLLABORATORS
Performers: Maggie Bridger, Jordan Brown, Joán Joel, Alex Neil-Sevier, Robby Lee Williams
Costumes and Visual Art: Reveca Torres
Sound Design: Shireen Hamza
Crafters: Margaret Fink, Sandy Guttman, Alison Kopit, Ashley Miller
Access information
ACCESS DURING PERFORMANCE
Captions, American Sign Language, audio descriptions, opportunities to rest, and sensory notes are incorporated into the performance in ways that we hope generate a unique, thoughtful experience for each audience member. The methods we’re using to incorporate these elements into the performance are experimental and may differ from the ways these tools are encountered in other arts spaces. We are continuing to learn, develop, and experiment alongside our community and welcome feedback on these elements, particularly from members of the community that rely on these various tools to access performance.
COVID Protocols:
Masking is required in the performance space. Mana Contemporary, though, is a shared building that does not require masking and there may be unmasked people outside of the performance space. You are welcome to bring your own mask or grab one of the high quality masks available to audience members in both adult and child sizes at the building’s entrance. All performers will be masked, though there is a moment in the work where performers layer masks one on top of the other, which may cause their masking to be less effective for a short period of time.
Arriving at Mana & Wayfinding:
All audience members will enter the ramped entrance to Mana Contemporary located on the west side of the building near the Throop street entrance to the parking lot. Audiences will then be guided through the building to the performance space by the performers, two of whom use ASL and will be able to guide Deaf and hard of hearing audience members. The first 30 minutes of the performance time is dedicated to audience arrival and getting situated in the performance space, so there is no need to rush or worry about arriving precisely on time. There is time to rest, chat, and get settled.
A library around the corner from the performance space will be used as a “quiet space” that folks can use to get a break from the performance, if needed.
Access Tools and Sharing Space:
The show runs about an hour and a half with the first half hour dedicated entirely to audience members arriving and getting settled for the performance. Upon entering the space, audience members will be offered access devices and care tools to help them feel as comfortable as possible throughout the performance. Some of the tools we have available are:
4 blankets
3 small weighted blankets
9 pillows
2 large beanbags
Yoga mats/exercise mats
Instant hot and cold packs
Stim tools
3 ear defenders
In addition to these, you are very welcome to bring your own tools/devices. We invite you to move, stim, rest, and generally make yourself comfortable during the performance. Our tools/devices will be cleaned with scent-free detergent/cleanser between each performance.
We ask that audience members refrain from wearing any scented perfume, cologne, lotion, etc. However, Mana Contemporary is a shared space where tenants will sometimes burn incense or use other scented products. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee a fully scent-free environment.
Opening reception for Voices Embodied
Highlighting a relationship between disability and community, Voices Embodied: Uplifted is boldly displayed throughout the Design Museum of Chicago. The work of fourteen artists is displayed to reconsider the space in a way that is moody, engaging and vulnerable. Colorful work, visible in the large public-facing windows engages the community while the dark vault space located in the back of the museum becomes a place of contemplation where viewers are close in proximity to the pieces. All the selected works come from individual perspectives but are displayed in such a way that the work begins to relate and support one another.
While being bold and colorful, and expressing pride, the work is invitational. The pieces in Voices Embodied: Uplifted demonstrate the strength of a supportive community.
The interior of the Design Museum of Chicago is wheelchair accessible. There is a ramp that leads to the entry but the entrance door is not automated. Restrooms are located in the basement, accessible by an elevator. For individual access requests, please visit saic.edu/access.