Review: At Adler Planetarium, a Heavenly Collaboration of Dance and the Universe in Cosmic Rhythms
A star is born, and none of them is one of four movies with the same title. A star in the sky comes from dust, gravity, collision, and heat in […]
Kathy D. Hey writes creative non-fiction essays. A lifelong Chicagoan, she is enjoying life with her husband, daughter and three dogs in the wilds of Edgewater. When she isn’t at her computer, she is in her garden growing vegetables and herbs for kitchen witchery.
Review: Complexions Contemporary Ballet Expands the Horizons of Dance with Star Dust: From Bach to Bowie
Complexions Contemporary Ballet emerged in 1994 as the creation of two Alvin Ailey alumni Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden. They moved the parameters around ballet with their careers and then […]
Review: Odets’ Waiting for Lefty by Gwydion Theatre Still Packs a Punch in Contemporary America
Playwright Clifford Odets set Waiting for Lefty in 1935, but this one-act classic play about unions has echoes of life in America today. Unions’ battle against big business was illustrated […]
Review: Champion at the Lyric Defines Opera in Jazz With Story of Boxer Emile Griffith
Champion is the story of welterweight boxer Emile Griffith’s career in boxing with a life-defining fatal bout in 1962 against Benny “Kid” Paret. I believe that an opera in jazz […]
Review: Lyric Presents Rossini’s Cinderella/La Cenerentola With a Twist
I have four copies of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in my library and while I have a weird fondness for dark morality tales, I also enjoy the story of the stepchild […]
Review: Third Coast Percussion Premieres New Work by Carlos Carrillo
L-R Peter Martin, Robert Dillon, Sean Connors, and David Skidmore. Photo by Ron Perlish
Review: A Harlem Reverie in Sugar Hill: the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker
Harlem. The name evokes a sense of place, time, and for some, the halcyon days of the Harlem Renaissance. Sugar Hill is a section of Harlem where the strivers lived, […]
Review: Chicago Opera Theater Triumphs With Shostakovich’s The Nose, From Gogol’s Story
The Chicago Opera Theater COT) has a mission to produce new and rarely produced work. Dmitri Shostakovich was 22 years old when he wrote The Nose adapted from the short […]
Review: Cirque du Soleil Performs a Holiday Thrill Ride in ‘Twas the Night Before
As we were making our way to the Chicago Theatre on Thursday, my friend asked me how I thought Cirque du Soleil was going to pull off their feats of […]
Review: Black Ensemble Theater Celebrates 47 Years of The Other Cinderella
I cannot believe that 47 years have passed since the premiere performance of The Other Cinderella. Jackie Taylor came out of Cabrini Green and has emerged as a Chicago legend. […]
Review: Hell in a Handbag Serves up a Holiday Parody with The Golden Girls Save Christmas
The Golden Girls sitcom is in perpetual rotation on television it seems. It’s late at night and sometimes simultaneously on two channels as an alternative to the news. It presaged […]
Review: The Buttcracker: A Nutcracker Burlesque Is a Ribald Revival of an Art Form
Burlesque combines circus, vaudeville, opera, and theater for the so-called common folk. The art is derived from classical composers and theater performers as far back as the mid-19th century. One […]