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There are always deals and trades to be made ahead of the 2022 NBA draft (ESPN, Thursday at 8 p.m. ET). Up to now, they haven’t involved zoo animals.

In breaking NBA news Wednesday, the Memphis Zoo shipped Ja Raffe, a year-and-a-half-old male giraffe named after Memphis Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant, to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Contrary to earlier reports, the giraffe was not traded between the two zoos, according to officials at the Hogle Zoo. The Memphis Zoo will not receive an animal back.

“[Ja Raffe] was an offspring, so that means, more than likely, his parents will continue to reproduce,” Marilyn Hsiung, of the Hogle Zoo, told ESPN. “And when he’s of breeding age, he will be suggested to participate in the Species Survival Program, with our two female giraffes Stephanie and Minka here at Utah’s Hogle Zoo.”

The giraffe was born in November, 2020, to honor Morant who had won NBA Rookie of the Year for the 2020 season. That season, Morant was averaging 17.8 points per game. Since then, he has become a superstar in the league. Last season, he averaged 27.4 points per game and led the Grizzlies to the Western Conference Semifinals.

When the giraffe’s name was announced, Morant took to Twitter to toast the zoo’s new star.

Despite their newest animal being named after the star player of a Western Conference rival of the hometown Utah Jazz, the Hogle Zoo has no plans to change the giraffe’s name.

“I think we might have some really good opportunities with his name Ja Raffe, and we can still continue to make a strong connection with his name and that of Ja Morant,” Hsiung said.

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Summer is officially here, in case the sweat and lightning bugs weren’t enough of a clue. In addition to the shows and artists we profiled in our summer arts preview issue this week, we’ve got just a few suggestions for other offerings in theater, dance, and opera that look promising—whether you’re looking for a nice air-conditioned theater or a bucolic outdoor setting. 

THEATER PICKS (Kerry Reid)

It Came From Outer Space

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So Hamlet knew about aliens, is what we take away from that. And therefore, it makes perfect sense that Chicago Shakespeare is premiering this musical by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, based on the 1953 sci-fi film. The company offered a digital sneak peek, entitled We Are Out There, last year; now you can see it live at Navy Pier (where, let’s face it, aliens would blend perfectly most days). Laura Braza directs a cast that includes Jonathan Butler-Duplessis, Ann Delaney, and Alex Goodrich. Through 6/24, Chicago Shakespeare, 800 E. Grand, chicagoshakes.com, $50-$60.

Pearl’s Rollin’ with the Blues: A Night with Felicia P. Fields

Fields, one of the bona fide greats in Chicago theater, takes over Writers Theatre in this world premiere, which she created in collaboration with director Ron OJ Parson. (The two previously worked together at Writers in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2019.) Fields delivers blues classics by Big Mama Thornton, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, and others, backed by a band headed up by Chic Street Man, as she tells the story of how the blues have influenced her life and career. 6/23-7/24, Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, writerstheatre.org, $35-$90.

Get Out Alive

Haven Chicago presents a new “multidisciplinary afrogoth” musical by Nikki Lynette that draws on her own experiences dealing with abuse, trauma, and the mental health system. Roger Ellis and Lucky Stiff co-direct, and the cast, in addition to Lynette, features DJ P1, Keeley Morris, and Jacinda Ratcliffe. Over ten years ago, Jessica Hopper wrote in the Reader that “it’s unfair that Chicago MC Nikki Lynette is hip-hop’s other Nikki. Not that there should be just one, or that Nicki Minaj doesn’t deserve her celebrity, but Lynette certainly has what it takes to compete with all the singing-and-dancing rappers who are already getting over on quirk, hooks, and charismatic flow,” adding, “The city should be proud to call her its own, but given that Chicago is where hip-hop careers go to die, let’s hope she gets the hell out.” She’s obviously stayed and survived, and has some stories to tell us about that. Lynette has also adapted the musical into a film that has been making the festival rounds. 7/8-8/6, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, havenchi.org, pay what you can previews 7/8-7/10, regular run $36 ($46 reserved table, industry $31, students $21).

Nikki Lynette in Get Out Alive

2nd Annual BIPOC Play Fest

Perceptions Theatre started life at the beginning of the pandemicwith a strong focus on digital content and new work, as well as with a playreading club. They’re ready to go live with the second iteration of this festival, which will also offer a streaming option for those who find that more convenient. The lineup includes Carlo Zenner’s Mess, about “a Queer Latinx Chicagoan grappling with the disorienting effects of quarantine” and “the pleasures and pains of casual dating”; The Voice Inside My Head by Louis Johnson, in which a middle-aged Black man gunned down by the police reflects in the afterlife upon his accomplishments and the outrage unleashed by his murder; Was It Me? by Andrea J. Fulton, an excerpt from a larger play about Margo, a 49-year-old woman confronting the effects of childhood trauma on the eve of a birthday reunion with old friends; and Kingdom by Nic Bell, an absurdist short work that focuses on “family, duty, free will, and the inevitability of fate.” 7/9-7/10, Studio 2226 Inc., 2226 E. 71st, perceptionstheatre.org for more information and reservations. 

The Devil Wears Prada

Cruella De Vil or Miranda Priestly: who’s the scariest of them all? OK, Miranda didn’t want to make couture out of canines, but as depicted by Meryl Streep in the 2006 film, she’s become cemented in popular imagination as the Lady-Boss from Hell. Now a new high-profile musical based on Lauren Weisberger’s book about the cutthroat world of fashion hits the runway in Chicago before heading to Broadway. Sir Elton John wrote the score, with lyrics by Shaina Taub and a book by Kate Wetherhead. Former Steppenwolf artistic director Anna D. Shapiro directs (her first time helming a musical), and the show stars Beth Leavel as Miranda and Taylor Iman Jones as her besieged assistant, Andy Sachs. Will a show about abusive bosses feel the same in a post-Scott Rudin landscape? You can be among the first to find out! 7/19-8/21, James M. Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, broadwayinchicago.com, $33-$110.

Campaigns, Inc.

Just in time for midterms, TimeLine pulls back the curtain on the history of campaign spin with the world premiere of Will Allan’s play, directed by Nick Bowling. Based on the true story of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker, who formed the first political consulting firm in U.S. history, Allan’s comedy offers a perhaps-too-late cautionary tale about propaganda (aka “fake news”) through the lens of the married couple who torpedoed author Upton Sinclair’s (The Jungle) chances to become the first Democratic governor of California in 1934. Whitaker and Baxter pioneered the use of direct mail and ad buys to win the hearts and minds of voters, and also deployed oppositional research that allowed them to cherry-pick quotes to put Sinclair (who actually was a socialist) in the worst possible light. Oh, thank god those days are behind us, huh? The company returns to their longtime Lakeview home for this season—the last before they move into their new spiffy Uptown digs. 8/3-9/18, TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington, timelinetheatre.com.

DANCE PICKS (Irene Hsiao)

New Dances

New Dances returns to the stage, continuing a tradition of bringing Chicago dancers and choreographers together for a rapid-fire period of creative development. Inaugurated 39 years ago by Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble, and now in its 21st season under the auspices of Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago, this year features new works by Kaleigh Dent, Brandon DiCriscio, Trey Johnson, MurdaMommy, Marco Pizano, and Taylor Yocum.

“In viewing the works in process over these past few weeks, I see exceptional facets of thought, depth, and intent on the part of the choreographers,” says Melissa Thodos, artistic director of TDC. “It is as if this diverse group of works were growing, seasoning, and gestating in each of the artists’ minds and beings over these past challenging years.”

“Being able to create dance again in person has been jarring and exciting,” says Pizano, whose work combines pedestrian movement with vogue aesthetics. “It has been mind-blowing to see how far [we] pushed our bodies,” says MurdaMommy, who trained her cast in Chicago footwork. “New Dances has been a wonderful experience of making new connections in the Chicago dance community, renewing old ones, and getting deeper in touch with my choreographic voice,” says DiCriscio, who describes his work as “a story of intimate worlds destined to collide, indirectly influenced by a drifting external force.” 6/23-6/25, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, danceworkschicago.org, thodosdancechicago.org, $30.

Artist Showcase, Mandala Makers Festival 

The Mandala Makers Festival presents a colossal lineup of South Asian dance, music, poetry, comedy, and drag at Indian Boundary Park, near Mandala South Asian Performing Arts’s new home on Devon Avenue. In addition to contemporary works based on classical Bharatanatyam, “the festival also showcases less common forms embedded in South Asian arts, such as Sufi dances, Odissi, and forms from the Caribbean diaspora,” says Mandala associate artistic director Ashwaty Chennat, who curated the event. 

Self-reflection and the persistence of change are themes of some works featured. “Prakriti II continues our dialogue about our relationship to the divisiveness we see in this world,” says Ishti Collective cofounder Kinnari Vora. “It is through movement that we express the ways in which we can cope and move forward. We explore ways to pause and heal, reach for grounding strength, listen and open our minds, shed our egos, bring brevity and find joy in little things and seek empathy and kindness.” 

On remounting the 2014 work She Cannot, Soham Dance Space artistic director Anjal Chande says, “It’s mysterious how the body remembers movements, intentions, associations, while the body also persistently evolves.” June 24-26, Indian Boundary Park, 2500 W. Lunt, mandalaarts.org, free.

Emperor of all he surveys: Matthew Polenzani appears in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at Ravinia in August. Courtesy the artist.

OPERA (Deanna Isaacs)

Ravinia Festival Operas

What could be better than moonlight, a Mozart opera, and the CSO? How about two Mozart operas with a favorite conductor? Ravinia Festival’s offering two performances each of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito this summer, both in the venerable Martin Theatre with sound (no video) to the lawn. Former Ravinia music director James Conlon (longtime music director and principal force at LA Opera) returns to the leafy venue to conduct. The Don Giovanni cast includes baritone Lucas Meachem as the predatory title character, bass-baritone Craig Colclough as his hapless servant Leporello, and soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Donna Anna, one of his many outraged prey. La clemenza di Tito features two of Chicago’s own opera superstars: tenor Matthew Polenzani as the Roman emperor of the title and soprano Janai Brugger as Servilia, the woman he would make his reluctant queen. The orchestra will be on stage with the singers. Metra’s Union Pacific North line is offering free transportation to and from Ravinia concerts this summer for passengers with concert tickets. Don Giovanni, Thu 8/11 7 PM, and Sat 8/13 1 PM; La clemenza di Tito, Fri 8/12 7 PM and Sun 8/14 1 PM; Martin Theatre seats $125-$140; lawn admission $15; ravinia.org. Public gates open two hours prior to performance.  

Read More

There’s a whole lot of story in history. And so much depends on the perspective of the storyteller.  

What, for example, will the future think it knows of our fraught time? What will be included? What will be omitted? What will be the spin on events like the war in Ukraine or the 2020 presidential election?

Miriam Thaggert has been thinking about this sort of thing since a visit to the Newberry Library’s vast Pullman Company archives in 2014 sent her on a long detour through 19th- and early 20th-century American history. Thaggert, now a literature professor at SUNY Buffalo, had been skimming through the employee records of the famous all-male, all-Black Pullman Company porters for a book she was planning, when she stumbled on something she didn’t expect: an application from a woman. 

It set her off on a different track.

“I had never heard of Pullman maids before,” Thaggert says, but that was the position this woman was seeking. “It made me start to think about what the experiences of Black women in that company might have been like. And that led to questions about the experience of other Black women on the railroad,” passengers as well as workers.

The result, after a return to the Newberry in 2015 for an academic year fellowship and much additional research, is Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad, published this month by University of Illinois Press.

“One of the things I’m hoping to get people to think about is the national narrative we tell about the railroad,” Thaggert says.  

Looking mostly at the years between 1860 and 1925, Thaggert found that railroad travel, romanticized by countless white male writers, was a very different experience for Black women, who were often forced to ride in Jim Crow cars even if they’d paid for first class tickets. (Ida B. Wells sued twice over this.) As passengers at that time—“a period of intense racial activity when Black political and economic advancements precipitated widespread violence against Blacks”—Thaggert writes, they had to worry about possible verbal or physical assaults by other passengers or even by the all-white conductors. Any kind of fuss could lead to ejection from the train or a trip to jail. 

“America’s valued progress narrative, a story so often symbolized by the railroad,” is challenged by the experience of Black women, Thaggert wound up writing. “The nation’s mechanical trajectory ‘forward’ has, embedded within it, the retrenchment of African American social progress.”

Thaggert has curated an exhibit, “Handmaidens for Travelers: The Pullman Company Maids,” on view at the Newberry through September 16. A concise walk through a central chapter of the book, it’s a chance to see actual documents from the archive. These include a page from the company’s detailed Instructions for Maids (No wearing of rouge or powder!), and advertising photographs that show pampered white patrons getting manicures and hairstyles en route.      

On June 29, Thaggert will be back at the Newberry for the Riding Jane Crow book launch and a discussion with University of Pennsylvania history professor Mia Bay, whose own book, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance, recently won the 2022 Bancroft Prize in history. It’s free and open to the public.

Also, after a three-year COVID suspension, the Newberry’s annual used book fair—the major event of the summer for bargain-hunting bibliophiles—is back. Scheduled for July 29-31, with free admission and “many items priced at $3 or less,” it’ll be smaller than pre-COVID fairs due, in part, to a shorter collection period. But “smaller” is relative: 30,000 to 40,000 books will be offered in the usual dozens of categories, including lots of cooking, history, and fiction.

In conjunction with the book sale, the Newberry’s hosting “a day of storytelling” across the street in Bughouse Square (Washington Park), Saturday, July 30. Celebrating “the power of storytelling and its role in shaping our city,” it’ll include storytellers like Chicago Youth Poet Laureate E’mon Lauren, Lily Be, and Vincent Romero, as well as Dawn Turner, who’ll be receiving the Newberry’s inaugural Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award for her memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville.

If you’re moved to tell your own story, there’ll be a public open mike. You can also drop in on a performance of 100 Novels by artist Tim Youd, who’s been traveling for a decade, retyping the work of famous authors in locations relevant to the books. Youd will be retyping Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm at the Newberry (where Algren researched the book) from July 26 through August 12. He’ll type the entire novel on a single piece of paper, backed by a second sheet of paper, both of which will then be mounted as art objects. There’s a tale looking for a teller there.

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“I like to go for anything that draws attention and is kinda funky and out there,” says 20-year-old Joey Prette, already a senior stylist at Free People and a musical theater student at Roosevelt University. “Usually I’d be wearing my flower earrings, but I forgot them today,” they say while sporting green, their favorite color. 

Prette likes to thrift and shop at small boutiques such as Big Bud Press, where they got their wide-legged mushroom pants. “They scream ‘me’ and who I am as a person,” they say, adding that mushrooms are really cool and edgy right now. 

Credit: Isa Giallorenzo

True words indeed. An aesthetic being dubbed “weird girl,” or, better yet, “weird person,” is really happening at the moment, and Prette might be channeling it by favoring the trend’s motif du jour. 

Prette’s style has an added charm provided by their monochromatic color choices, making their look pleasantly offbeat. “I love color. If I decide to wear blue, I wear all blue, and pair it with some fun patterns and accessories,” they say.

Another indicator that Prette embodies the now: they ignore gender norms when choosing their outfits, and they claim to wear platforms and heels all the time. “I don’t really shop in the men’s section anywhere, and it shouldn’t matter,” they say. True words indeed.

white platforms Credit: Isa Giallorenzo

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Summer is officially here, in case the sweat and lightning bugs weren’t enough of a clue. In addition to the shows and artists we profiled in our summer arts preview issue this week, we’ve got just a few suggestions for other offerings in theater, dance, and opera that look promising—whether you’re looking for a nice air-conditioned theater or a bucolic outdoor setting. 

THEATER PICKS (Kerry Reid)

It Came From Outer Space

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So Hamlet knew about aliens, is what we take away from that. And therefore, it makes perfect sense that Chicago Shakespeare is premiering this musical by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, based on the 1953 sci-fi film. The company offered a digital sneak peek, entitled We Are Out There, last year; now you can see it live at Navy Pier (where, let’s face it, aliens would blend perfectly most days). Laura Braza directs a cast that includes Jonathan Butler-Duplessis, Ann Delaney, and Alex Goodrich. Through 6/24, Chicago Shakespeare, 800 E. Grand, chicagoshakes.com, $50-$60.

Pearl’s Rollin’ with the Blues: A Night with Felicia P. Fields

Fields, one of the bona fide greats in Chicago theater, takes over Writers Theatre in this world premiere, which she created in collaboration with director Ron OJ Parson. (The two previously worked together at Writers in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2019.) Fields delivers blues classics by Big Mama Thornton, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, and others, backed by a band headed up by Chic Street Man, as she tells the story of how the blues have influenced her life and career. 6/23-7/24, Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, writerstheatre.org, $35-$90.

Get Out Alive

Haven Chicago presents a new “multidisciplinary afrogoth” musical by Nikki Lynette that draws on her own experiences dealing with abuse, trauma, and the mental health system. Roger Ellis and Lucky Stiff co-direct, and the cast, in addition to Lynette, features DJ P1, Keeley Morris, and Jacinda Ratcliffe. Over ten years ago, Jessica Hopper wrote in the Reader that “it’s unfair that Chicago MC Nikki Lynette is hip-hop’s other Nikki. Not that there should be just one, or that Nicki Minaj doesn’t deserve her celebrity, but Lynette certainly has what it takes to compete with all the singing-and-dancing rappers who are already getting over on quirk, hooks, and charismatic flow,” adding, “The city should be proud to call her its own, but given that Chicago is where hip-hop careers go to die, let’s hope she gets the hell out.” She’s obviously stayed and survived, and has some stories to tell us about that. Lynette has also adapted the musical into a film that has been making the festival rounds. 7/8-8/6, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, havenchi.org, pay what you can previews 7/8-7/10, regular run $36 ($46 reserved table, industry $31, students $21).

Nikki Lynette in Get Out Alive

2nd Annual BIPOC Play Fest

Perceptions Theatre started life at the beginning of the pandemicwith a strong focus on digital content and new work, as well as with a playreading club. They’re ready to go live with the second iteration of this festival, which will also offer a streaming option for those who find that more convenient. The lineup includes Carlo Zenner’s Mess, about “a Queer Latinx Chicagoan grappling with the disorienting effects of quarantine” and “the pleasures and pains of casual dating”; The Voice Inside My Head by Louis Johnson, in which a middle-aged Black man gunned down by the police reflects in the afterlife upon his accomplishments and the outrage unleashed by his murder; Was It Me? by Andrea J. Fulton, an excerpt from a larger play about Margo, a 49-year-old woman confronting the effects of childhood trauma on the eve of a birthday reunion with old friends; and Kingdom by Nic Bell, an absurdist short work that focuses on “family, duty, free will, and the inevitability of fate.” 7/9-7/10, Studio 2226 Inc., 2226 E. 71st, perceptionstheatre.org for more information and reservations. 

The Devil Wears Prada

Cruella De Vil or Miranda Priestly: who’s the scariest of them all? OK, Miranda didn’t want to make couture out of canines, but as depicted by Meryl Streep in the 2006 film, she’s become cemented in popular imagination as the Lady-Boss from Hell. Now a new high-profile musical based on Lauren Weisberger’s book about the cutthroat world of fashion hits the runway in Chicago before heading to Broadway. Sir Elton John wrote the score, with lyrics by Shaina Taub and a book by Kate Wetherhead. Former Steppenwolf artistic director Anna D. Shapiro directs (her first time helming a musical), and the show stars Beth Leavel as Miranda and Taylor Iman Jones as her besieged assistant, Andy Sachs. Will a show about abusive bosses feel the same in a post-Scott Rudin landscape? You can be among the first to find out! 7/19-8/21, James M. Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, broadwayinchicago.com, $33-$110.

Campaigns, Inc.

Just in time for midterms, TimeLine pulls back the curtain on the history of campaign spin with the world premiere of Will Allan’s play, directed by Nick Bowling. Based on the true story of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker, who formed the first political consulting firm in U.S. history, Allan’s comedy offers a perhaps-too-late cautionary tale about propaganda (aka “fake news”) through the lens of the married couple who torpedoed author Upton Sinclair’s (The Jungle) chances to become the first Democratic governor of California in 1934. Whitaker and Baxter pioneered the use of direct mail and ad buys to win the hearts and minds of voters, and also deployed oppositional research that allowed them to cherry-pick quotes to put Sinclair (who actually was a socialist) in the worst possible light. Oh, thank god those days are behind us, huh? The company returns to their longtime Lakeview home for this season—the last before they move into their new spiffy Uptown digs. 8/3-9/18, TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington, timelinetheatre.com.

DANCE PICKS (Irene Hsiao)

New Dances

New Dances returns to the stage, continuing a tradition of bringing Chicago dancers and choreographers together for a rapid-fire period of creative development. Inaugurated 39 years ago by Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble, and now in its 21st season under the auspices of Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago, this year features new works by Kaleigh Dent, Brandon DiCriscio, Trey Johnson, MurdaMommy, Marco Pizano, and Taylor Yocum.

“In viewing the works in process over these past few weeks, I see exceptional facets of thought, depth, and intent on the part of the choreographers,” says Melissa Thodos, artistic director of TDC. “It is as if this diverse group of works were growing, seasoning, and gestating in each of the artists’ minds and beings over these past challenging years.”

“Being able to create dance again in person has been jarring and exciting,” says Pizano, whose work combines pedestrian movement with vogue aesthetics. “It has been mind-blowing to see how far [we] pushed our bodies,” says MurdaMommy, who trained her cast in Chicago footwork. “New Dances has been a wonderful experience of making new connections in the Chicago dance community, renewing old ones, and getting deeper in touch with my choreographic voice,” says DiCriscio, who describes his work as “a story of intimate worlds destined to collide, indirectly influenced by a drifting external force.” 6/23-6/25, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, danceworkschicago.org, thodosdancechicago.org, $30.

Artist Showcase, Mandala Makers Festival 

The Mandala Makers Festival presents a colossal lineup of South Asian dance, music, poetry, comedy, and drag at Indian Boundary Park, near Mandala South Asian Performing Arts’s new home on Devon Avenue. In addition to contemporary works based on classical Bharatanatyam, “the festival also showcases less common forms embedded in South Asian arts, such as Sufi dances, Odissi, and forms from the Caribbean diaspora,” says Mandala associate artistic director Ashwaty Chennat, who curated the event. 

Self-reflection and the persistence of change are themes of some works featured. “Prakriti II continues our dialogue about our relationship to the divisiveness we see in this world,” says Ishti Collective cofounder Kinnari Vora. “It is through movement that we express the ways in which we can cope and move forward. We explore ways to pause and heal, reach for grounding strength, listen and open our minds, shed our egos, bring brevity and find joy in little things and seek empathy and kindness.” 

On remounting the 2014 work She Cannot, Soham Dance Space artistic director Anjal Chande says, “It’s mysterious how the body remembers movements, intentions, associations, while the body also persistently evolves.” June 24-26, Indian Boundary Park, 2500 W. Lunt, mandalaarts.org, free.

Emperor of all he surveys: Matthew Polenzani appears in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at Ravinia in August. Courtesy the artist.

OPERA (Deanna Isaacs)

Ravinia Festival Operas

What could be better than moonlight, a Mozart opera, and the CSO? How about two Mozart operas with a favorite conductor? Ravinia Festival’s offering two performances each of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito this summer, both in the venerable Martin Theatre with sound (no video) to the lawn. Former Ravinia music director James Conlon (longtime music director and principal force at LA Opera) returns to the leafy venue to conduct. The Don Giovanni cast includes baritone Lucas Meachem as the predatory title character, bass-baritone Craig Colclough as his hapless servant Leporello, and soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Donna Anna, one of his many outraged prey. La clemenza di Tito features two of Chicago’s own opera superstars: tenor Matthew Polenzani as the Roman emperor of the title and soprano Janai Brugger as Servilia, the woman he would make his reluctant queen. The orchestra will be on stage with the singers. Metra’s Union Pacific North line is offering free transportation to and from Ravinia concerts this summer for passengers with concert tickets. Don Giovanni, Thu 8/11 7 PM, and Sat 8/13 1 PM; La clemenza di Tito, Fri 8/12 7 PM and Sun 8/14 1 PM; Martin Theatre seats $125-$140; lawn admission $15; ravinia.org. Public gates open two hours prior to performance.  

Read More

There’s a whole lot of story in history. And so much depends on the perspective of the storyteller.  

What, for example, will the future think it knows of our fraught time? What will be included? What will be omitted? What will be the spin on events like the war in Ukraine or the 2020 presidential election?

Miriam Thaggert has been thinking about this sort of thing since a visit to the Newberry Library’s vast Pullman Company archives in 2014 sent her on a long detour through 19th- and early 20th-century American history. Thaggert, now a literature professor at SUNY Buffalo, had been skimming through the employee records of the famous all-male, all-Black Pullman Company porters for a book she was planning, when she stumbled on something she didn’t expect: an application from a woman. 

It set her off on a different track.

“I had never heard of Pullman maids before,” Thaggert says, but that was the position this woman was seeking. “It made me start to think about what the experiences of Black women in that company might have been like. And that led to questions about the experience of other Black women on the railroad,” passengers as well as workers.

The result, after a return to the Newberry in 2015 for an academic year fellowship and much additional research, is Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad, published this month by University of Illinois Press.

“One of the things I’m hoping to get people to think about is the national narrative we tell about the railroad,” Thaggert says.  

Looking mostly at the years between 1860 and 1925, Thaggert found that railroad travel, romanticized by countless white male writers, was a very different experience for Black women, who were often forced to ride in Jim Crow cars even if they’d paid for first class tickets. (Ida B. Wells sued twice over this.) As passengers at that time—“a period of intense racial activity when Black political and economic advancements precipitated widespread violence against Blacks”—Thaggert writes, they had to worry about possible verbal or physical assaults by other passengers or even by the all-white conductors. Any kind of fuss could lead to ejection from the train or a trip to jail. 

“America’s valued progress narrative, a story so often symbolized by the railroad,” is challenged by the experience of Black women, Thaggert wound up writing. “The nation’s mechanical trajectory ‘forward’ has, embedded within it, the retrenchment of African American social progress.”

Thaggert has curated an exhibit, “Handmaidens for Travelers: The Pullman Company Maids,” on view at the Newberry through September 16. A concise walk through a central chapter of the book, it’s a chance to see actual documents from the archive. These include a page from the company’s detailed Instructions for Maids (No wearing of rouge or powder!), and advertising photographs that show pampered white patrons getting manicures and hairstyles en route.      

On June 29, Thaggert will be back at the Newberry for the Riding Jane Crow book launch and a discussion with University of Pennsylvania history professor Mia Bay, whose own book, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance, recently won the 2022 Bancroft Prize in history. It’s free and open to the public.

Also, after a three-year COVID suspension, the Newberry’s annual used book fair—the major event of the summer for bargain-hunting bibliophiles—is back. Scheduled for July 29-31, with free admission and “many items priced at $3 or less,” it’ll be smaller than pre-COVID fairs due, in part, to a shorter collection period. But “smaller” is relative: 30,000 to 40,000 books will be offered in the usual dozens of categories, including lots of cooking, history, and fiction.

In conjunction with the book sale, the Newberry’s hosting “a day of storytelling” across the street in Bughouse Square (Washington Park), Saturday, July 30. Celebrating “the power of storytelling and its role in shaping our city,” it’ll include storytellers like Chicago Youth Poet Laureate E’mon Lauren, Lily Be, and Vincent Romero, as well as Dawn Turner, who’ll be receiving the Newberry’s inaugural Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award for her memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville.

If you’re moved to tell your own story, there’ll be a public open mike. You can also drop in on a performance of 100 Novels by artist Tim Youd, who’s been traveling for a decade, retyping the work of famous authors in locations relevant to the books. Youd will be retyping Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm at the Newberry (where Algren researched the book) from July 26 through August 12. He’ll type the entire novel on a single piece of paper, backed by a second sheet of paper, both of which will then be mounted as art objects. There’s a tale looking for a teller there.

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“I like to go for anything that draws attention and is kinda funky and out there,” says 20-year-old Joey Prette, already a senior stylist at Free People and a musical theater student at Roosevelt University. “Usually I’d be wearing my flower earrings, but I forgot them today,” they say while sporting green, their favorite color. 

Prette likes to thrift and shop at small boutiques such as Big Bud Press, where they got their wide-legged mushroom pants. “They scream ‘me’ and who I am as a person,” they say, adding that mushrooms are really cool and edgy right now. 

Credit: Isa Giallorenzo

True words indeed. An aesthetic being dubbed “weird girl,” or, better yet, “weird person,” is really happening at the moment, and Prette might be channeling it by favoring the trend’s motif du jour. 

Prette’s style has an added charm provided by their monochromatic color choices, making their look pleasantly offbeat. “I love color. If I decide to wear blue, I wear all blue, and pair it with some fun patterns and accessories,” they say.

Another indicator that Prette embodies the now: they ignore gender norms when choosing their outfits, and they claim to wear platforms and heels all the time. “I don’t really shop in the men’s section anywhere, and it shouldn’t matter,” they say. True words indeed.

white platforms Credit: Isa Giallorenzo

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