A murder trial transcript that went missing, not to be found until 2004—decades after the murder of Emmett Till. The Black Chicago teen whose unfathomable death in 1955 sparked the Civil Rights Movement didn’t get justice through a broken court system. Now, decades later, audiences can witness scenes from the murder trial of Till’s killers for themselves. This adaptation by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round was originally presented as a teleplay last February, in partnership with NBC5 and anchor Marion Brooks. That production won a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.

Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till Through 2/19: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Sun 3 PM, DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., collaboraction.org, $30-$55

Collaboraction artistic director Anthony Moseley, in his preshow speech for the live stage version on opening night, said roughly 2,000 people will witness this world premiere production. Suddenly that number felt altogether too small. Every person who can see this show should see this show. 

Distracting jury projection transitions aside, Trial in the Delta is an infuriating, painstaking piece of theater. Witnesses walk from the audience into the courtroom in each scene, making their way through the room full of onlookers. Your eyes can’t help but drift stage left to witness Kayla Franklin’s Mamie Till-Bradley sitting solemnly throughout the testimonies. My companion noted that the work would be invaluable teaching material for students learning about Emmett Till. The transcript reveals so much of the hateful rhetoric that took place within the court that shines a much-needed light on how whitewashed history can become without firsthand source material. 

Given the nature of this work, the ensemble holds steadfast to their roles as real people plucked from history. Collaboraction, even in this very limited run, has given Chicago a gift. Emmett and his family never really got the justice they deserved, but work like this will ensure that history does not forget. 

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A murder trial transcript that went missing, not to be found until 2004—decades after the murder of Emmett Till. The Black Chicago teen whose unfathomable death in 1955 sparked the Civil Rights Movement didn’t get justice through a broken court system. Now, decades later, audiences can witness scenes from the murder trial of Till’s killers for themselves. This adaptation by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round was originally presented as a teleplay last February, in partnership with NBC5 and anchor Marion Brooks. That production won a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.

Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till Through 2/19: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Sun 3 PM, DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., collaboraction.org, $30-$55

Collaboraction artistic director Anthony Moseley, in his preshow speech for the live stage version on opening night, said roughly 2,000 people will witness this world premiere production. Suddenly that number felt altogether too small. Every person who can see this show should see this show. 

Distracting jury projection transitions aside, Trial in the Delta is an infuriating, painstaking piece of theater. Witnesses walk from the audience into the courtroom in each scene, making their way through the room full of onlookers. Your eyes can’t help but drift stage left to witness Kayla Franklin’s Mamie Till-Bradley sitting solemnly throughout the testimonies. My companion noted that the work would be invaluable teaching material for students learning about Emmett Till. The transcript reveals so much of the hateful rhetoric that took place within the court that shines a much-needed light on how whitewashed history can become without firsthand source material. 

Given the nature of this work, the ensemble holds steadfast to their roles as real people plucked from history. Collaboraction, even in this very limited run, has given Chicago a gift. Emmett and his family never really got the justice they deserved, but work like this will ensure that history does not forget. 

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Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical Into the Woods premiered three years before Robert Bly’s Iron John sent men into the wilderness as part of the “mythopoetic men’s movement,” complete with sweat lodges, drum circles, chanting, and other rituals designed to restore a pre-industrialization notion of masculinity, combined with Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” narratives. The musical seems to have outlasted the Iron John fad, and I don’t think it’s just because it’s one of the more accessible works in the Sondheim canon.

Sure, it’s based on familiar fairy tales, including the stories of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk, into which book writer Lapine wove the original story of a childless couple: the Baker and the Baker’s Wife. The couple’s desire to placate the next-door witch by obtaining four items (a red cloak, hair as gold as cornsilk, a silver slipper . . . well, you see where this is going) is what sends them to the forest, where—at least in the first act—permanent magic seems to overcome temporary darkness. Grandmothers pop up out of the innards of wolves, none the worse for wear. Princesses find their princes. A simple lad slays a giant after stealing his gold (and gets his dead cow restored to him, to boot). And a man and a woman finally get a baby.

Then the second act happens, and all hell (embodied as the widow of the slain giant) breaks loose.

Into the Woods Through 3/19: Wed 1:30 and 7 PM, Thu 7 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5:30 PM; open and closed captions Wed 3/15 7 PM, ASL interpretation Fri 3/17; Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora, 630-896-6666, paramountaurora.com, $28-$79

But in watching the gorgeous revival of Into the Woods now onstage at Paramount Theatre in Aurora, new resonances and nuances I’ve not fully appreciated before came into view. Codirectors Jim Corti and Trent Stork certainly use the large stage and 16-piece orchestra to good effect: Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s scenic design, José Santiago’s lights, Paul Deziel’s projections, and Jordan Ross’s costumes look lush and fantastical (with special kudos to puppet designer Jesse Mooney-Bullock for creating Milky White, Jack’s beloved cow, and an astonishing horse ridden by Cinderella’s Prince). Kory Danielson’s musical direction is crisp, and Kasey Alfonso’s choreography manages to be both intimate and expansive as needed.

So on one level, it’s a cunning riposte to fairy-tale notions of happily ever after. But that’s far too easy a bar to clear. What I felt bubbling along under the surface throughout Paramount’s production was a quiet but urgent question that has only grown more important in recent years: in a society addicted to individualism, what do we owe to each other as members of a community, even when overcome with personal grief and loss?

Natalie Weiss’s Witch, whose long-ago curse is the catalyst for the journeys all the other characters take, is also the harsh conscience of the tale, particularly in “The Last Midnight” and “Children Will Listen.” In the former, she challenges the survivors of the giantess to face their own greed and selfishness. “No, of course what really matters/Is the blame/Somebody to blame.” (In the case of the Iron John movement, contemporary feminism came under attack as depriving men of their primordial purpose.)

A community built on transactionality, as we see in the first act, is ill-equipped for altruism. Or, as Larry Yando’s wry Narrator tells us, “These were not people familiar with making choices.” I know it’s cliche as hell to keep viewing theater through a pandemic lens, but that line hit me, as did so many other moments, as an encapsulation of what happens when people’s comfortable assumptions about how life should unfold run headfirst into unpleasant realities beyond their control.

This isn’t an overtly political rendering of the musical—that would be entirely tedious and tendentious. But it is a staging that, through both the strength of the performances and the spectacle of the setting, asks us to consider who we are in relation to each other, even (or especially) when we’ve been traumatized. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, but I especially enjoyed newcomer Will Koski’s naive Jack, Stephen Schellhardt and Sarah Bockel’s Baker and Baker’s Wife (so infused with a love that has matured into something neither quite recognizes until too late), Lucy Panush’s tough-girl Little Red, and (for pure comic relief) Alex Syiek’s glam-rock Wolf. Syiek is also excellent as Cinderella’s Prince, a fatuous man whose habit of looking backward before exiting the stage quietly illustrates how he’s torn between the comforts he knows and the new infatuations he craves. 

Into the Woods reminds us that we don’t need to go out of our way to find rituals for growth. The woods are everywhere. Getting through life is its own ritual. At some point, we decide if we’re the infallible heroes of our own story, bent on our mortal ambitions, or part of a larger ecosystem of flawed people coming to realize that “No One Is Alone.”

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Producing a commentary on the Internet is typically an exercise in redundancy, tasked with avoiding tropes beaten into media by shows like Black Mirror or 13 Reasons Why. At this point, we clearly understand that we live inseparably from our digital footprints as we inadvertently document our own legacies. Despite the risk of redundancy, the Raven Theatre’s Right To Be Forgotten delivers a compelling perspective on our right to control our privacy, narrowing in on a single story about forgiveness.

Right To Be Forgotten Through 3/26: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; closed captions Sun 3/5, touch tour Sun 3/12 1:30 PM (prior to 3 PM show); Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark, 773-338-2177, raventheatre.com, $40 (students, active military, and veterans $15)

Derril Lark, played by Adam Shalzi, made a mistake at 17 when he persistently pursued and borderline stalked his high school crush. His indiscretion is documented by an Internet blog that mutates his legacy for years, cementing his name as the scapegoat for a much larger problem. Over a decade later, Lark feels desperate to escape his digital footprint—the version of himself that lives online—but cannot overcome the tech giants’ policies against the right to be forgotten. 

To clear his name, Lark implores energized, cynical lawyer Marta Lee, brilliantly played by Susaan Jamshidi, to support his case. However, Marta’s battle extends beyond Lark. Unwittingly, Lark becomes Marta’s key player in finally defeating the tech giants, represented by her ideological nemesis Annie Zahirovic, played by Lucy Carapetyan. Suddenly, the frame of the play widens, and Right To Be Forgotten captures a titanic clash between opposing tech lawyers, whose battle only marginally concerns Lark (to his detriment). 

With secrets, twists, and complex questions, Sharyn Rothstein’s script (directed by Sarah Gitenstein) feels more inspired by 70s paranoia thrillers than contemporary Internet dramas as Lark moves helplessly against the nameless tech giants. Despite losing momentum during its final moments, Right To Be Forgotten is likely to be remembered, especially thanks to the cast’s captivating performances. 

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Like most speculative fiction (and every original Star Trek episode), Ezekiel’s Wheel is a fable: a story whose moral applies to circumstances other than those being described. Determining whether that moral is “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” or “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything,” or even “We have met the enemy and he is us” is one of the many pleasures of MPAACT’s world premiere of Addae Moon’s play.

Ezekiel’s Wheel Through 3/5: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, greenhousetheater.org, $34-$37

“Pleasure” might seem an odd descriptor for the piece, whose dystopian premise is that a conflagration has left Georgia divided into The Province, a 1984-style dictatorship, and the Insurgents, who maintain the customs and beliefs of a past The Province denies ever existed.  Those beliefs include faith in prophecy by any person born with a caul over his face, including our titular character. 

To say more about the plot would spoil the fun, but director Lauren “LL” Lundy manages to create a world well worth immersing yourself in. Her casting is impeccable: the evil Chancellor is portrayed by Andrew Malone with a creepy bonhomie featuring a Mao-like smile that has nothing to do with good humor. As Baba, the father of Ezekiel and his unprophetic brother Andrew, Darren Jones embodies all the earned wisdom of a lifetime, while Noelle Klyce as the sergeant who keeps him captive beautifully conveys the ambivalence of every prison guard who is still a human being. Jordan Gleaves, as the prophet who doesn’t understand his own visions, and Tamarus Harvell, as the brother who doesn’t believe them until it’s too late, round out the excellent cast.

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Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical Into the Woods premiered three years before Robert Bly’s Iron John sent men into the wilderness as part of the “mythopoetic men’s movement,” complete with sweat lodges, drum circles, chanting, and other rituals designed to restore a pre-industrialization notion of masculinity, combined with Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” narratives. The musical seems to have outlasted the Iron John fad, and I don’t think it’s just because it’s one of the more accessible works in the Sondheim canon.

Sure, it’s based on familiar fairy tales, including the stories of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk, into which book writer Lapine wove the original story of a childless couple: the Baker and the Baker’s Wife. The couple’s desire to placate the next-door witch by obtaining four items (a red cloak, hair as gold as cornsilk, a silver slipper . . . well, you see where this is going) is what sends them to the forest, where—at least in the first act—permanent magic seems to overcome temporary darkness. Grandmothers pop up out of the innards of wolves, none the worse for wear. Princesses find their princes. A simple lad slays a giant after stealing his gold (and gets his dead cow restored to him, to boot). And a man and a woman finally get a baby.

Then the second act happens, and all hell (embodied as the widow of the slain giant) breaks loose.

Into the Woods Through 3/19: Wed 1:30 and 7 PM, Thu 7 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5:30 PM; open and closed captions Wed 3/15 7 PM, ASL interpretation Fri 3/17; Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora, 630-896-6666, paramountaurora.com, $28-$79

But in watching the gorgeous revival of Into the Woods now onstage at Paramount Theatre in Aurora, new resonances and nuances I’ve not fully appreciated before came into view. Codirectors Jim Corti and Trent Stork certainly use the large stage and 16-piece orchestra to good effect: Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s scenic design, José Santiago’s lights, Paul Deziel’s projections, and Jordan Ross’s costumes look lush and fantastical (with special kudos to puppet designer Jesse Mooney-Bullock for creating Milky White, Jack’s beloved cow, and an astonishing horse ridden by Cinderella’s Prince). Kory Danielson’s musical direction is crisp, and Kasey Alfonso’s choreography manages to be both intimate and expansive as needed.

So on one level, it’s a cunning riposte to fairy-tale notions of happily ever after. But that’s far too easy a bar to clear. What I felt bubbling along under the surface throughout Paramount’s production was a quiet but urgent question that has only grown more important in recent years: in a society addicted to individualism, what do we owe to each other as members of a community, even when overcome with personal grief and loss?

Natalie Weiss’s Witch, whose long-ago curse is the catalyst for the journeys all the other characters take, is also the harsh conscience of the tale, particularly in “The Last Midnight” and “Children Will Listen.” In the former, she challenges the survivors of the giantess to face their own greed and selfishness. “No, of course what really matters/Is the blame/Somebody to blame.” (In the case of the Iron John movement, contemporary feminism came under attack as depriving men of their primordial purpose.)

A community built on transactionality, as we see in the first act, is ill-equipped for altruism. Or, as Larry Yando’s wry Narrator tells us, “These were not people familiar with making choices.” I know it’s cliche as hell to keep viewing theater through a pandemic lens, but that line hit me, as did so many other moments, as an encapsulation of what happens when people’s comfortable assumptions about how life should unfold run headfirst into unpleasant realities beyond their control.

This isn’t an overtly political rendering of the musical—that would be entirely tedious and tendentious. But it is a staging that, through both the strength of the performances and the spectacle of the setting, asks us to consider who we are in relation to each other, even (or especially) when we’ve been traumatized. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, but I especially enjoyed newcomer Will Koski’s naive Jack, Stephen Schellhardt and Sarah Bockel’s Baker and Baker’s Wife (so infused with a love that has matured into something neither quite recognizes until too late), Lucy Panush’s tough-girl Little Red, and (for pure comic relief) Alex Syiek’s glam-rock Wolf. Syiek is also excellent as Cinderella’s Prince, a fatuous man whose habit of looking backward before exiting the stage quietly illustrates how he’s torn between the comforts he knows and the new infatuations he craves. 

Into the Woods reminds us that we don’t need to go out of our way to find rituals for growth. The woods are everywhere. Getting through life is its own ritual. At some point, we decide if we’re the infallible heroes of our own story, bent on our mortal ambitions, or part of a larger ecosystem of flawed people coming to realize that “No One Is Alone.”

Read More

Producing a commentary on the Internet is typically an exercise in redundancy, tasked with avoiding tropes beaten into media by shows like Black Mirror or 13 Reasons Why. At this point, we clearly understand that we live inseparably from our digital footprints as we inadvertently document our own legacies. Despite the risk of redundancy, the Raven Theatre’s Right To Be Forgotten delivers a compelling perspective on our right to control our privacy, narrowing in on a single story about forgiveness.

Right To Be Forgotten Through 3/26: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; closed captions Sun 3/5, touch tour Sun 3/12 1:30 PM (prior to 3 PM show); Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark, 773-338-2177, raventheatre.com, $40 (students, active military, and veterans $15)

Derril Lark, played by Adam Shalzi, made a mistake at 17 when he persistently pursued and borderline stalked his high school crush. His indiscretion is documented by an Internet blog that mutates his legacy for years, cementing his name as the scapegoat for a much larger problem. Over a decade later, Lark feels desperate to escape his digital footprint—the version of himself that lives online—but cannot overcome the tech giants’ policies against the right to be forgotten. 

To clear his name, Lark implores energized, cynical lawyer Marta Lee, brilliantly played by Susaan Jamshidi, to support his case. However, Marta’s battle extends beyond Lark. Unwittingly, Lark becomes Marta’s key player in finally defeating the tech giants, represented by her ideological nemesis Annie Zahirovic, played by Lucy Carapetyan. Suddenly, the frame of the play widens, and Right To Be Forgotten captures a titanic clash between opposing tech lawyers, whose battle only marginally concerns Lark (to his detriment). 

With secrets, twists, and complex questions, Sharyn Rothstein’s script (directed by Sarah Gitenstein) feels more inspired by 70s paranoia thrillers than contemporary Internet dramas as Lark moves helplessly against the nameless tech giants. Despite losing momentum during its final moments, Right To Be Forgotten is likely to be remembered, especially thanks to the cast’s captivating performances. 

Read More