Illinois news

• Theo lights up a new Asian American musical with Baked!

  21-09-2023 23:26 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Happily ever after for an Asian American high school girl isn’t getting the captain of the football team to take you to prom—it’s getting into Harvard. So let’s get one thing straight from the jump: Jane Huang, a Chinese American girl from Minnesota Valley (a midwestern town that is not in the state of Minnesota), […]
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• Oikos Hosts Conference, Honors Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

  21-09-2023 20:53
  
  Drs. Reginald Blount and Sidney Williams realized, not long ago, that there was a different way for churches to operate and thrive by identifying their assets and using them to create social impact.
  With the determination to take their vision to churches across the country, Drs. Blount and Williams founded the Oikos Institute for Social Impact. Oikos will host a national conference, September 21-22, 2023, in Chicago, IL, to inform and guide leaders of churches on their concept for church growth
  
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• Rapper and fashion mogul ​​Reese LaFlare is on his way to becoming a household name

  21-09-2023 17:30 via chicagoreader.com
  
  According to the man himself, Reese LaFlare doesn’t get the credit he deserves—but the way things are going, that could change any minute. The rapper and record producer also known as Maurice Williams has been a more influential force in the modern Atlanta trap scene than many have noticed. He was experimenting with cadence, harmony, […]
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• You won’t be my neighbor

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  “Well, look who’s come to dinner!” bellows Gerald (Ronald L. Conner) to the neighbors he and wife Patricia (Sydney Charles) have invited to their home in Inda Craig-Galván’s WELCOME TO MATTESON! But the neighbors here aren’t white or interracial, and nobody’s trying to marry anyone else’s daughter. That aside, the parallels to Guess Who’s Coming […]
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• The room where it happens, again

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  At this point, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is beyond critic-proof. (Once you’ve had an entire episode of Drunk History dedicated to your recap of the events in your musical, what else is there to achieve?) But for the fanatics and newbies alike, I’m happy to report that the current Broadway in Chicago touring production of the […]
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• Revolution offers small revelations

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Chicago playwright Brett Neveu is so good at writing about the darker side of life (as in his 2002 play Eric LaRue, now a film directed by Michael Shannon, his fellow ensemble member at A Red Orchid Theatre) that it’s hard to remember how flat-out hilarious he can be. If you need proof, look no […]
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• Never trust the tyrants

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Though it’s based loosely on a real story, John Webster’s Jacobean revenge tragedy The Duchess of Malfi plays like a cross between torture porn and Shakespeare, what with the piling up of butchered bodies, hints of incestuous longing, and even a touch of lycanthropy thrown in for good measure. The Duchess of MalfiThrough 10/21: Thu-Sat […]
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• Lighting up the years

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Noah Haidle’s play got absolutely savaged in New York, with the critics’ main objection being that the story of a family over time had already been told in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and The Long Christmas Dinner. Apparently they’d never heard that there are only seven plots in the world. In any case, I could […]
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• How do Delaney Bailey’s intimate songs speak to you?

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The earliest Spotify track uploaded by Indiana-raised singer-songwriter Delaney Bailey is the gentle 2020 song “Loving & Losing,” whose delicate, cycling acoustic guitar melody sounds like wind chimes in the breeze. Before the official release of the song, Bailey uploaded a TikTok video where she performs part of it in a dim, cluttered room. Lyrics […]
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• Harlem stories

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  I don’t know who came up with the idea of a Pearl Cleage festival for Chicago theater, but based on Mikael Burke’s gorgeous production of the Atlanta poet laureate’s 1995 drama, Blues for an Alabama Sky, I’m glad they did. (Goodman Theatre’s staging of Cleage’s comedy The Nacirema Society is in previews now.) Blues for […]
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• Collective power

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  From 1969 to 1973, a Chicago-based organization known by the code name “Jane” brought safe and accessible abortions to more than 10,000 women. Paula Kamen’s Jane: Abortion and the Underground gives voice to the women who ran the resistance collective, risking their freedom to champion the right to choose. Director Morgan Manasa and Idle Muse’s […]
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• Big songs, too much story

  21-09-2023 17:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  When people talk about the glory years of Chicago theater they rarely mention Jim Cartwright’s The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. After opening in London’s West End in 1992, with Jane Horrocks in the title role, it was done at Steppenwolf in 1993 (with Hynden Walch as Little Voice) and was later transferred to […]
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• People For the American Way Applauds the Reintroduction of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act 

  21-09-2023 16:46
  Following this week’s reintroduction of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, People For the American Way President Svante Myrick released the following statement: 
   
  “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is an essential piece of legislation that reinstates key provisions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court ten years ago in their Shelby County v. Holder decision. We applaud Representative Sewell and all of the cosponsors as the VRAA is
  
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• Black Women Childcare Providers Face Peril as COVID-Era Funding Expires

  21-09-2023 16:30
  
  Kiley Russell, founder of Kemit Academy in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood (Photo Provided).
  By Nicole Jeanine Johnson
  Rosia Watson has been in the childcare industry for nearly 25 years. She’s watched generations of children go from learning to walk to walking across stages at graduations. 
  “I do it for the love of the children and their parents.” 
  Watson prides herself on the quality of care she offers her children. Before starting her Englewood-based home ch
  
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• Season of plenty

  21-09-2023 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Despite rumors of its demise, live performance is still happening in abundance on Chicago stages this season. Here are just a few suggestions in opera, dance, theater, and comedy to consider in the months ahead. And as always, be sure to check out our updated reviews and features every week for the latest comprehensive coverage. […]
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• Bears Coordinator Alan Williams Resigns to Address Health and Family

  21-09-2023 15:30
  
  Fresh off two straight losses to begin the season, the Chicago Bears incurred another loss four days before their third game of the season. 
  The team announced that Alan Williams resigned as the defensive coordinator to focus on his health and family.
  Williams’ sudden resignation comes after he stepped away from the team when they played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week. 
  But his resignation was not without wild speculation.  
  On Wednesday, rumors swirled that the FBI
  
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• This Week In Black History Sept. 20-26, 2023

  21-09-2023 15:00
  
  This Jan. 26, 1965 file photo shows Mildred Loving and her husband Richard P Loving. (AP Photo, File)
  SEPTEMBER 20
  1664—Maryland enacts the nation’s first “Anti-Amalgamation Law.” It spe­cifically outlawed marriages between Black men and White women. Soon, several other colonies followed the Maryland example. It would not be until the 1960s that U.S. Supreme Court in the famous Loving v. Virginia case declared all such laws un-Constitution­al. And even though it w
  
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• ‘Horrifying’: Band Director Tased By Police For Not Stopping Performance

  21-09-2023 14:30
  
  Photo: Birmingham Police Department
  A high school band director in Alabama was tased and arrested for letting his students perform after a football game, CBS News reports.
  Johnny Mims, band director at Minor High School in Adamsville, was leading a performance in the bleachers after a football game against Jackson-Olin High School last week before the incident occurred. Both high school bands partook in the “fifth quarter” performance, which is an HBCU marching band tradition where s
  
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• Black Texas Student Suspended Again Over Locs Despite Crown Act

  21-09-2023 14:00
  
  Photo: AaronAmat / iStock / Getty Images
  The Black student who was suspended from a Texas high school over his locs received another suspension on Monday (September 19). Allie Booker, the attorney representing the family of 17-year-old Darryl George, told CNN the boy was suspended for over two weeks after his hairstyle violated Barbers Hill Independent School District’s dress and grooming code.
  The code prohibits male students from having hair that extends “below the eyebrows or belo
  
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• Dying while in the county’s care

  21-09-2023 04:32 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Tyler Spratt had a smile for everyone. He’d spin tales with loved ones, trying to get them to bite, and, when they’d discover the ruse, he’d let out a laugh. Spratt was warm and loving, his obituary notes, particularly with his nephew and younger cousins. He took pride in his job as a chef—the 28-year-old, […]
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