Theater

Artemisia’s World Premeire Goods Wins Two Kennedy Center Awards

Lauren Ferebee’s new play Goods, a sci-fi adventure about two intergalactic trash collectors receiving the 2021 Planet Earth Arts Playwrighting Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. The new play received its virtual world premiere May 5 and runs through May 30 via Chicago’s Artemisia Theatre.

The Planet Earth Arts Playwriting Award, created in partnership with the Planet Earth Arts Foundation, is given to plays that discuss sustainability and address the most urgent environmental and social justice issues of our time through the lens of arts and human creativity

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ArtsTheater

Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation Fastrack Second Wave of Grants to Chicago and South Carolina Arts Organizations

A year after its April 2020 announcement of nearly $3 million in expedited funding, the Chicago-based Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation (the Foundation) has announced a second wave of support, expediting an additional $3 million that includes: $1.4 million in general operating funds to its current roster of 175 arts grantees in the Chicago region and 40 in the Lowcountry of South Carolina; $705,000 to grantees wishing to renew multi-year grants; and $75,000 to be provided to five regional arts service organizations including the Chicago-based institutions Arts Alliance Illinois, Lawyers for the Creative Arts, and League of Chicago Theatres.

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MusicWinter 2021

LUMINARY: Q&A with Singer/Songwriter Kelly Hunt

When it comes to the core artistic tenants of the Folk/Americana genre, Kansas City-based singer/songwriter Kelly Hunt is what they call the genuine article. In a musical landscape that is in any given year ripe for reflection and authenticity, Hunt is an artist’s artist who revels in the stuff. And why should that surprise? Her entire ecosystem from an early age has fed a sensitivity to diverse musical voices impacting her trajectory, from her mother who sang professional opera and saxophonist father who marinated in the hottest jazz, all amid the musical ethos of Memphis, Tennessee, no less. It’s almost as if necessity dictated she evolve into a professional musician or something 180 degrees removed from the space. When that evolution did materialize, Hunt harnessed her considerable artistic resources to produce her debut album, Even the Sparrow, a stunning, stripped down acoustic paean to modern Southern roots music and the near-raw, evocative intimacy and immediacy that makes that sound so well beloved.

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TheaterWinter 2021

Goodman Theatre Teams with Michael Cotey on #Enough to Take on the Scourge of Gun Violence

As one of Chicago’s world-renowned cultural institutions, the Goodman Theatre is committed to the development of a more just and equitable Chicago. Key to this commitment has been the growth of the Goodman’s Educational and Engagement outreach programs. These programs seek to use the art and tools of theater to develop generational learning and understanding of the city’s diverse cultures and voices.

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ArtWinter 2021

Patterns in History: Bisa Butler Portraits at The Art Institute

Creating a historical narrative can easily become an artform all its own. Weaving a cultural narrative with the potent messages worthy of conveyance from one generation to the next is no light pursuit. Transform that narrative from written language to a visual tapestry, and you bring real depth to history and culture merging into the realm of artistry. This winter, The Art Institute of Chicago will present a new exhibition that showcases the kind of artistry that makes history come alive. Bisa Butler: Portraits, on view at the museum through April 19, 2021 showcases 22 quilts in four galleries and engages viewers with poignant themes of family, community, migration and the promise of youth, artistic and intellectual legacies. Meticulously stitched with vivid fabrics that emerge in painterly portraits, Bisa Butler’s quilts convey rich, one-of-a-kind, multidimensional narratives of Black life.

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Theater

Goodman Theatre to Present Debut “Future Labs” Reading, Layalina by Martin Yousif Zebari

ayalina by Martin Yousif Zebari, the first play of Goodman Theatre’s Future Labs, makes its virtual debut, launching the theater’s newest effort to develop new plays. Directed by Azar Kazemi, Layalina examines how families maintain their love in the midst of turbulent global and social change. Future Labs develops works authored and directed by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, AAPI and other artists of color, curated by Quenna L. Barrett (Associate Director of Education and Engagement), Jonathan L. Green (Literary and New Works Manager) and Ken-Matt Martin (Associate Producer) and a Goodman Staff Evaluation Team composed of individuals of intersectional identities and in areas across the theater. The live virtual reading of Layalina streams on January 30.

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