Gabriela Furtado Coutinho investigates the DNC’s theatricality.

Chicago streets have been closed, but that can’t stop brat girl summer. Brat, or “very honest,” theatre is just heating up. The Chicago premiere of A Case for the Existence of God has been enjoying an extended run through Sept. 7, a fresh site-specific Eurydice opened on Aug. 23, and the city staple La Havana Madrid was reprised for one night only in Millennium Park. But beyond our robust ecology, it’d feel a bit silly penning a newsletter on Chicago theatre without acknowledging the epicenter of last week’s city-stopping restrictions: the Democratic National Convention.

My eyes dart through space and social media and believe, with mischievous excitement, that anything could be considered theatre. My 90-year-old grandfather relaying tales? Theatre. Two 5-year-old girls begging for a sleepover after a four-hour playdate? A multi-act musical.

Here, the omnipresence of theatricality felt all the more evident. Traditional theatre appeared throughout the convention; Collaboraction’s The Light and The Luminaries, for instance, were selected to perform at McCormick Place. We got to see a refreshing musical take on the delegates’ roll call at the United Center. Stephen Colbert took over the Auditorium Theatre, and Laura Benanti reprised her Melania impression. The spectacles kept coming: sketch comedy, poetry, and the significance of tan suit costume design.

Bodies rejoiced in dance, and smiles abounded. I imagine a playwright’s tagline, “The party shall party!” Yet it’s still live theatre, and disruptions yearned to surface. Protesters advocating for Palestinian people stood in the wings, waiting for their moment of visibility. A national convention isn’t a political party’s only opportunity to appeal to a wide range of voters, but it is a strategic opportunity to showcase the prospective sounds, colors, rhetorics, feelings, policies, and approaches to a potential new presidency. And all these creative elements rushed together as Harris, America’s understudy, entered last-minute.

Some speeches stood out for key zingers. You may have noticed show references. Hillary Clinton quoted the Broadway musical Suffs, of which she is a co-producer, saying, “I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here.” And President Joe Biden’s “but I love my country more,” evoked Brutus’s line in Julius Caesar, “but that I loved Rome more.”

Theatre social media popped off with memes and commentary. During the DNC live stream, people from all over the world typed in comments, “Here for Beyoncé.” Influencers posted from the United Center audience. From various theatremakers, I saw pleas for peace in Palestine, emphasis on unity across and beyond the Democratic Party, and retweets that Tim Walz supports theatre kids. From the stage to the smallest screen, we are witnessing a shift in how creatives reach their society and influence an election.

Whatever your opinion may be of the convening, the DNC managed quite a show (in spite of no surprise guest). I wonder at the sheer power of a good show—and question how our vital role, as creatives and creative interpreters, will continue, shift, and expand on a national political landscape. To disrupt? To lead? To guide or support lawmakers in messaging and policy? To reexamine how we put into action today “American” principles?

We are interpreters and translators. As glamorous as film and TV celebrity may be, a live show replete with nuance lands firm within our local theatrical wheelhouse. I don’t believe stars alone will herald revolution. More grounded programming, with art by and for “the people,” would better reflect many speakers’ target audiences. How substantive would it be for Chicago grassroots leaders to be recognized at the convening? Where’s the space for more than one narrative to coexist onstage? It is the job of a theatremaker to hold many truths at once. Many artists in this city volunteer and organize—how can we ensure their political work not be kept siloed from art and vice versa? The Jackie Taylors of this city, or works like the popular comedy POTUS, have something to say, I’m sure, about change. JLo’s “Let’s Get Loud” reference at the 2021 inauguration can’t be the best we come up with for a nation’s most historic moments.

Critic Chris Jones, too, took to social media yesterday to address what was missing from this year: our theatrical skill sets. Rumors have begun of another Chicago DNC in 2028. I wonder what our community involvement might look like then. How will stage managers, performers, producers, and playwrights lend a hand? What would it look like for Chicago performing arts to further reach the candidates and lawmakers at the United Center?

Kamala Harris’s mom, Shyamala, and Michelle Obama might urge us to “do something.” Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Aaron Burr would tell us to “wait for it.”

Ahorita I’m just hoping the DNC stagehands have a demure vacation planned.

Now See This

“And his name is Obama!” Yes, 44: The Obama Musical, has sadly come and gone after a brief stint in Chicago (Aug. 7-20). But in case you missed this unofficial, unsanctioned musical about Barack Obama as Joe Biden “kinda sorta remembers it,” as the show’s website puts it, check out the brief snippet below. Written, composed, and directed by Eli Bauman, the musical stars T.J. Wilkins as Barack Obama, Shanice as Michelle Obama, and Chad Doreck as Joe Biden.

Around Town

This month, Jerald catches us up on a few items you may have missed.

It’s that time of the year again, when we both get to be excited about the upcoming theatre seasons and celebrate the season that was. For us here in Chicago, that means taking a look through this year’s Equity Jeff Award nominations. The Goodman secured 20 nominations for nine productions to lead all area Equity theatres, while Mercury Theater Chicago (18 nominations), Marriott Theatre (17), Chicago Shakespeare Theater (14), and Drury Lane (14) rounded out the top five.

Some of the nominees for best new work that made their way into our coverage include Levi Holloway’s Turret at A Red Orchid, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s now Broadway-bound Purpose at Steppenwolf, Nambi E. Kelley’s Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution at Court Theatre, and  Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Illinoise. You can find full coverage of the nominees from our colleagues at the Sun-Times, Reader, and Tribune. Now, on to news and notes from around the city!

• For the Chicago Reader, Dilpreet Raju wrote about Mud Theatre Project’s work to center voices of those who have been incarcerated. “Prison has a culture of not allowing the guys on the inside to talk about certain things, particularly race and power structures,” Mud Theatre Project founder Brian Beals told Raju.
• WBEZ’s Mike Davis talked to television writer Eli Bauman about how he turned a stint as a Democratic campaign volunteer into the new musical 44: The Obama Musical. “In 2008, Bauman knocked on doors in Nevada as a canvasser,” writes Davis. “Years later, during the Trump campaign in 2016, Bauman decided to pen the musical as a form of artistic escapism.”
• Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune and Steve Heisler at the Sun-Times spoke with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star Rachel Bloom about her new stage show at Steppenwolf, Death, Let Me Do My Show, which will soon be a Netflix special. “I think for a lot of [performers], myself included,” Bloom told Heisler, “part of the motivation is about airing trauma and trying to find a mutual weirdness in the world.”
• The Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced John Mangum as its new general director, replacing the retiring Anthony Freud. Mangum, who has been serving as the executive director and chief executive officer of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, will start this fall. Jones at the Chicago Tribune and Kyle MacMillan at the Sun-Time have more. “The big ambitions are to continue to grow in the direction that the company has been growing,” Mangum told the Tribune. “That means maintaining the commitment to world-class opera at the highest possible level while also committing to new works and to growing our audience.”
• In other recent articles for the Tribune, Jones wrote how Paramount Theatre is boosting the fortune of downtown Aurora, Ill., with its new theatre and a popular jukebox musical, and he provides updates on the construction of TimeLine Theatre’s new Uptown home.
• Over at the Reader, Kimzyn Campbell wrote about how New York Circus Project’s production of Hamlet looked to turn Chicago’s Studebaker Theater into Denmark for a weekend. “Chicago has both a thriving circus and theatre scene,” co-founder Emma Owens told Campbell, “and we wanted to prioritize bringing our show here.”
• For Newcity Stage, Tristan Bruns turned the spotlight on lighting designers, illuminating what goes into these artisans’ work and how times are changing. “When I started in the early 1990s, a typical light plot for an opera would have between six-hundred to a thousand individual lights that had to be focused for each show—that took about 12 hours,” Chris Maravich, lighting designer for the Lyric Opera and lighting supervisor for the Joffrey Ballet, told Bruns. “Now, technology is outpacing everything else.”
• Finally, for the Tribune, Myrna Petlicki looks at how Marriott Theatre’s production of 1776 aims to reflect the U.S. in 2024, starting with a cast that looks more like our Congress today than the Congress back then. “It seemed exciting to see those men through the eyes not just of other white men,” director Nick Bowling told Petlicki, “but through the eyes of women and people of color.”

Chicago Chisme

Every month, we check in with Chicago/Midwest theatre artists about what’s getting them out of bed in the morning and keeping them up at night. This summer we’re traveling, reflecting, and continuing to dream big. More below from Walder Platform Award winner Sandra Delgado of La Havana Madrid, plus philanthropy and development expert Carlos García León of Lookingglass Theatre Company.

If you could create theatre in any city, state, or country other than your own, where would you go?

Sandra: Dreaming about Miami, Los Angeles, and London and bringing Latine-centered and music-filled work there.

Carlos: I, of course, always have an affinity to my homeland, Puebla, México. Not that theatre doesn’t exist there, and the theatre I have seen there is truly impressive. It’s more that I wish to be a part of theatre that is welcoming more communities there to have access to art. Finding ways that allow folks, not just those who can afford it, to take time to enjoy the art form. It’s been my experience that my job as a fundraiser is not as vital in México as it is in the States, as the government [there] provides a lot more funding to the arts and culture, but that’s been changing since the pandemic began. Plus, to be a part of the incredible culture that México has of storytelling would be phenomenal.

Who is a mentor that has helped you in your career journey so far? What’s the best piece of advice they’ve given you?

Sandra: Without question, Cheryl Lynn Bruce. She directed my first solo show 12 years ago and has been my artistic partner on my musical play La Havana Madrid for seven years and counting. She is full of wisdom, but I’d say I have learned even more by watching her work with actors, designers, and writers. She is gracious, patient, vigorous, brimming with ideas. If she says yes to a project, she is all the way in. And she expects the same of you. If I had to pick a piece of advice, I’d pick her signature sign-off, “Stay strong.”

Carlos: I am blessed to have a couple of mentors in my journey. Joe Peacock, now at McCarter Theatre, Ishan Johnson at Boston Lyric Opera, and Carlos Trejo, the president of the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals: Each has guided me in many aspects of my career. The main takeaways for me have been that, when working towards equity in fundraising, it is always worth taking a risk and never letting the art or those who support the art change your authentic self in this field.

Shoot your shot. What artist or company are you dreaming of working with, or what show are you dreaming of working on? 

Sandra: After experiencing the energy and evolution of La Havana Madrid this past summer, I am dreaming of sharing this slice of 1960s Chicago with New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles. The show’s themes are more relevant than ever, and we all need the joy.

Carlos: I will admit that I would be a bit star-struck if I were to have any of the telenovela actors I grew up seeing in a show, like Kate del Castillo, Jaime Camil, or Angélica Vale. Personally, I don’t dream of labor and often say that I wish philanthropy would work to end itself. This mostly stems from a problem I have with my profession: the constant reminder to people that the arts matter. Somehow after decades of this field existing, folks need to be convinced year after year, instead of intertwining it with their own beliefs and societal culture. Institutionally, besides the joy of working with a theatre like Lookingglass, I’ve had an affinity for Woolly Mammoth Theatre for all they have done for equity in art.