It feels like we just did the winter performance picks and now it’s spring (even if the weather has been playing all kinds of tricks on us). Along with the daffodils and tulips, great performances are popping up all over the place. Here are just a few of the best options for the months ahead.
COMEDY (Salem Collo-Julin)
Kid Fury: Life is Better . . .
Podcaster and comedian Gregory A. Smith started a blog called The Fury in 2006 to create space for both celebrating and giving a side-eye to his favorite pop culture, hip-hop, and Knowles empire moments. After a successful foray on YouTube and a moniker change to Kid Fury, he left his native Miami for NYC, where he and his friend Crissle West started the super popular comedy and pop culture podcast The Read. (Smith currently lives in LA, where he moved to write for Issa Rae’s show on Max, Rap Sh!t.) While The Read definitely includes Smith and West’s snarky takes on the shenanigans of rappers, it also celebrates Black people’s achievements. The show has taken a self-care turn in the last few years, both speaking to the importance of mental health for Black and queer people, including personal reflections from both hosts. Smith went through a series of mental health challenges in the last few years that he shared with The Read listeners, and his tour’s title reflects his state of things after pausing the podcasting and getting professional help.
Thu 4/11, 7:15 PM, and Fri 4/12, 7:15 and 9:30 PM; the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, thedentheatre.com. $32-$65 (all three shows are sold out as of press time), 18+ (13+ if accompanied by a 21+ adult)
Bianca Del Rio: Dead Inside
I cannot think of Bianca Del Rio (the longtime drag persona of comedian, actor, and costume designer Roy R. Haylock) without thinking of Haylock’s voice as Bianca emoting, “She’s a man with one eye!” as an aside in the musical theater episode of Bianca’s winning season of RuPaul’s Drag Race (Shade: The Rusical: season six, episode four). This sort of reaction has got to be both a blessing and a curse for Haylock, who has has described Bianca as “Don Rickles in a dress” and “the Joan Rivers of drag.”
I’ve seen Bianca perform in smaller venues (hosting in New Orleans pre-Katrina, doing a guest spot in Chicago at Roscoe’s) where her crowd work really shines, but she’s one of a few drag performers that can command both attention and put a tinge of fear into an audience as big as the capacity at the Chicago Theatre. Truly, making an audience feel like they’re witnessing a hilarious back-alley version of the Dozens is a hard thing to translate to hundreds of people at the same time without leaning on tropes, but Bianca’s ability to turn on a dime, improvise, and find common ground by throwing herself into the jokes is the thread that links her to Rickles, Rivers, and all the great bitchy drag queens (“drag clowns,” as she would say) before her.
Fri 3/29, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, 312-462-6300, msg.com/the-chicago-theatre. $43.50-$53.50, all ages (but adult themes and profanity are to be expected)
DANCE (Irene Hsiao)
no ideas but in things—Part Two
After a brilliant part one last fall, Hedwig Dances presents three more premieres by choreographers Natasha Adorlee, Paula Sousa, and Anna Sapozhnikov that combine movement with the exploration of objects and visual environments.
Emmy-winning Adorlee’s Kindred Spirits draws dancers into an imaginary family contemplating time, memory, and desire. Adorlee, whose choreography has also been presented in Chicago in the Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Works series in 2023, says, “The process with the Hedwig Dancers was very informative. I knew I wanted to create a theatrical work, but their personalities lent so much to my thinking and dreaming around the work. It is a work that processes through yearning and a feeling of leaving things undone in life. I think that’s a concept I contemplate a lot. Death is something that no matter how we prepare, it happens to us all. I question daily how to utilize my time best here; we’ll still never be ready for this moment but maybe more at peace.”
Hedwig member Sousa’s Under My Thumbs explores the growing ubiquity of AI and its intersection with human life. “I’ve been exploring the dynamics of dancers embodying the precise yet emotionless nature of AI as they navigate a journey through commands, seeking to connect with what we call the “human experience,” she says.
Anna Sapozhnikov, founder and artistic director of MOYAMO DANCE, reimagines Bronislava Nijinska’s 1923 ballet cantata Les Noces in a contemporary exploration of traditional Russian and Ukrainian family structures. She says, “I’m drawn to Nijinska’s economical use of movement through repetition, manipulation, [and] most importantly, the simplicity in its design. Much more abstract than Nijinska’s work, which depicted a Russian peasant wedding, my work touches upon a more updated perspective of marriage as tradition, arrangement, and duty in our modern world.”
With a company of dancers who are not only magnificent technicians but captivating individuals, this concert promises heart, range, and depth.
4/5-4/7: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, hedwigdances.com, $20-$55
Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival
The Dance Center of Columbia College presents the first Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival, featuring works by distinguished Chicago dancemakers Ayako Kato, J’Sun Howard, SJ Swilley, and Erin Kilmurray and Kara Brody in works that expand the footprint of performance beyond the stage. Kato’s ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth, created in collaboration with Indigenous artists Billie Warren and Dave Spencer, dance artists Asimina Chremos, Rosely Conz, and Carl Gruby, and artist-writer-performer Andy Slater, travels through outdoor landscapes and indoor spaces, including the Chicago lakefront.
The second week of the festival, a performance installation by Howard invites the audience to explore the entire Dance Center building, Kilmurray and Brody explore a ferocious range of power dynamics and movement vocabularies in their work-in-development Knockout, and Swilley offers a premiere. (Howard and Kilmurray are both alumni of the dance program at Columbia.)
“What we’re most looking forward to is how these five Chicago artists are exploring dance environmentally—and freeing dance witnessing from its expected outlines,” say Dance Presenting Series artistic director Meredith Sutton and producing director Roell Schmidt. “With Ayako, we’re taking an embodied journey from the lakefront to the Dance Center reintroducing us to ourselves in nature and asking us to reconnect with nature in ourselves. J’Sun, SJ, Erin, and Kara are setting their works within an exploration of the Dance Center itself in collaboration with the remarkable musicians who provide the live accompaniment for the classes here. We’re celebrating our whole name by centering what’s special about dance at Columbia College through the vast imaginations of Chicago artists.”
Fri 4/19 6 PM, Sat 4/20 1 PM, Fri-Sat 4/26-4/27 7:30 PM; Dance Center Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan, 312-369-8300, dance.colum.edu, free-$30 (Ethos IV is free/by donation, week two performances free to Columbia students, $50 festival two-week pass, $30 single ticket, or choose your own donation amount)
OPERA AND THEATER (Kerry Reid)
La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista
Haymarket Opera Company scores a coup with this one-night-only presentation of Maria Margherita Grimani’s 1715 oratorio in its first-known performance since the early 18th century. (Thank god for Women’s History Month, eh?) Grimani chose the bloody, vengeful tale of Salome and John the Baptist for this “dramatically macabre” work. Only a single manuscript survives, housed at the Austrian National Library in Vienna, from which musicologist Vanessa Tonelli created this new performing edition for Haymarket. Haymarket founder and artistic director Craig Trompeter conducts the chamber ensemble of period instruments, with mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron in the title role and soprano Kristin Knutson Berka as Salome.
Fri 3/22 7:30 PM (pre-performance lecture 6:45 PM), Gannon Concert Hall, Holtschneider Performance Center at DePaul University, 2330 N. Halsted, 773-325-5200, haymarketopera.org, $55-$85, $12 students with valid ID
Love Song
Back in 2006, John Kolvenbach’s sweet, quirky romance made its world premiere at Steppenwolf, starring ensemble members Ian Barford and the late Mariann Mayberry. Now Remy Bumppo revives the story of misfit Beane and his sister Joan, a seemingly hard-charging corporate executive, whose lives are both upended by Beane’s romance with carefree Molly. Artistic director Marti Lyons stages this revival just in time for spring fever, with a cast that includes Terry Bell, Sarah Coakley Price, Isa Arciniegas, and Ryan Hallahan.
3/21-4/21: Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, remybumppo.org, $10-$52
The Good
When a solo performer can deliver three words that still ring out in your head decades later, you know you’re in the presence of a genius. That’s the case with Curious Theatre Branch cofounder Jenny Magnus, whose impassioned delivery of the line “Dear Gene Hackman!” in a show back in the early 90s somehow has never left my brain (and who has created too many other pieces for me to remember all of them). Magnus doesn’t perform solo as often these days, which makes this world premiere (directed by Stefan Brün, with Julia Rhoads of Lucky Plush providing movement consultation) all the more notable. In The Good, Magnus loosely riffs off Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations to explore the concepts of being, well, good. 3/29-4/21, Chicago Dramatists, 798 N. Aberdeen, curioustheatrebranch.com, pay what you can ($20 suggested donation)
The S Paradox
Babes With Blades goes sci-fi with Jillian Leff’s world premiere, which won the company’s Joining Sword & Pen competition. Morgan Manasa directs this tale of “S,” who jumps back in time to see if she can correct the mistakes made by her younger self, Sloane. A “tech-nerd sidekick” and Sloane’s librarian girlfriend are interwoven in the adventure, which of course will incorporate the Babes’ trademark stage combat skills under direction of fight choreographer Samantha Kaufman.
4/7-5/18, Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard, babeswithblades.org, $28-$35
A Year With Frog and Toad
If ever you needed proof that children’s theater is for everyone, consider this musical based on Arnold Lobel’s children’s stories about the title amphibians. Brothers Robert and Willie Reale’s charming adaptation first played in 2002 at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis before getting a Broadway run (and Tony nominations) in 2003. It was also the first production for Chicago Children’s Theatre back in 2006, and they revived it again in 2013. But like spring itself, nobody complains about the return of things that give us joy and beauty, and this exploration of friendship through the seasons resonates with anyone who ever had a best pal. Michelle Lopez-Rios directs Eduardo Curley-Carrillo and Nick Druzbanski in the title roles.
4/13-5/26, Chicago Children’s Theatre, 100 S. Racine, 312-374-8835, chicagochildrenstheatre.org, $45.25-$55.25
The Thanksgiving Play
Sure, the title sounds like it should be done in the fall, but Steppenwolf’s production of Larissa FastHorse’s 2015 comedy feels both long overdue for its local premiere and just in time for our ongoing ludicrous debates about “wokeness.” A quartet of well-meaning theater artists try to create an elementary school holiday pageant that won’t offend anyone and that will “lift up” Native Americans—even though Indigenous people aren’t involved in the project. Along the way, FastHorse (a 2020 MacArthur Fellow and a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation) delves into the dirty side of national mythmaking. Jess McLeod directs a cast that includes Steppenwolf co-artistic director Audrey Francis, Tim Hopper, Paloma Nozicka, and Nate Santana.
4/25-6/2: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1646 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $20-$86
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Reader reviews of Chicago theater, dance, comedy, and performance arts.
