City Lit Theater Company, in association with the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, will again present BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK, a celebration of BANNED BOOK WEEK, September 22 - October 1, 2019, at various locations in and around Chicago.
Every year since 1982, the American Library Association has released a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books as reported to their Office of Intellectual Freedom. BANNED BOOKS WEEK, held during the last week of September, features those books. The week celebrates the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. The event draws attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted restriction of access to books across the United States.
City Lit Theater's BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK is a 60-minute program consisting of five-minute readings of short excerpts from the top ten challenged books of 2018. Each book is introduced with background on the book, including the reason it got challenged. The readings are followed by an audience discussion. City Lit Theater will present the 2019 BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK at 13 different locations in the Chicago area: eight Chicago Public Library branches, the DePaul University Library in Lincoln Park, the Mt. Prospect Public Library, and the Frankfort Public Library, as well as the American Library Association office in downtown Chicago and Johalla Projects in the West Loop.
City Lit Artistic Director Terry McCabe believes that BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK actively celebrates the books most at risk and call attention to the would-be censor's threat to an educated democracy. "Our focus is literate theater, so we are naturally concerned by attempts to keep books away from people," McCabe says. "We are privileged to continue our alliance with the ALA in this important work." Funding for BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK is provided by the Seabury Foundation and the Freedom to Read Foundation
The cast of the 2019 BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK will include Katy Nielsen, Gordy Andina, Dan Jackson, Brian Pastor, Peter Leondedis, Whitney Dottery, Jeff Broitman, Evin McQuistion, and Amanda Hays.
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