Court Theatre to Present Free Spotlight Reading Series Beginning Next Month

Court Theatre, under the continuing leadership of Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell and Executive Director Angel Ysaguirre, will present the Spotlight Reading Series, featuring works authored and inspired by Lorraine Hansberry. This year's series will explore her literary and political voice as a playwright, an activist, and a queer author from Chicago's South Side.  

The Spotlight Reading Series is comprised of five events:  

Walking Tour with Essence McDowell: Lifting As They Climbed (Preamble) Thursday, July 25
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: A Portrait of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words Wednesday, July 31

Community Reads: To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, A Memoir by Lorraine Hansberry Thursday, August 1

Screening of Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart Thursday, August 1

The Anticipation of Eve Friday, August 2  

Each event will be held at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street), all events are free and open to the public, and reservations are required.

“Lorraine Hansberry is a prolific playwright from the South Side of Chicago,” shares Director of Engagement and Creative Producer Kamilah Rashied, “But what I don't think people necessarily know is that she was also a queer woman who also authored lesbian literature. This year's Spotlight Reading Series is a tribute to her and her work in full, exploring facets of her identity that are lesser known, but unequivocally shaped her writings. These programs set the stage for a closer look at the person as well as the playwright leading up to Court's production of A Raisin in the Sun next year. This is a celebration of one of the most prescient writers in American history. I can't wait to dig deeper alongside our audiences.”  

Free tickets can be reserved online at CourtTheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at (773) 753-4472.  

The Spotlight Reading Series is sponsored in part by the Joyce Foundation and is presented in partnership with the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.  

Walking Tour with Essence McDowell: Lifting As They Climbed  

In this special preamble to the series, delve into the immersive journey of Lifting As They Climbed: Mapping a History of Trailblazing Black Women in Chicago, an homage to the extraordinary women who have left an indelible mark on this city. During this walking tour, participants will explore the remarkable story of Lorraine Hansberry's life and the lives of other powerful women who have empowered communities of Chicago throughout history.  

Date: July 25, 2024

Location:  Lobby of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street)

Tour:  4:30pm    

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: A Portrait of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words  

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: A Portrait of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words is a play adapted from Lorraine's own writings – unpublished plays, letters, interviews, and journal entries. The narrative weaves across time and space, from her early childhood in Chicago to her college years, concluding with her losing battle with terminal illness at the age of 34. Director Malkia Stampley takes what's on the page and weaves in further context from the original memoir of the same name in a lyrical staged reading that invites us to reconsider Hansberry's legacy.  

Date: July 31, 2024

Location: Theatre West, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street)

Doors: 5:30pm

Reading: 6:30pm  

Community Reads: To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, A Memoir by Lorraine Hansberry  

Enjoy dinner and intimate, facilitated group discussions as you explore Lorraine Hansberry's memoir, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.   

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black is a deeply personal invitation into Lorraine Hansberry's history. From the racism her family encountered during her childhood in Chicago, which later informed A Raisin in the Sun; to her time in New York, during which she became the first Black woman playwright to be produced on Broadway; to her untimely death from cancer in her early thirties, leaving a trailblazing trajectory painfully unfinished, Hansberry's singular voice guides readers through her journey with care, humor, keen insight, and prescient wisdom. Comprised of plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black is a comprehensive reflection on what it means to be an artist and a Black woman in America.  

Date: August 1, 2024

Location: Penthouse, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street)

Dinner/Discussion: 5:30pm

Documentary: 7:00pm  

Screening of Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart

Reflecting on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, James Baldwin said, “Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, had so much of the truth of Black people's lives been seen on the stage. Black people had ignored the theater because the theater had always ignored them.” Her groundbreaking play – the first written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway – changed everything.   The documentary Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart introduces viewers to the woman behind the work. Grounded in archives, personal writings, photos, and films, Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart places Hansberry in context, drawing parallels between herself, her writings, and the most pressing issues of her time – issues that we're still grappling with today. In so doing, the documentary makes a compelling case for better understanding one of the most distinct literary voices of the twentieth century.  

Date: August 1, 2024

Location: Screening Room, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street)

Dinner/Discussion: 5:30 pm

Documentary: 7:00pm

The Anticipation of Eve  

As part of the official repository of the Lorraine Hansberry papers at the Schomburg Center, The Anticipation of Eve is part of a series of short stories Hansberry wrote under the pseudonym Emily Jones with subject matter pertaining to queer characters and relationship dynamics. This rare text from Hansberry's archive of scarcely published lesbian fiction will be performed and discussed by artists zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal, AJ McClenon, and Bimbola Akinbola.   

Date:  August 2, 2024

Location: Penthouse, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th Street)

Doors: 6:30pm

Reading: 7:00pm  

About the Participants  

KAMILAH RASHIED (Creative Producer) is the Director of Engagement at Court Theatre. Rashied is an arts administrator, producer, educator, and artist with 20 years of experience in cultural production, education, and community outreach. Cultivating a broad range of programs for the public, ranging from youth initiatives to live events and talks, Rashied has contributed to the development of new and ongoing programs at many venerable arts and culture organizations in Chicago including: the Art Institute of Chicago, the School at the Art Institute, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Library, Illinois Humanities, Arts Alliance Illinois, Rebuild Foundation, OTV (Open Television), Hyde Park Art Center, Young Chicago Authors, Writers Theatre, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater, among others.  

Kelcie Beene (Line Producer) is the Engagement Programs Manager at Court Theatre. She has over fifteen years of experience as a freelance producer and production manager for theatre, special events, television, and film. Kelcie spent ten years as a Producing Ambassador for the 24 Hour Company in New York, producing their gala events in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, London, Dublin, Germany, and Mexico. As a production manager, Kelcie helmed works for BAM Next Wave, The Play Company NYC, LifeLike Touring, and GLAMOUR. As a theatre producer, Kelcie has led over a dozen full-length productions in venues such as Cherry Lane Studio, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre Row, and Joe's Pub. Other producing credits include site-specific events for Global Citizen and The BEAT Festival in Brooklyn, NY.  

BIMBOLA AKINBOLA is an artist, performer, and educator currently based in Chicago. Working at the intersection of theory, performance, and visual art, her scholarly and artistic work is concerned with the complicated and nagging nature of belonging, queerness, and the concept of family. Incorporating a variety of practices from painting, to weaving, to durational movement, her work explores mark-making and performance as modes of organization, remembrance, and repair. Bimbola has shown work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Compound Yellow, Center on Halsted, The Riverside Arts Center and Roman Susan, and has collaborated on creative projects with universities across the country. She is an Assistant Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University.  

zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal is a Chicago-based visual artist, independent curator, and arts administrator. zakkiyyah's visual practice is anchored by a commitment to fostering a different kind of gaze that transcends the conventional and engages with empathy, desire, love, queer identity, intimacy, illegibility, and poetics. Her practice has been presented in various forms at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, NADA, the Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Pompidou, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, DePaul University, EXPO Chicago, and Harvard Graduate School of Design, to name a few. She was a 2021 Artist in Residence at Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago, a 2021 Artist in Residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, and a 2022 3Arts Gary & Denise Gardner Fund Awardee. She is currently an Albertine Foundation Awardee (2023-24). Her work is represented in both private and public collections, including the Block Museum at Northwestern University and Eskenazi Museum of Art. zakkiyyah is also a Co-founder of CBIM (Concerned Black Image Makers): a collective of Black artists, thinkers, and curators that prioritize shared experiences and concerns by lens based artists of the Black diaspora. Learn more at zakkiyyahnajeebah.com.  

A.J. McCLENON is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Washington, DC, who lives and works in Chicago. A.J. is a fellowship recipient at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Masters in Fine Arts (2014), a Bachelor of Arts with a minor in creative writing from the University of Maryland College Park, and also studied at The New School. A.J. has performed and shown work in spaces like the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Filmmakers, LA Film Forum, Echo Park Film Center, Danspace Project, Woman Made Gallery, Longwood Art Gallery, Roman Susan Gallery, Links Hall, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and Hyde Park Art Center. Alongside artistic experiences, A.J. is passionate about teaching, youth rights, and community collaborations and is currently the co-founder of Film School. This touring film series features Black films that have remained in obscurity.

While excavating tangible ways to approach sonic textures, A.J.'s work arrives as poems, Bildungsroman refrains, visual scores, and mixed media translations through performance, installation, repurposed materials, drawings, and moving images. These works represent “place," nature, and the body. Processes of regeneration: sound from image and then the image to material/objects; found and collected objects to assemblage become articulations for Black migrations, geomorphology, escapism, and ecosystems found in nature and technology. Learn more at ajmcclenon.com.

Winner of the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award, Court Theatre reimagines classic theatre to illuminate our current times. In residence at the University of Chicago and on Chicago's historic South Side, we engage our audiences with intimate and provocative experiences that inspire deeper exploration of the enduring questions that confront humanity and connect us as people.  

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