Spoon River House Festival at Historic Hyde Park Home

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Unique House Festival Honors Chicago Literary Classic

Spoon River House Festival - Embark on a poetic journey! Let the spirit of author Edgar Lee Masters guide you in the Hyde Park home, where he penned the timeless Spoon River Anthology.

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and Working In Concert invite you for three different spoken word and song programs in a 2-weekend festival celebrating this iconic work from the 1910s:

CHARACTERS — Fridays, September 13 and 20 

Directed and curated by Iris Lieberman, eight leading lights of Chicago theatre spin a tale of characters from honest, hardworking, chaste, and churchgoing to corrupt bankers, abusive husbands, unfulfilled wives, sexual deviants, and failed dreamers…brought back from the dead by Jerry Bailey, Mary Bonnett, Sharon Carlson, John Green (and his guitar), Gary Houston, Adjora Stephens, and Joanie Winter.

CLASSICAL — Saturdays, September 14 and 21 

Song settings by composer Lita Grier and art songs from the period, curated by Carl Ratner, with pianist and music director Dana Brown, sopranos Michelle Areyzaga and Marissa Howard, and more talents with narrator Paul Geiger as Edgar Lee Master.

CABARET — Sundays, September 15 and 22 

Jonathan Lewis brings together the songs and the cast of Ruth Fuerst, Claudia Hommel, Daniel Johnson, Jace McCloy, Barbara Smith, David Stephens, and Joanie Winters, with music director Howie Pfeifer, to share what the Spoon River folk would have sung had they lived long enough!

The festival features some of Chicago's finest singers and actors. Complete cast list at https://workinginconcert.org/events/srhf/

All shows begin at 7 PM, followed by artist talk-back and reception with light refreshments. VERY LIMITED SEATING. Live stream access available

Spoon River was made famous by a collection of poems written in 1914-1915 by Edgar Lee Masters. Masters was raised in nearby Lewistown, Illinois. As an adult, he lived in Hyde Park, Chicago. His law partner Clarence Darrow, writers Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandberg, and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore were frequent guests in the house, sometimes for seances. 

Spoon River Anthology contains Masters’s impressions of midwestern small town life. “The connections of this artistic project are uncanny!” exclaims Claudia Hommel, Executive Director of Working In Concert and producer of this festival. The idea for the festival came about when she realized her good friend and SongShop Live performer Ruth Fuerst lives in Masters’ former residence. Meeting Lita Grier, the composer of A Spoon River Song Cycle broaden the scope of performance. Finding a partner in Don Evans and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame cemented the project. Masters was inducted into the CLHOF in 2014 in large measure because, “The poems of Spoon River are a series of graveside monologues, during which Masters captures the voice of the Midwestern people, their values and their struggles that he knew so well.” 

Carl Ratner, baritone and artistic associate director Working In Concert’s Bellissima Opera shares, “When I visited the house on its tree-lined street, I felt connected to the free verse poems and the process of developing and honing them. They are little masterpieces of simplicity and human insight. For the “Classical” evening, we are especially excited to have soprano Michele Areyzaga who premiered Grier’s recording with Cedille Records. We honor the recently deceased Grier by performing her exhilarating cycle, a rare opportunity alongside other American songs that evoke the period—this is a not to be missed event.”

Presented by: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame 

Produced by: Working In Concert

For media inquiries, please contact: juliana@workinginconcert.org

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