www.newcitystage.com: Each January, the (especially cold and) windy city attracts hundreds of the finest puppeteers in the world to perform in what has become the biggest festival of its kind on this continent. Events—over a hundred in twelve days—reliably sell out well in advance and scores of Chicagoans brave the dead of winter to warm themselves with theatrical magic. Any of last year’s ticketholders crammed into the sardine-packed Steppenwolf lobby, jockeying for position in one of the Chopin Theater’s waiting areas, or standing in a line that switchbacked up and down the vestibule of the Biograph might have found rumors of live theater’s death to be greatly exaggerated.
1 comment:
There was a sentence in this article that really stood out to me: “brave the dead of winter to warm themselves with theatrical magic.” This phrase treats theatre like it is a balm to a wound, something that one might embark on a quest to find. I love this description of it. Theatre is a quest. The making of theatre is a quest. The finding of a story is a quest. And I think theatre is a balm, a balm for the makers as they use their voice to tell the stories they have to tell and a balm for the audience as they see themselves and others reflected on the stage. People and puppetry alike, the stories shown on the stage are worth braving the dead of winter. It warms the heart and challenges the mind to find more than face value meaning in the stories we see. It is defence against becoming cold of heart and cold to others. The magic of theatre warms, and it is more than worth questing for.
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