Uplifting Chicago’s Performing Artists

Chicago’s world premiere of avery r. young’s new opera offers a powerful meditation on family, faith.

Last weekend, Lyric Opera of Chicago staged its world premiere of Safronia, a new work by avery r. young, Chicago’s inaugural poet laureate and a celebrated interdisciplinary artist.

“Safronia” is the story of the family patriarch, baar booker (sung by young himself), his wife magnolia (Maiesha McQueen) and baar’s daughter, safronia, and her husband, said Pullman Porter (Lorenzo Rush Jr.). In two acts, “safronia” explores both the impact of what happened to this family in 1912 and their subsequent desire to claim back what once belonged to them, even after the death of their patriarch. Death in young’s landscape of magical realism, for want of a better term, is decidedly less than final.

Chicago’s inaugural poet laureate makes his Lyric mainstage debut with “safronia,” loosely based on his family’s own Great Migration story.

Safronia, a story about the Great Migration premiers at The Lyric Opera.

Butler is quickly amassing a reputation as a go-to choreographer across the country. The new piece “Her Table” will premiere March 28 at Red Clay Dance Company’s La Femme Dance Festival. Vershawn Sanders-Ward said she commissioned Butler because she was impressed by her “fresh and exciting” choreography. “I love the physicality of her work,” Sanders-Ward said. “I love the fluidity. I love the storytelling.”

avery r. young was the first poet laureate of the city of Chicago. Now he has created an opera called safronia, which will be performed Friday and Saturday, April 17th-18th, at the Lyric Opera House, located at 20 N. Wacker Drive.

Lisa Kaplan featured in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

avery r. young featured in In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons

Inspired by the legacy and writing of Carl Sagan, The Mirrored Pool, a world premiere running February 13 through February 22 at the Center for Puppetry Arts, is an exploration in blending eras and genres. Created by puppeteer Tom Lee in collaboration with classical music group Eighth Blackbird, the production will tell the tale of the Golden Record, an interstellar time capsule launched in 1977, containing Earth sounds, music, languages and images.

Musical comedy sets Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' in 1930s Harlem, with a soundtrack of Duke Ellington's greatest hits.

Musical comedy sets Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' in 1930s Harlem, with a soundtrack of Duke Ellington's greatest hits.

Full of showstopping musical numbers, the Goodman Theatre’s top-tier theatrical production of “The Color Purple” will leave audiences singing its praises. If you’ve somehow missed reading Alice Walker’s masterpiece or seeing either of the two film adaptations, then indulge in the stage musical version of this American literary classic.

Clarity, movement, purpose and arrival—four words that describe where the venerable Red Clay Dance Company and its Founding Artistic Director and CEO Vershawn Sanders-Ward are at.

“Multihyphenate artist, performer, and Chicago’s inaugural Poet Laureate avery r. young” has announced the “world premiere of ‘safronia,’ a new Afro-Surrealist opera written and composed by young and commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago.

This summer is the first time the Goodman Theatre has staged the musical, based on the classic Alice Walker novel.

The season opens with Cloudline, a luminous and heartfelt piece by Robyn M. Williams. Williams, whose work has been presented at prestigious venues such as the Kennedy Center, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Jacob's Pillow, American Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater, and MCA Chicago, brings a deeply personal yet universally resonant voice to the stage

The performances in conjunction with the excellent exhibition “Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon” at MoMA PS1, which ended in March, included the premiere of “Low,” a collaboration with Darrell Jones.

Arena's 75th season celebrates a significant milestone and the continuation of its commitment to amplifying dynamic work that reflects the voices of its community and country.

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago announces 16 by Red Clay Dance Company for three performances only, April 17-19, 2025, featuring Founding Artistic Director and CEO Vershawn Sanders-Ward (‘02)’s new staging of Written on the Flesh and a premiere by Bebe Miller—commissioned and set on Red Clay Dance Company dancers including Columbia alumni Amaya Arroyo (‘23) and Celeste Brace (‘23).

A residency this month at Hungry Brain gives Ulery a platform for his uncorkable creativity. Ulery brings four different groups to the West Lakeview venue, including his Pollinator band and sprawling Nonet. He wraps the residency with his new Mother Harp band, a thrashing union of punk rock, jazz and folk. The group releases a self-titled album the same day on Ulery’s Woolgathering Records label.

Vershawn Sanders-Ward is a visionary director, choreographer, educator and ARTIVIST who is transforming the landscape of contemporary dance through her art and activism. As the Founding Artistic Director and CEO of Red Clay Dance Company, she blends African diasporic dance forms with modern techniques, creating performances that inspire social change and provoke thought.

La Havana Madrid, a nightclub on Chicago’s North Side in the 1960s, was a place of celebration and belonging for Cuban, Colombian and Puerto Rican immigrants new to America.

Broadway SIX star Brittney Mack will lead the company of a new staging of The Color Purple at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, starring as Celie. Performances will run June 21–July 27, with opening night set for June 30. Lili-Anne Brown is directing the musical, adapted from Alice Walker's Pulitzer-winning novel.

The Lyric Opera’s new season encompasses two world premieres, two Lyric premieres, three new-to-Chicago productions, more Movie Nights at Lyric, a solo recital by one of opera’s most legendary stars, and musical theater performances.

DOWNTOWN — The Lyric Opera of Chicago just announced its 2025-26 season, and its jam-packed schedule features two new world premieres by two pioneering Chicago artists: a reimagining of The Smashing Pumpkins’ most acclaimed album by frontman Billy Corgan and a familial Great Migration story by Chicago’s first poet laureate, avery r. young.

The world premiere of "A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness" will be on stage at Lyric Opera House in late November.

Also, Chicago's first-ever poet laureate, avery r. young, will present his second collaboration with the Lyric in April 2026. It’s called "safronia," in which he writes and stars in. It's billed as a personal story about the Great Migration.

LA HAVANA MADRID was written by Sandra Delgado, with original music by Cristian Amigo and lyrics by Sandra Delgado. The production will run March 21st through April 27th, 2025 with previews taking place March 21st through 28th, with an Opening Night Reception on March 29th, 2025. 

When Robyn Mineko Williams was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” 10 years ago, she was on the precipice of a choreographic career after 12 years onstage with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. She created at a feverish pace through 2019, but since then, Williams has slowed down, taking on fewer commissions and working on protracted, site-specific, independent projects further developing her signature ethereal style.

When it came time to select a college, Columbia College Chicago had some of the things Vershawn Sanders-Ward was looking for. The others, she had to find on her own. 

“African dance was in the basement; it was one class,” she said. “When I was at a point where I had the confidence to say, ‘I really need this,’ I had to figure out a way to make it work.”