Latest news with #SheWhoDared
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Afternoon Briefing: Prime Healthcare cutting 100 jobs across Illinois facilities
Good afternoon, Chicago. Chicago is responding to President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration raids with protests that began yesterday. Two more are planned for tonight and tomorrow nights. Tonight's protest is to be held in front of the Chicago Police Department headquarters to denounce alleged cooperation of Chicago police with federal agents arrests last week as they detained immigrants outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement office on the Near South Side. The Police Department has denied that officers aided the federal agents. Here's what we know about the protests. And here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Figuring out what went wrong at Lion Electric is crucial not just for former employees, but also for politicians, corporate leaders and environmentalists who want Illinois to build more battery-powered vehicles and protect future generations from increasingly toxic air. Read more here. More top news stories: Official leaving Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration for Obama Foundation Aqua Illinois warns University Park, other communities of tap water risk for infants Prime hired 13,000 workers from Ascension when it bought the hospitals from that health system, and has created nearly 1,000 new jobs since the acquisition. Read more here. More top business stories: Bears player D.J. Moore sells Lincolnshire condo for $870,000 Warner Bros. Discovery to split into two companies, dividing cable and streaming services Some good-natured bantering occurred over the weekend between Cubs president Jed Hoyer and Detroit Tigers president Scott Harris, who worked his way up the ladder after joining the Cubs as director of baseball operations in 2012 under Hoyer and former president Theo Epstein. Read more here. More top sports stories: Late-game production and Tyler Alexander's wild journey: 3 takeaways from Chicago White Sox's series win Green Bay Packers plan to release veteran cornerback Jaire Alexander In Chicago, the dish is a ritual. It's dramatic, it's delicious, and — let's be honest — it's also a little absurd in the best possible way. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: Whose libretto is it, anyway? Chicago opera company takes on improv Review: 'She Who Dared' lovingly fact-checks civil rights history President Donald Trump has deployed at least 300 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests, over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Read more here. More top stories from around the world: California governor plans to file lawsuit against Trump over National Guard deployment to protests Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni's $400M countersuit against Blake Lively
Chicago Tribune
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘She Who Dared' lovingly fact-checks civil rights history
At what point does history become hagiography? Composer Jasmine Barnes and librettist Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton tackle that question in 'She Who Dared,' Chicago Opera Theater's world-premiere retelling of the 1950s Montgomery bus boycotts—the real story, that is. It also may be making history itself: COT has advertised 'She Who Dared' as the first professionally staged opera written by two Black women. As we're reminded — or taught — more or less immediately in the opera, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin (soprano Jasmine Habersham), brainy and brash in equal measure, was actually the first arrested for refusing to give up her seat to white bus riders, in 1955. But local activists decided she was too risky to prop up as a martyr. Colvin (by then also pregnant) was too young, too untested, too dark. Instead, the boycott coalesced around Rosa Parks (soprano Jacqueline Echols), a light-skinned seamstress respected by Black and white Montgomery residents alike. 'Let the flame burn like Claudette, but keep it inside,' activists sing to Parks at one point in the opera. The movement's dismissal of Colvin — still very much alive, at 85 — in favor of Parks is usually a one-liner in history books, if that. 'She Who Dared' elevates it to the status of a secondary conflict, using the decision as a cipher to address colorism, classism, sexism, and other stigmas within the movement. Quite like last month's fabulous 'Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining' at Harris Theater, 'She Who Dared' ends up being not just a history lesson but a trenchant satire of respectability politics. While its thesis is serious, the opera manages to strike a consciously light-hearted tone without making light of its subject matter. The opening to Act 2 is just as biting as it is amusing, with Echols, as Parks, hammily cavorting around Montgomery. At one point, a police officer tips his hat and offers Parks the crook of his arm. The opera's principals further represent the nuance of the movement in Montgomery. Susie McDonald (mezzo-soprano Leah Dexter) is a wealthy, white-passing widow; she was in her 70s at the time she was arrested. We follow Jeanetta Reese (mezzo-soprano Cierra Byrd) — an original plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the resulting 1956 Supreme Court ruling striking down segregation on public transportation — as she decides, agonizingly, to withdraw from the case, representing those who stepped away from activism out of fear for their lives. 'She Who Dared' is already strong, but it's further vaulted by COT's strong cast. Habersham's explosive, easily combustible soprano captures Colvin's fire. Like Parks herself, Echols is a master of reserve and release, stoking her big Act 2 aria like a slow burn. As McDonald, Dexter is pointed and iridescent. Meanwhile, Byrd's wide dramatic palette and flexible voice make the most of thankless roles as the movement's deserter and Montgomery's white power brokers. Filling out the cast were mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams, bringing poise and chutzpah to the role of Aurelia Browder, Browder v. Gayle's lead plaintiff; lightning-bright soprano Lindsey Reynolds, another singer with local credits, as Mary Louise Smith, another young voice in the boycotts; and mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel as Jo Ann Robinson, a calm anchor through the opera's storms. Barnes has already marked herself as a composer to watch at other city institutions like the Chicago Symphony and Ravinia. In her first evening-length opera, she's already a natural, grazing gospel, tango and even klezmer in an ever-lively orchestration, guided with lyricism and grace by pit conductor Michael Ellis Ingram. Whether crackling with humor or invoking prayer, Mouton's text says what it means — not a subtle libretto, but one which drives the action forward well. In a marked improvement over October's 'Leonora,' 'She Who Dared's' set, designed by Junghyun Georgia Lee, was a stirring example of minimalism done right. Its centerpiece is a faithful rendering of a 1950s Montgomery bus, rotated by stagehands dressed as repairmen. Likewise, Yvonne L. Miranda's costuming embraces the show's scale, rather than working against it. In some scenes, characters donned just one extra piece of clothing to temporarily step into another role: a suit jacket to turn Robinson into Fred Gray, the boycotters' attorney, or a hat, shades and nightstick to turn Reese into a Montgomery city cop. It gave the opera the feel of reminiscing among friends — an appealing and deft way to handle historical retelling. Timothy Douglas's insightful direction supported this reading, squeezing as much characterization as possible out of the seven principals while keeping the action buoyant. The opera needs some TLC to land its ending. 'She Who Dared' loses its narrative drive in the final two scenes, defaulting to platitudes ('We brought a movement to Montgomery!') and cloying tunes. After reenacting the initial district court trial — in which Colvin, Browder, McDonald and Smith testified—the opera skims over the Supreme Court decision upholding the ruling. But it was that court which ended the boycott and desegregated public transit systems nationwide, not the district courts. (Plus, the appeal process alone almost doubled the length of the boycott — a significant sacrifice by the protestors.) That ending also evaded a darker coda to the bus boycotts, acknowledged in the show's comprehensive program notes: Black commuters faced vicious harassment once they resumed riding city buses. Some even maintained the old bus rules, just to avoid trouble. 'She Who Dared's' finale tries to nod at this, but it's too heavy-handed: The woman wait for the bus, then sing another number aboard it, noting there's 'so much change left to make.' A lighter touch would go further: boarding that bus, but acknowledging that we, to date, still don't know where it's going. Save a slightly racy account of Colvin's affair with an older man, 'She Who Dared' carries a kid-friendly approachability. In this political climate, that's an asset. I could see future stagings — and let's hope there's many more of those — inviting school groups to runs. With civil rights education under attack nationally, the arts are poised to step in, even as they wear new targets themselves. In fact, 'She Who Dared' itself received $30,000 from an NEA grant that has since been canceled. But general director Lawrence Edelson struck a note of defiance in his opening remarks on Friday, to cheers. 'We've already received the money,' he told the audience, 'and, as I've said before, they're not getting it back.' Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic. Review: 'She Who Dared' (3.5 stars) When: Through June 8 Where: Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave. Tickets: $60-$160 at
