Latest news with #We'reOfftoSeetheWizard
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Elgin News Digest: Carpentersville police officers lauded for saving a life with AED; Elgin Summer Theatre to present ‘Wizard of Oz' at Hemmens
Three Carpentersville police officers who used an AED device to save the life of a 40-year-old man in August 2024 are being celebrated on the Firehouse Subs Foundation website. According to the post, the officers found the man unconscious and not breathing. They used CPR and an AED defibrillator to help revive him and keep him alive so he could be taken to a local hospital. Carpentersville Police Chief Todd Shaver said the incident happened in the 1600 block of Seminole Lane. The officers who saved the man's life were Jose Chamorro, Ryan Miles and Nick Valzano. Each was recognized by the Carpentersville Fire Department with a Life Saving Award at an awards banquet earlier this year. In 2023, the village received a donation of $23,979 from Firehouse Subs for lifesaving equipment, which allowed the department to purchase AEDs, Shaver said. Elgin Summer Theatre's production of 'The Wizard of Oz' will be presented by the Up And Coming Theatre Company and the city of Elgin at The Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin. Shows will be presented at 7:30 p.m. July 11-12 and 18-19 and at 3 p.m. July 13 and 20, according to the city of Elgin's website. The musical is a stage adaptation of the classic 1939 movie, which is based on L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.' Songs from the movie, including 'Over the Rainbow' and 'We're Off to See the Wizard,' will be part of the show. Tickets are $24 and $30 and can be purchased at To show its appreciation for the community's support, the Food for Greater Elgin food pantry will hold an open house from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, July 11, at its Elgin warehouse at 1553 Commerce Drive. The 'Open Doors, Full Hearts' event will feature behind-the-scenes tours of the facility, light refreshments and a chance to meet volunteers and staff, according to the nonprofit's website. For more information, go to or email Emily Tyler at etyler@ The Rotary Club of Carpentersville will host 'Blind Flights,' a picnic-style craft beer tasting, from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 12, in Carpenter Park, 275 Maple Ave., Carpentersville. Attendees will vote on their favorites in various categories without knowing which brewer produced what beer, according to the club's website. The event will feature beers from 11 breweries as well as food for purchase from No Manches and Duke's Blues-N-BBQ, a social media post said. Proceeds will help support Rotary programs, including those that provide winter coats for kids in need, fund scholarships and assist local food pantries. Tickets are $38.10 and can be purchased at
USA Today
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Inside the Las Vegas Sphere's plans to enhance 'The Wizard of Oz' using AI
NEW YORK − The yellow brick road is about to get colossal when it winds through the Las Vegas Sphere. Between the venue's 160,000-square-foot screen display that anchors the visual environment and remastered songs that will play through 167,000 speakers from Sphere Immersive Sound, the enhanced version of 'The Wizard of Oz' will definitely not be in Kansas anymore when it arrives Aug. 28. The intent, says Jennifer Koester, president and COO of the Sphere, is to answer the question, 'What would it feel like to be in Oz?' Through the venue's haptic seats, viewers will feel the swirls of the tornado that whisk Dorothy's house to Munchkinland, smell the poppies as they envelop the room in 16K x 16K LED screen resolution, tremble a little with the Cowardly Lion and maybe make those flying monkeys feel exceptionally realistic. Tickets to the immersive version of "The Wizard of Oz" are on sale now at The film will be shown multiple times daily for an open-ended run. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. The ambitious amplification of the iconic movie is possible through a marriage between artificial intelligence and film archives from Warner Bros. and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The dual components allowed creators 'to make things that weren't possible, possible,' Koester says in a sitdown with USA TODAY, while still maintaining the integrity of the original film. Koester uses the example of Dorothy's limbs, which, when filmed for a 4:3 aspect ratio on a standard-size movie screen in 1939, didn't always include full images. 'The original film was shot so you have a picture of Dorothy, but you don't see her hands, you don't see her legs. When you think about (the size of) the (Sphere) screen, you know her hands and legs were there and we want to show them,' Koester says. Working with additional footage that never made it into the film and set designs for the film, 'we trained (AI) models on all of that original footage. So now we can create an arm for Dorothy or fill in her legs from that AI model.' In addition to the visuals, the original songs from the film including treasured favorites 'We're Off to See the Wizard,' 'Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead' and Judy Garland's timeless 'Over the Rainbow,' have been remastered and their orchestrations rerecorded. Koester says an 80-piece orchestra was brought to the original MGM scoring stage near Los Angeles to redo the entire soundtrack, which, when combined with the Sphere's haptics, will augment the immersive experience. 'Imagine the feeling you can evoke because you're coming down the yellow brick road into the spooky forest,' Koester says. 'And to your left you're hearing spooky sounds and then maybe some of the flying monkeys on your right. It's the evocation of feeling that becomes so possible because of the technology that exists in that venue.' The all-encompassing experience will carry a ticket price of $104, which aligns with the current Sphere films 'Postcard from Earth' from filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and 'V-U2,' the startlingly lifelike concert film taken from U2's Sphere-opening residency. As with all things related to the venue, it isn't about the experience you think you know, it's about the unexpected. Koester hints that the immersions will begin as soon as you enter the Sphere and walk into its cavernous atrium that will 'transform you into the world of Kansas" and later, "when you exit the (seats) and you've been through Oz, there's going to be some really innovative and interactive activations.' The venue is promoting its Sphere-icized 'Wizard of Oz' with an outdoor installation suggesting that the venue has landed atop the Wicked Witch of the East, complete with her 50-foot-long legs and 22-foot-tall ruby slippers extended onto the ground. The legs will be on view all the time, but daily photo opportunities on the Sphere campus are subject to times listed at 'It's larger than life,' Koester says, 'and just a hint to what's about to happen inside.'
