A man in a white suit stands against a gray background. He is bathed in warm light, and is raising his eyes and his left hand up to the ceiling. He looks inquisitive. — Kelvin Roston Jr. by Joe Mazza.

To Sophocles and most ancient Greeks, "the gods" and divinity represent total and unrelenting orthodoxy.

Yet, to the dramatist, divinity represents the natural forces of the universe to which mortals are wittingly or unwillingly subject. It is only once people experience trial and crisis - tragedy and catharsis - that they can understand this notion of divinity and a universal order. In so doing, people have the opportunity to become more genuinely human and more genuinely themselves.

This is the foundational concept behind The Gospel at Colonus. Outlined below are a series of quotes that bring this concept to life, along with some information about the Reverend Earl Miller, a key religious figure in The Gospel at Colonus's history.

Redemption and Catharsis

"[Oedipus is changed by] a rite that lets him do the most simple yet most difficult of acts: tell his story...The Gospel at Colonus tells a tale of African American life in America. The consequences in the rite done and the story told mark the differences between the settings and ultimate meanings of these plays: one Greek and tragic, and the other, finally, Christian and transformed by joy."

- "Oedipus at Colonus and The Gospel at Colonus: African American Experience and the Classical Text," LeBlanc, J.R., Medine, C.M.J. (2012).

"I was wandering around a Greek theatre in Anatolia when I was younger, and I asked someone, 'What's this stone?' And the person said, 'It's the altar.' And I suddenly realized that it's a church...It suddenly dawned on me that tragedy is the church, and that it is the connection to a church that is cathartic."

"Empathy - when you emotionally identify, when you are moved, yours is the way of catharsis. We have a decorous image of empathy, the ‘crying at the sad parts and smiling at the glad part,’ but there are more potent forms of empathy."

- Lee Breuer, Getting Off: Lee Breuer on Performance

Reverend Earl Miller

"Morgan Freeman and I listened to Pentecostal preaching all over Minneapolis, and the guy who eventually played Theseus was a preacher...Reverend Earl Miller. He was the guy that Morgan studied in order to learn how to preach."
- Lee Breuer

Reverend Earl Miller is the senior pastor of the 1,500-member Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota’s oldest and largest Black congregation. He holds a doctor of ministry degree from Union Theological Seminary.

A man in brown velvet pastor's robes looks concerned. He is pointing to something in the distance. — Reverend Earl Miller as Theseus in a 2018 production of *The Gospel at Colonus*. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis staged The Gospel at Colonus as part of their 1986/87 season, in which Reverend Earl Miller performed as Theseus, king of Athens. During the run, Miller performed eight times a week while maintaining his full pastoral load; his preaching offered a model for the style, rhythm, and vocal inflections of the show, and he transformed the production into an avenue for ministry. Two nights a week, he led an introductory Bible study for members of the cast.

Below is a collection of quotes from Miller, specifically, in which he draw parallels between The Gospel at Colonus, Black worship, and redemption; Miller's comments are a helpful lens through which to understand both the structure and style of Gospel.

“The central message [of Gospel] is one of redemption and liberation, and that is a Christian message. And it is what the Black church has been about. The message of the preacher in a traditional Black sermon has always ended in celebration, hope, and freedom in Jesus. The way the play ends is the way our worship ends.”

“The Old Testament talks about the casting of lots, which determined a person’s destiny. Oedipus’s lot was already cast; he had no choice. As slaves, Black people in this country were oppressed…like Oedipus, our lots were cast. But the play tells us that, whatever your lot, there is ultimately redemption.”

“From the very beginning, Black preaching was different from white preaching. It broke all the rules of form and organization. One of the main characteristics of Black preaching is storytelling...Black preaching is body and soul. Black preaching, like Black religion, is holistic. It engages the whole person."

"What implications does this have for drama? Well, in reality, what I do every Sunday is drama, but I am performing for the Lord.”

The Gospel at Colonus runs from May 12th - June 11th and tickets are available now! Tickets can be purchased online or by calling the Box Office at (773) 753-4471.

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To understand The Gospel at Colonus, one must first understand gospel music.

This distinct musical style is the product of the Great Migration. Starting in the 1910s, African Americans travelled from the South to Chicago, where - in search of spiritual practice - they found themselves alienated and rejected by middle-class, wealthier, “silk-stocking churches” in the city. Their musical traditions of jazz and blues were deemed obscene and devilish, but - as time went on - they gradually earned their place in the Chicago music scene and came to form gospel music as we know it.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6o8nZSRGamAhafEOVLcc2O?si=b4ee54912204499c

“Spiritual songs are unwritten, spontaneous outbursts of emotions back in the days of slavery. Gospel songs come from Spirituals. They are written songs of good news.”
- Thomas Dorsey to Studs Terkel

Black worship, Black spirituals, and Black gospel transformed the hymns and anthems that had previously been sung solely from above the neck, offering a vibrant, celebratory, and embodied alternative that irrevocably shaped America's religious - and musical - landscape. Read on for a brief overview of Chicago's gospel history and listen along with this Spotify playlist from WFMT!

Mahalia Jackson: the Queen (1911-1972)

“Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings -- spreading the good news. It will last as long as any music because it is sung straight from the human heart.”
- Mahalia Jackson

A woman sings passionately. Her mouth is open and her eyes are closed, and she looks fierce and powerful. — Mahalia Jackson sings at a Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in May 1957. Paul Schutzer; Time & Live Pictures/Getty Images

So much can be said about the “Queen of Gospel Song.” Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she listened to blues singers Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and Enrico Caruso. When she was 16, she settled in Chicago and joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church choir. Her voice made her the soloist and earned her national popularity in the 1930s. By the 1950s, America was crazy about her.

Beyond her groundbreaking record sales and her international fame (her rendition of “Silent Night” was one of the all-time best-selling records in Denmark), Jackson's songs were the soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement. She was the one who said to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” in Washington, DC in 1963. However, before Dr. King even stepped up to the podium, her performance of “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” might have already brought the crowd of 20,000 people to church.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/odHqG1rA4M8

In this interview from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, Mahalia Jackson talks about her relationship to gospel music and how it has shaped her career.

The Birth of Gospel

https://www.youtube.com/embed/eNbMYuwxceo

The Birth of Gospel from WTTW

This 55-minute documentary traces the growth of Chicago gospel, from its roots in the deep South before the Civil War, to its popularity during the Civil Rights Movement, to now. It illustrates the lives of Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the Father of Gospel; Mahalia Jackson, the aforementioned Queen (or Priestess) of the music; and other heroes of Chicago. It also maps out Bronzeville, the Pilgrim Baptist Church, and other city landmarks. Viewing it in the context of The Gospel at Colonus, this documentary adds to the story of blessings, legacy, and catharsis.

Some highlights of the video are outlined and time-stamped below:

ROOTS OF GOSPEL (4:20)

Pre-Civil War American South: Spirituals
- Enslaved people in the American South often spoke different languages, as they were often from different African tribes. However, they could sing - and thus understand - one another. The song leader would start singing, and others would follow.
- These enslaved people found their way to Christianity and created a new theology. The pulpits of the enslavers encouraged docility and obedience, but - in their spiritual practice - enslaved people were committed to speaking the truth of Bible.
Post-Civil War: Blues and Jazz
- African Americans were legally emancipated from slavery, but still worked as sharecroppers and were strangled by Jim Crow laws. In this context, they started their own churches, in which the blues - along with all music - was considered sacred.
- The influential, Black-owned Chicago Defender newspaper inspired the Great Migration, especially to “the promised land” of Chicago. Among the migrants was 17-year-old Thomas Andrew Dorsey, who later became a key figure in the Chicago gospel scene.

EARLY IN CHICAGO (14:03)

Middle-Class Black Churches
- The network of African Methodist Episcopal churches welcomed the working-class migrants from the South. Nevertheless, these migrants found themselves at odd with the wealthier “silk-stocking churches" in Chicago. In these spaces, respectability was paramount. Hymns and anthems were sung only by the choir, while the congregation remained silent in their expensive winter fur coats.
"Barrel Houses" vs High Altar
- Thomas Dorsey, a blues piano player, had one foot in the church, and one foot in the blues joint. His music was chastised as devilish, and he could only earn a living by playing in bars and parties. But, in times of loss and despair, he always felt a spiritual calling.

ARTISTS ASSEMBLED (35:10)

NCGCC
- Despite the middle-class churches’ rebuke, people loved the embodied, participatory experience of gospel music. By 1930, a group of gospel singers, the “Dorsey Disciples,” assembled around Thomas Dorsey to establish the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.
- Among these artists were Sallie Martins, Magnolia Butts, Willie May Ford, Roberta Martin, and the aforementioned Mahalia Jackson - incredible female organizers and entrepreneurs.
Mahalia Jackson: the Queen of Gospel
- Mahalia Jackson and Thomas Dorsey met in 1928.
  - Director Mark J.P. Hood gives Mahalia Jackson and Thomas Dorsey shout-outs when discussing the Chicago gospel sound!

GOSPEL CHORUS (40:03)

1931: Rev. J. H. L. Smith from Bermingham, Alabama, became the first migrant pastor at a landmark Protestant Church in Chicago. At Ebenezer Baptist Church, he organized the first gospel choir with Dorsey and Theodore Frye.
1932: Rev. Junius C. Austin, paster of the Pilgrim Baptist Church, joined forces with Dorsey to rid the church of its old “silk-stocking” ways. He invited Dorsey to direct the second gospel choir in Chicago at Prilgrim Baptist Church, while Frye continued directing at Ebenezer. Dorsey stayed and led the choir for 40 years. In that time, Dorsey also wrote more than 100 songs and gospel music bloomed in Chicago.
- In that same year, Dorsey lost his beloved wife Nettie and their first-born son in childbirth. He played the piano and sang to express his grief. His personal testimony was captured in his song, “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” which debuted at the Pilgrim Baptist Church. This song became the Black anthem of mourning.
1934: The First Church of Deliverance aired its first service on the radio with a choir of 200 people. Its Midnight Service became an important fixture in Bronzeville’s nightlife.
1950s - 70s: Mahalia Jackson expanded gospel beyond the church, and took church to the people.

Wenke (Coco) Huang is the Production Dramaturg for The Gospel at Colonus. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in Performance Studies and Art History. Born and raised in Beijing, China, she now calls Chicago her second home and will start the joint PhD program in Theater and Performance Studies and East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in fall 2023. She was the Assistant Director of The Island at Court Theatre. Other credits include Villette at Lookingglass Theatre (Dramaturg), The Garden of the Phoenix for Lookingglass’s 50 Wards (Puppeteer), and Seagull at Steppenwolf Theatre (Assistant Dramaturg).

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Lee Breuer and Bob Telson's The Gospel at Colonus is grounded in cultural resonances. It is a piece that looks to the past and the future simultaneously, understanding that we cannot find redemption or catharsis if we don't honestly acknowledge our histories - and the pain and glory encompassed therein. Some of these cultural resonances are clear and august (it is well-known that this production is based on Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus, for example) and others are less so.

Here, we explore three cultural figures that inspired, or were inspired by, The Gospel at Colonus. These three icons are tied to Gospel in interesting and unexpected ways, providing context, a few fun surprises, and a clear sense of this production's lasting impact. Let's meet them!

Zora Neale Hurston

"Zora Neale Hurston made the connection between Greek tragedy and the sanctified church many years ago. The Gospel at Colonus is a proof of her hypothesis," said Lee Breuer.

Breuer is referencing Hurston's work The Sanctified Church, in which she draws parallels between the Black religious experience and the traditional Greek chorus. Hurston writes:

A woman wears a fur coat and smiles. — Photograph of Zora Neale Hurston by Carl Van Vechten.

"Go into the church and see the priest before the altar....with the audience behaving something like a Greek chorus in that they 'pick him up' on every telling point and emphasize it...Every opportunity to introduce a new rhythm is eagerly seized upon. The whole movement of the Sanctified Church is a rebirth of song-making! It has brought in a new era of spiritual-making."

As Production Dramaturg Wenke (Coco) Huang notes, "We always have more history and stories to reflect on, especially those that appeal to our spirituality and connect our mortal lives to the divine." In The Sanctified Church, Zora Neale Hurston was reflecting on the history of worship, and with The Gospel at Colonus, Lee Breuer was reflecting on Hurston's own musings, situating his production in conversation with ancient Greece, notable scholars and creatives (such as Hurston), and Black spiritual practice.

Morgan Freeman

The original 1983 production of The Gospel at Colonus featured a star-studded cast, including Clarence Fountain and The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Isabell Monk, Robert Earl Jones, and Morgan Freeman. Freeman played The Messenger, at times speaking for Theseus and Oedipus himself.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8vDhbJQEbJU

Freeman was also part of the Gospel cast when the production went on tour to Arena Stage in Washington, DC. At the time, in 1984, Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell was a directing intern, and was in the room with Lee Breuer, Bob Telson, and the talented performers above - including Morgan Freeman himself!

Here, you can see a photo of Freeman in the production and a photo of an original call sheet from the Arena Stage production of Gospel - Morgan Freeman is the first name on the call sheet, and Newell's name is the last.

A poster for THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS with Morgan Freeman; there is an image of Freeman with his head raised, eyes closed, hands in fists, with arms towards the sky. He is wearing preacher's robes. — Promotional image for THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS.

A cast list from a 1984 production of THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS at Arena Stage. Included on this list are Morgan Freeman, Clarence Fountain, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Isabell Monk, Robert Earl Jones, and Charles Newell. — Promotional image for THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS.

Anna Kendrick

One of the most well-known songs from The Gospel at Colonus is "How Shall I See You Through My Tears," sung by Ismene, one of Oedipus's sisters and daughters. This song is one of relief, wonderment, hope, and redemption, featuring lyrics such as: "Father, Sister, dearest voices/I have found you and I don’t know how" and "A world that cast you down forgives you/And those who blamed you sing your praises now."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFZtygUrBCY

Please note that this clip contains instances of homophobic violence.

Interestingly enough, this song is also the opening number of the 2003 cult classic film Camp, a coming-of-age story set in Camp Ovation, a fictional summer theatre camp.

In this clip, camper Dee, played by Sasha Allen, performs this number as we see Michael, a fellow camper, face homophobic discrimination and violence from school administrators and fellow students. He is then embraced by Dee and the other campers, finding acceptance at Camp Ovation - a journey not unlike Oedipus finding acceptance at Colonus. If you look closely at 3:13, you will also see Anna Kendrick, one of the leads of the film, who went on to star in the Academy Award-nominated Up in the Air, the Pitch Perfect movie franchise, and the film adaptation of Into the Woods, among others.

See how these cultural resonances - and others! - inform our own production of The Gospel at Colonus. Running from May 12 - June 11, tickets can be purchased online or by calling the Box Office at (773) 753-4472.

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Read more about this production's cultural resonances in this blog post!" 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When Charlie Newell and I first met to discuss the dramaturgy for The Gospel at Colonus, he recounted the soul-stirring experience of seeing its premiere production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983; this same story is shared in his Artistic Director’s note. I could hear a swell in his voice as his memory lifted his words and then folded softly back, settling into the present. His tale was not unlike Sophocles’s verse—“smooth, pure, and felicitous,” as observed by Classics scholar Robert Fitzgerald, whose translations of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone are the textual foundation of Lee Breuer’s adaptation.

A metal statute of a man holding a harp. — "The Young Sophocles Leading the Chorus of Victory after the Battle of Salamis" by John Talbott Donoghue, 1885, cast 1927.

Charlie confided in me that his decades-long artistic journey is anchored to that original performance of Gospel. It made me wonder: if our ancient sources are true, according to which the fifteen-year-old Sophocles led the celebration of Athenian victory in the Battle of Salamis—a turning point in the Persian Wars—did he experience a similar emotional swell? Did that feeling propel him to compose 123 plays over the next seventy years, until the last work at the end of his life, Oedipus at Colonus?

Sophocles lived through the Golden Age of Athens. Following the Greek city-states’ victory in the Persian Wars, Athens established itself as Greece’s intellectual and artistic center while demanding loyalty from its allies. Athens remained a despotic presence in the region until it was defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, which Sophocles witnessed almost to its end. He passed away at ninety in 406 BCE, before his beloved city starved into surrender in 404 BCE. In the Peloponnesian War, Sparta had spared Athens from destruction after the war, and although time eventually ground the city into dust, some relics of Sophocles’s Athens remained in their sculptural forms.

It could have been such a relic, such a stone, that Lee Breuer stumbled on while wandering around the archaeological site of a Greek theatre. Breuer wrote in 1999 that The Gospel at Colonus took shape in this moment, when it dawned on him that this stone was a church, that “tragedy is the church, and that it is the connection to a church that is cathartic.” As per Breuer’s instruction, to remember the ancient and the mythical, we have to feel—“when you emotionally identify, when you are moved, yours is the way of catharsis.”

A playbill cover with text that reads, "The Gospel at Colonus" — The original program for the 1983 production of THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The original production of The Gospel at Colonus brought its audience to this swelling emotion in the setting of a Black Pentecostal church. It was an ecstatic spiritual experience in which a gospel choir assumed the role of the ancient Greek chorus, mediating the audience’s reaction to Sophocles’s Oedipus myth. It proved that American expression is intrinsically tied to the Black American experience, symbolized by the Pentecostal church. However, Breuer’s grand vision was not without its problems: complicit in cultural imperialism and oblivious to histories of racial violence in the United States, Breuer’s Gospel also neglected gospel music’s subversion of American racial politics from slavery to Jim Crow. This insurgent spirit is central to our production in Chicago in 2023.

During the Great Migration from 1910 to 1970, Chicago was the “promised land” for millions of African Americans in the South. Like Oedipus, they embarked on a journey to “live where they can,” bringing jazz, blues, and spirituals to Chicago. Their vibrant social and cultural lives invigorated the city and created a Black Metropolis. Moreover, since the 1930s, Black Chicagoans have sung the truth of the Bible with gospel music. It is a message of redemption and liberation, in total submission to God. Looking back to the Peloponnesian War, perhaps the Athenian chorus sung with the same embodied, participatory ecstasy in the face of their militant Spartan conquerors?

In the preface to his translation of Oedipus at Colonus, Nicholas Rudall, founding Artistic Director of Court Theatre, summarized it as a “supplicant” play that unfolds around Oedipus’s plea to the gods and the people of Colonus, who grant him sanctuary. Likewise, Chicago’s founding story offers us more ancestral resonance. Let’s imagine the Grove of the Furies, a sacred place outside of Colonus, morphing into Lake Michigan, which had, for millennia, been sacred to Indigenous people of the Council of the Three Fires: the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi Nations, and many other tribes like the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox. In 1778, Kitihawa, a Potawatomi woman, married Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, and convinced her people to accept him as Potawatomi kin. DuSable, of French and African descent, became the first non-Native permanent settler on the land. For the next two centuries, countless nonNative settlers would tread the land, build railroads, open factories, erect skyscrapers, and displace the Midwest’s largest Indigenous population.

Chicago has flourished on the backs of its Black and Indigenous roots into a modern city rich in spirits, miracles, and laments. It grows while it sheds. It gives while it receives. It is a sacred ground for us and all who once came, lived, and rested here, just as Athens was for Sophocles, his Oedipus, and the people of Colonus. And just as Sophocles wrote about the myths of Oedipus in the Bronze Age, two thousand years before his own time, we always have more history and stories to reflect on, especially those that appeal to our spirituality and connect our mortal lives to the divine. It is never too early or too late to look back.

A man in white robes has his eyes closed as he raises his head. — Kelvin Roston Jr. as Oedipus from Court's 2019 production of *Oedipus Rex*; photo by Joe Mazza.

Oedipus’s final hour at Colonus is only part of Sophocles’s trilogy. Court Theatre staged the first installment, Oedipus Rex, in 2019, and Antigone, the final play in the trilogy, will be staged next season. With the shifting scenes, Lake Michigan might appear as Mount Cithaeron, where baby Oedipus was abandoned in Oedipus Rex, or as the cave where Antigone ended her life in Antigone. Regardless, Chicago is the city where our lives take place and the lens through which we find resonance with ages past and lands far away.

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A woman in a black dress holds her arms above her head; there is a black handkerchief in her left hand. — Shari Addison by Joe Mazza.

The Gospel at Colonus opens with a classic American art form: the sermon. Theseus, transformed from Sophocles’s ideal Athenian king to a Black Pentecostal pastor, delivers a damning account of the sins of now-disgraced Oedipus: he murdered his father, married his mother, and brought into the world children of incestuous parentage. Theseus’s sermon is framed by all the elements of a conventional Pentecostal service, from its stirring music to its rich language of hope and redemption.

Like the central figures of Gospel, Black Pentecostals have been preaching, dancing, singing, and sinning since Pentecostalism was conceived in the early 1900s. Indeed, the rich religious life-worlds of African Americans are at the heart of the denomination. It was William J. Seymour, an African preacher and the son of formerly enslaved parents, and Lucy Farrow, a formerly enslaved woman and the niece of Frederick Douglass, who were largely responsible for fanning the flames of Pentecostalism. Around 1905, Seymour and Farrow had been students of Charles Fox Parham, a white traveling evangelist who taught that people must break with the corrupt ways of the world in order to draw close to God and renew Christianity. Parham promised, drawing on the New Testament Book of Acts, that those who followed him would receive what he called “baptism in the Spirit,” an experience of contact with the Holy Spirit that produced overwhelming emotion and could result in radical gifts like the speaking of strange tongues (or glossolalia) and the power of divine healing.

Seymour and Farrow were early and enthusiastic converts of Parham, in spite of his segregationist politics. In 1905, Seymour traveled to Los Angeles to become a pastor at a small Holiness church. When the position fell through, he founded a new congregation and invited Farrow, who was said to be rich in gifts of the spirit, to join him. The church grew rapidly, and after only a few months it was forced to expand into a larger space—an old building that had once been a boarding house and a stable—on Azusa Street. While its members were primarily poor or workingclass African Americans, there were nonetheless people of “all ages, sex, colors, nationalities and previous conditions of servitude” in attendance at what came to be called the Azusa Street Revival.

A man in white robes with black underclothes is bent over with his hands stretched out in front of him. — Mark Spates Smith by Joe Mazza.

Standing amongst the fallen lumber and crumbled plaster that littered the mission’s dirt floor, Seymour, Farrow, and hundreds (some even say thousands) of worshippers clapped, sang, and stomped themselves into a frenzy three times a day, seven days a week. Reports from revivalists proclaimed that the Holy Spirit had descended amongst them, giving them the power to speak in foreign tongues and heal broken bodies. By the summer of 1906, the services reportedly became so crowded that people were spilling out of the building and into the street. Those unable to gain entrance watched through windows in the hope that they might “catch the spirit,” or at least a story worth telling (or printing).

At the same time that the participants at the Azusa Street Revival were speaking in tongues and shouting their songs into the Los Angeles night, other Pentecostal missionaries were seeding their own revivals across the country and around the world. In Chicago, Black Pentecostal churches became a fixture of the city’s religious landscape, swelling with African Americans who had come to the city as part of the Great Migration. By 1919, there were over a hundred Pentecostal or Holiness storefront churches. More established churches like All Nations Pentecostal Church, led by Pastor Lucy Smith and a host of female “saints,” held a wildly popular Wednesday night healing service and hosted a radio broadcast from the 1920s through the 1940s, with thousands of primarily Black Chicagoans in attendance. In 1955, Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ presided over the funeral of Emmett Till, a Chicago child murdered by white supremacists while visiting his family in Mississippi. The church hosted some one hundred thousand mourners that September and is now understood to be a key site in the birth of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Many of Chicago’s Black Pentecostal churches embraced the ecstatic forms of worship popularized by Seymour, Farrow, and later revivalists, including exuberant dancing, shout bands, emphatic breath (also known as “whooping”), healing through the laying on of hands, and speaking in tongues. They also crafted their own forms or iterations of such practices, as the city’s various urban cultures shaped and were shaped by the denomination. First Church of Deliverance, whose choir reached national renown, was the first church to embrace the now-customary sound of the Hammond Organ, informing Black religious soundscapes for decades to come. The influence of the Hammond Organ can still be heard in Pentecostal churches today, and in the gospel music that tells Oedipus’s story in Gospel.

Pentecostalism is fundamentally about experience—the embodied, highly emotional experience of the Holy Spirit that goes beyond rational reflection or textual study (though these, too, are significant). It is, at its heart, about the senses—practitioners’ sensory experiences of God and the world through what their bodies can feel and know. Through The Gospel at Colonus, Court Theatre offers guests a window into that experience. It is a classic tale of sin, disgrace, and redemption told with and through a uniquely American idiom. There are few experiences like it.

Emily D. Crews is the Assistant Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago. Her research and teaching investigate the ways that women’s religious lives are bound up with issues of race, gender, and reproduction. Her current research project focuses on the significance of alternative reproductive health practices to the construction of certain forms of white femininity in evangelical Christian communities in the American South. Dr. Crews is the co-editor of Remembering Jonathan Z. Smith: A Career and Its Consequence (with Russell McCutcheon, 2020) and African Diaspora Religions in 5 Minutes (with Curtis J. Evans, forthcoming 2023).

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Hood and Charles Newell discuss the evolution of gospel music, the importance of doing THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS in Chicago, and the personal journey of redemption." 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Two men embrace in a crowded room. — Mark J.P. Hood, Charles Newell, and guests by Joe Mazza.

Associate Director of Marketing Camille Oswald interviewed Directors Mark J.P. Hood and Charles Newell to discuss the myth and the music of The Gospel at Colonus. Drawing parallels between spirituality and performance, their conversation was a deep-dive into the history of gospel, the evolution of the sound, and the personal journey to redemption.

Can you share your history with this production?

Four people crowd together and smile. — TaRon Patton, Charles Newell, Mark J.P. Hood and Mahmoud Khan by Joe Mazza.

Mark: I’ll never forget when I got that first email in 2018 about doing this project. We spoke on the phone for an hour and, from that first conversation, we were basically sure we were going to work with each other; we just somehow knew. As a Chicago native who now resides in Los Angeles, I’m glad to be doing this show here, because Chicago is so rich in gospel culture. The father of gospel music, Thomas Dorsey—although he isn’t from Chicago, he migrated to Chicago—brought Southern blues and jazz, and created something here that people hadn’t been messing with! He started creating stuff with Mahalia Jackson, all of these people here in Chicago. And we’ve got such a rich history, even now in 2023—people like Jonathan McReynolds, Donald Lawrence, VaShawn Mitchell, Ricky Dillard & New G, Percy and Jeral Gray. This show deserves to be done in Chicago because of the history that we have with gospel music.

Charlie: I always knew that I wanted to stage Gospel, so the next step was finding a music collaborator who could make it happen. You, Mark, were always this mythological figure that everyone wanted to work with and, after that first conversation, I thought, “Man, would this guy ever do this with me?” You just blew me away. You knew the sound, and what you wanted, so precisely and beautifully. It was something I could have never imagined.

How has the sound of gospel music changed since this production’s inception, and what is the role of modern gospel today?

Mark: The history of gospel music is evolution and, even though gospel has changed, the message is still the same. Now, gospel music not only just shares the Gospel— meaning literally the good news—but it’s also a form of inspiration and uplifting. You will leave this show uplifted. There are no “gospel songs” in the show, other than “Lift Him Up,” where they sing “cry hallelujah,” but the way I’ve envisioned the show, I want to pay tribute to all generations of gospel music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhO4FYajahw

I want some things to sound like they’re from Albertina Walker and The Caravans, which was from the 1950s and 1960s, and then some things to sound like Donald Lawrence and Company in 2023. Gospel music is that expansive. When I think about the music in the original production, and where gospel music started and where we are now, it has only gone up.

Charlie: That’s so inspiring because doing classic texts, the question we ask ourselves most is, “Why now? What’s it got to say about now?” So when you talk about that evolution of the sound, “Lift Him Up” and the refrain “cry hallelujah”—what a powerful way of answering that question of “Why now?” Because of where gospel music itself is going. Gospel honors its history, but at the same time, it meets the present moment and, as you say, continues to evolve; that’s what we want to do as a classic theatre. That’s why we want to do this production now.

In the Court Theatre space, we have a kind of spiritual exchange between the audience and artists. Thanks to your understanding about the specific sound of gospel in an intimate space, we see the intersection between the Sophocles story and how the Gospel score is fueling that story. If you haven’t ever seen it before, you’re gonna see one heck of a production in the theatre. We’re going to blow the roof off.

Mark: Absolutely. Any song in the show has the potential to be a highlight, but when we get to “cry hallelujah,” folks are going to be crying hallelujah!

The passing of knowledge—and in Oedipus’s case the passing of curses—from generation to generation is a prominent theme in this production. What does this production teach us about legacy and forgiveness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmZr3kgNryQ

Charlie: The Gospel at Colonus, or Sophocles’s play Oedipus at Colonus—the play that Gospel is based on—is this journey of the most accursed man: “I am Oedipus…the accursed” is the line in the text. That legacy of a family curse, that we all have our own versions of, is so hard to change. Here Sophocles is writing this play towards the very end of his life, saying that change is possible. Release from the curse, finding a resting place to be our most pure, authentic, beautiful selves is possible. And the fact that the most accursed person can find that? This is a Greek play that isn’t a tragedy.

Mark: I’m all about legacy. I love my parents, I love my family. And I’m a firm believer that most families—most people—have things that have been passed down, good and bad. But I do believe that we can find a resting place, that we can find solace, and that we can break some of those patterns. Truly, if Oedipus can find it and “cry hallelujah,” surely we can find it in our own lives. Oedipus has been on this journey to get to Colonus, and us waking up every day and living life—that’s our journey. That’s our walk.

Charlie: In my case, that family legacy is four generations of Presbyterian ministers. To put it another way: I’m a Preacher’s Kid, a PK.

Mark: A PK!

Charlie: I’m not a Presbyterian minister myself, but there is a reason why I’m doing this kind of work. I don’t know if you have a reflection about that?

Mark: I’ve got no desire to be a minister in that way, either, but this is ministry, what we’re doing. That’s the thing that people get confused by: if you don’t know this show, you just think you’re coming to a gospel concert, and it’s gonna be about Jesus, it’s gonna be about God. It’s not, but you will feel the spirit in the same way that you’d feel if you went to church on Sunday or however you celebrate or worship. That spirit is still there in our show.

Two men sit at a table covered in scripts, pens, tissue boxes, and hand sanitizer. They are both looking to their left, focused. — Mark J.P. Hood and Charles Newell by Joe Mazza.

Charlie: Following the spirit of this piece, finding each other and collaborating, and creating this together—this journey feels like we’ve been endowed with grace. And this is where I do want to honor Nick Rudall, founding Artistic Director of Court Theatre. He passed in 2018 and, like people on that journey between life and death—like Oedipus in this story, like Sophocles when he wrote this play—Nick had this rush of creative energy in the last hours of his life, in which he explained the story to me in minute detail. So Nick’s spirit is in the room all the time with us. Honor to him.

Describe this production in three words.

Mark: Show of possibilities. It doesn’t matter who you worship to, or if you worship at all—it’s all possible here.

Charlie: I’m just going to go right to the lyrics: lift you up.

Mark: Hallelujah.

Additional excerpts from this interview can be seen on our YouTube channel - check them out! Enjoyed this conversation and want to see the production? Tickets for The Gospel at Colonus are on sale now. Runs from May 12 - June 11.

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This next season marks a thrilling inflection point in our history, catalyzed by the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Centering timeless themes in strikingly rich interpretations, the 2023/24 season finds the fresh in the familiar with a carefully curated blend of beloved texts and new voices. 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We're thrilled to announce the 2023/24 season! This next season marks a thrilling inflection point in our history, catalyzed by the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Centering timeless themes in strikingly rich interpretations, the 2023/24 season finds the fresh in the familiar with a carefully curated blend of beloved texts and new voices. We can’t wait to celebrate the transformational power of possibility with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-AyKMuE8rM

Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell shares: “This season, we’re staging a number of well-known works in innovative and creative ways, inviting audiences to reconsider their potential, their cultural and theatrical significance, and their essential message. We commissioned a new work that complicates historical narratives and reinvigorates the form of the memory play. And we remain ever curious about what makes a classic and why. This season will be wonderfully satisfying, without question.”

Executive Director Angel Ysaguirre comments: “We received the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award for our history of excellent productions and for building participation among residents in our surrounding communities on the South Side. This season continues that work as we artistically invest in telling important stories, reimagine stories we think we know, and continue to deepen relationships and be a place of artistic and civic engagement for our neighbors on the South Side of Chicago. These plays all examine issues of who we are and how we act responsibly toward one another.”

Explore the 2023/24 season

It is Christmas in the 12th century, and Henry II’s family is in tatters. His once-loving wife and now sworn enemy, Eleanor of Aquitaine, has been released from prison and is seeking vengeance at any cost; his three sons - Richard, Geoffrey, and John - are profoundly incompetent, consumed by petty sibling squabbles and gridlocked in duplicitous scheming; and his mistress (who just happens to be betrothed to his son) is running out of patience, demanding either a wedding or the return of her much-needed dowry. And you thought your holidays were complicated!

The Lion in Winter depicts - with acerbic wit - a family’s attempt to persevere in the face of staggering egos, ruthless ambition, and deceit at every turn as the fate of their country hangs in the balance. Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson (Two Trains Running, Arsenic and Old Lace) directs the Tony Award-winning play that inspired the Oscar-winning film, staging this thrillingly clever epic with humor, heart, and renewed relevance.

A photo of scales with text that reads, "Antigone, by Sophocles, Directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent, Feb 2 - 25, 2024"

As Antigone mourns her brothers who have murdered each other in a civil war, she must decide if she will sacrifice her life to balance the scales of justice. Her victorious brother is posthumously exalted; her treasonous brother is left unburied by order of King Creon, Antigone’s uncle and adversary. Antigone deliberately defies the king's edict and buries her traitorous brother, igniting a devastating chain of events and thrusting urgent questions of justice to the fore.

With Antigone, Sophocles’ timely masterwork, Associate Artistic Director Gabrielle Randle-Bent (The Island) brings Court’s Oedipus Trilogy - Oedipus Rex, The Gospel at Colonus, and Antigone - to an exhilarating conclusion. Randle-Bent's striking interpretation - featuring Aeriel Williams in the titular role and Timothy Edward Kane as King Creon - not only completes this theatrical odyssey, but renders Sophocles' classic tale electrifyingly alive, inviting audiences to hear his poetry anew. As a result, Randle-Bent frees Antigone from the trap of martyrdom, situates her in our modern conversation about the price of democracy, and asks - crucially - if it's a price we're willing to pay.

A photograph of an exploding skull with text that reads, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, Directed by Charles Newell, March 29 - April 21, 2024"

Everyone dies, but not everyone’s death is pre-ordained by Shakespeare. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead puts the spotlight on two of Shakespeare’s minor characters as they wrestle with fundamental, pressing questions of identity, loss, fate, friendship, and the absurdity of existence. As they hurtle towards their imminent demise, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern unlock what it means to be truly alive.

After directing The Hard Problem, Arcadia, Travesties, and The Invention of Love at Court and Rock ‘n’ Roll at Goodman Theatre, Director Charles Newell turns his expert eye to Tom Stoppard once more. His deconstructed interpretation of one of Stoppard’s earliest and best-known works propels the story forward with newfound immediacy. And, in so doing, Newell unveils the emotional in the existential, and urges us to reconsider what we know about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet, and perhaps even Tom Stoppard himself.

A close-up photograph of a tape recorder with text that reads "World Premiere, Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution, by Nambi E. Kelley, Directed by Tasia A. Jones, May 24 - June 16, 2024"

Civil rights activist Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael, was a towering icon; a man of immense domestic and international importance; a man who refused to back down, step aside, or remain silent. But he was also just that: a man. Blending the historical and the personal with astonishing grace, Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution depicts one man’s rise to prominence and the many people who made it possible, begging the question: what does it mean to trust someone with a movement when you can’t trust them with your heart?

Tasia A. Jones makes her Court directorial debut with playwright and Prince Prize winner Nambi E. Kelley’s (Native Son) evocative world premiere. Tracing the journey from Stokely Carmichael, the man, to Kwame Ture, the legend, Kelley illuminates the power of imperfection to humanize, and the power of that humanity to change the world.

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["_article_description"]=> string(19) "field_5927045f742d7" ["article_byline"]=> string(50) "by Ella Wilhem, Assistant Dramaturg on OEDIPUS REX" ["_article_byline"]=> string(19) "field_592de516b020a" ["_yoast_wpseo_primary_category"]=> string(2) "14" ["_yoast_wpseo_primary_subscription-type"]=> string(0) "" ["_yoast_wpseo_primary_production-section"]=> string(3) "504" ["_thumbnail_id"]=> string(5) "20363" ["_oembed_01fbba42fb90baab1434ca949b142d00"]=> string(265) "" ["_oembed_time_01fbba42fb90baab1434ca949b142d00"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_7e7f431eb5b615532ceecadfe568c771"]=> string(329) "" ["_oembed_time_7e7f431eb5b615532ceecadfe568c771"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_6bb1154086e6142900b98347af88a233"]=> string(329) "" ["_oembed_time_6bb1154086e6142900b98347af88a233"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_fad84a718fdb2764420c1ba4f3f827a4"]=> string(336) "" ["_oembed_time_fad84a718fdb2764420c1ba4f3f827a4"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_27f386e9798d3e77538b637c8dfd72df"]=> string(266) "" ["_oembed_time_27f386e9798d3e77538b637c8dfd72df"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_2a52888e66d221a24cd540e1c8590797"]=> string(284) "" ["_oembed_time_2a52888e66d221a24cd540e1c8590797"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_9ddc38b71b74cbe5b4964e368403931f"]=> string(276) "" ["_oembed_time_9ddc38b71b74cbe5b4964e368403931f"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_ac47a0170588d0519c5befe713aaec3f"]=> string(275) "" ["_oembed_time_ac47a0170588d0519c5befe713aaec3f"]=> string(10) "1679583072" ["_oembed_5ed017ea43f94e2290d5f52eff8a9a1b"]=> string(284) "" ["_oembed_time_5ed017ea43f94e2290d5f52eff8a9a1b"]=> string(10) "1679583072" } ["___content":protected]=> NULL ["_permalink":protected]=> NULL ["_next":protected]=> array(0) { } ["_prev":protected]=> array(0) { } ["_css_class":protected]=> NULL ["id"]=> int(20357) ["ID"]=> int(20357) ["post_author"]=> string(2) "16" ["post_content"]=> string(11573) "

A man in a white suit holds his hands to his chest and looks down. — Kelvin Roston, Jr. by Joe Mazza.

Oedipus Rex is the predecessor to The Gospel at Colonus in the Oedipus Trilogy, and the beginning of the trilogy as a whole. Understanding this seminal, inaugural text serves as a primer to understanding The Gospel at Colonus and the intersecting familial, community, and narrative ties therein.

Oedipus Rex may be a classic "whodunnit" on its surface, but it is most famous for bringing onstage the tangled history of Oedipus and his parentage. The play opens with Thebes in the throes of a plague; the search for the cure to the plague on Thebes turns into the search for the previous king's murderer, and then turns again into the search for Oedipus' own origin, the fateful secret of his birth.

The unexpected twist of the trial into an identity-quest dramatizes the twists and turns that are inherent in Oedipus's own story, the object of discovery. Here is a quick explainer of the Oedipus family tree and the order of events preceding The Gospel at Colonus. One timeline shows the events in their chronological order, and the other represents the order in which they are revealed on stage through the course of the drama.

Family Tree

Key Players

Oedipus: Protagonist of Oedipus Rex and The Gospel at Colonus. A prophecy foretells that he will kill his father and marry his mother; he does and the prophecy is fulfilled. Upon learning the truth of who he is and what he has done, he blinds himself and exiles himself from Thebes, his homeland.
Laius: Oedipus's father. He killed by Oedipus as foretold by the prophecy.
Jocasta: Oedipus's mother and wife of Oedipus. She ends her life upon learning about the true nature of her relationship with Oedipus, her son and husband.
Antigone: Daughter and sister of Oedipus.
Ismene: Daughter and sister of Oedipus.
Polyneices: Son and brother of Oedipus. After refusing Oedipus's exile, Oedipus lays a curse upon him that he will die in battle.
Eteocles: Son and brother of Oedipus. After refusing Oedipus's exile, Oedipus lays a curse upon him that he will die in battle.
Eurydice: Wife of King Creon, ruler of Thebes.
Creon: King of Thebes and Oedipus's uncle, brother-in-law, and adversary.
Haemon: Son of Creon and Eurydice, Antigone's fiancé, and cousin to Oedipus.
Merope and Polybus of Corinth: King and Queen of Cornith, and Oedipus's adoptive parents.
Tiresias: The prophet of Apollo in Thebes.

CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE – Oedipus's life

Oedipus' parents receive an oracle concerning their son. Their son is to kill his father and marry his mother.
Oedipus is born to Jocasta and Laius. They bind his ankles and give him to a servant to be exposed on Mount Cithaeron.
The servant, pitying Oedipus, hands him off to a shepherd, who brings the baby to Corinth.
Oedipus is adopted by the Corinthian king and queen, Polybus and Merope, and grows up thinking he is their natural son.
A drunk man insults Oedipus, telling him he is not his (Corinthian) parents' son.
Oedipus goes to Delphi to debunk the drunk man's slander, but instead receives an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother.
Oedipus willingly exiles himself from Corinth, thinking this will save him from fulfilling the prophecy.
On his path of exile, Oedipus kills a stranger at a crossroads.
Oedipus comes to Thebes, which is besieged by a Sphinx. He solves her riddle and saves the city.
Oedipus is made king of Thebes and marries the queen, Jocasta.
A plague afflicts Thebes.
Oedipus launches a public inquiry to save the city from the plague.
An oracle says the plague will end when Laius' killer is found and exiled or killed.
Oedipus finds out he is the killer of Laius, and that he is the son of Laius and Jocasta. He blinds himself and begs to be exiled.

OEDIPUS REX TIMELINE – The Order of Discovery

A plague is afflicting Thebes. The people ask Oedipus to help.
We find out from the Chorus that Oedipus became king by freeing the city from the Sphinx.
Creon's message when he returns from the oracle: kill or exile Laius' killer(s) to lift the plague.
Oedipus finds out that Laius was killed while he was on his way to consult an oracle.
The Chorus leader tells Oedipus that Laius was killed by travelers.
Tiresias, who has been called by Oedipus, tells Oedipus that he himself is Laius' killer. Oedipus is offended and suspects a conspiracy. Tiresias also hints about Oedipus' marriage.
Jocasta tells Oedipus that her son was exposed on a mountain, and that Laius was killed by strangers at a place where three roads meet (in order to show that oracles can be incorrect).
Oedipus recounts that his parents are Merope and Polybus of Corinth, but that a drunk man slandered him, and said he was adopted. Oedipus recounts his visit to the oracle at Delphi (intended to prove his parentage), where he received a prophecy that he would couple with his mother and kill his father. This caused him to exile himself from Corinth.
Oedipus recounts killing a man at the triple crossroad near Delphi, and hopes the man wasn't related to Laius.
The Corinthian messenger announces that Oedipus is the new king of Corinth, because Polybus is dead (by natural causes).
The Corinthian messenger tells Oedipus he's not the son of Polybus and Merope. The Corinthian messenger was the one who found Oedipus on Mount Cithaeron, as a crying infant with pierced ankles.
The Corinthian messenger testifies that he received baby Oedipus from a servant of Laius, another shepherd. Jocasta knows the truth, goes offstage, and hangs herself.
The shepherd tells Oedipus that the baby he gave to the Corinthian messenger was the son of Laius and Jocasta, given to him because of a prophecy that he would kill his parents.
Oedipus puts the pieces together (that he has fulfilled the prophecy concerning his birth) and blinds himself.

Ella Wilhelm is a graduate student in Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the idea of the "fall-narrative" in 18th and 19th century German literature and thought. She is also interested in the theory and practice of drama, and was the dramaturg and lead translator for a 2018 production of Heinrich von Kleist's The Broken Jug at the University of Chicago.

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We are thrilled to announce the cast of The Gospel at Colonus, conceived and adapted by Lee Breuer, with music composed by Bob Telson.

Meet the talented performers bringing this production to life (from left to right, top to bottom): Kelvin Roston, Jr., Timothy Edward Kane, Aeriel Williams, Kai A. Ealy, Ariana Burks, Mark Spates Smith, Shari Addison, Eric A. Lewis, Juwon Tyrel Perry, Jessica Brooke Seals, Jerica Exum, Shantina Lynet', Isaac Ray, Eva Ruwé, and Cherise Thomas.

Directed by Mark J.P. Hood and Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell - and featuring Associate Director TaRon Patton - The Gospel at Colonus is an exuberant odyssey, and these artists can't wait to take you on this redemptive musical journey.

Running from May 12 - June 11, tickets for The Gospel at Colonus are available for purchase online or by calling the Box Office at (773) 753-4472.

Mourn no more. Retribution comes.

Based on an adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus in the version by Robert Fitzgerald and incorporating passages from both Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone in the versions by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, which are published as The Oedipus Cycle of Sophocles, a Harvest/HBJ Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

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A group of women sit at a table with books. One woman stands in the center of the group with her hand raised to the ceiling; the other three women look at her with love, respect, and admiration. The woman seated at the far left of the group looks bored. — Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel, Lizzie Bourne, Genevieve VenJohnson, Elizabeth Laidlaw, and Morgan Lavenstein by Michael Brosilow.

With an enthusiastic, full house and glowing reviews, Fen's opening night was a resounding success.

Caryl Churchill's story is as hauntingly beautiful as the design elements, and the performances are nuanced and achingly human. Fen stays with you long after you leave the theatre, as audience members and reviewers agree!

Fen runs now through March 5th. Don't miss your chance to see the ambitious, visceral work of "one of England’s most inventive and finest avant-garde playwrights" - get your tickets today!

"Fascinating; any fan of Churchill’s plays will likely feel this is an evening well spent."

— Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

"Fen proves genuinely worthy of unearthing. Thanks to a stellar production from Vanessa Stalling, directing a crazy-good cast, this 40-year-old play comes across as strikingly contemporary in its aesthetics and surprisingly relatable in its milieu...In Fen, Churchill reaches deep down into the community’s psyche, digging out the dreams and dark desires and intense frustrations that lie underneath, until the surface reality can no longer hold. The play operates on so many levels — the sociopolitical, the psychological, the supernatural and, most of all, the theatrical."

— Chicago Sun-Times, 3.5 out of 4 stars

"In this universe of privation, where birth, love, death, drugs, and Jesus can bring no redemption, why go on?...And yet, despite the dust and dark, there are brief moments of connection and community....Throughout the play the women sing, sometimes alone but best of all together, creating temporary harmonies, a loveliness seemingly from nothing, breathed, voiced, created, experienced, then gone, a vibration that passes through like a ghost of a hope that can’t quite exist in this universe yet somehow does."

— Chicago Reader, Reader Recommended

"Directed by Vanessa Stalling, this raw, brutal and amazing play dives into deep places of female sorrow and longing. Like its setting, it can be tough to navigate. But it cultivates empathy, which is one of the main reasons for art."

— NewCity Stage, Recommended

"Ms. Stalling’s skillfully taken her cast through the evolution of the many characters they all portray. She has shaped and crafted this entire production, making it one of the most poignant and passionate productions in recent memory...Each of the six actors in this production are incredibly and equally fantastic. This talented ensemble cast features electrifying performances by every single person on the Court stage...All of these dramatic fragments add up to a most powerful, compelling and hard-to-forget evening of theatre, as told by one of England’s most inventive and finest avant garde playwrights, the brilliant Caryl Churchill."

— Chicago Theatre Review, Highly Recommended

"The play gives us a succinct portrait of the increasingly impersonal nature of the landowners, as local farms and the estates of gentry alike are snapped up by ever-larger global agri-businesses. It is in the exploration of these aspects of the Fenland that Churchill's immense skills as a wordsmith and playwright shine. It is why she is regarded as a pre-eminent English playwright, and the chance to see a serious presentation of any of Churchill's works is not to be missed....Churchill’s script has been given a fully realized production, with a beautifully constructed set (scenic Design by Collette Pollard) dominated by rows of potato fields, the stage big enough for a full-sized tractor to roll through. Director Vanessa Stalling orchestrates excellent performances from a sprawling roster of 22 characters, played by just six actors, as is the playwright's intent."

— Buzz Center Stage

"Some of the actors play as many as three to four characters...Lizzie Bourne, Morgan Lavenstein and Genevieve VenJohnson were all exceptional as they morphed from one character to another...By lifting the veil and showing the degree of damage stifled lives can wreak in women, Churchill completes an unfinished picture of the collateral cost of caste."

— City Pleasures

"Under the skillful direction of Vanessa Stalling...these actors to portray the various characters so perfectly. Each one is so different from the other."

— Around the Town Chicago, 4 out of 5 stars

"All the characters have unique stories of trauma and triumph. Still, this mysteriously tantalizing play is more about people and how they are treated and affected by the land and their environment."

— Let's Play Theatrical Reviews

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Productions

Oedipus, Church, and Catharsis

Production Dramaturg Wenke (Coco) Huang highlights quotes about catharsis, joy, redemption, and Black worship that offer crucial context for THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS.

Chicago’s Gospel History

Production Dramaturg Wenke (Coco) Huang provides a brief overview of Chicago's history with gospel music and how it informs THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS.

The Gospel at…Theatre Camp?

What do Morgan Freeman, Zora Neale Hurston, and the 2003 film CAMP have in common? Believe it or not, they're all connected to THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS! Read more about this production's cultural resonances in this blog post!

Gospel in Millennia

Wenke (Coco) Huang - Production Dramaturg for THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS - illuminates the ancestral resonances connecting us to Lee Breuer, to Sophocles, and to Chicago's history.

Ecstatic Worship and the Pentecostal Experience

Scholar Emily D. Crews offers background knowledge on Pentecostalism, thereby providing context to better understand THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS.

In Conversation: Directors Mark J.P. Hood and Charles Newell

Directors Mark J.P. Hood and Charles Newell discuss the evolution of gospel music, the importance of doing THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS in Chicago, and the personal journey of redemption.

Find the Fresh in the Familiar with Court’s 2023/24 Season

We're thrilled to announce the 2023/24 season! This next season marks a thrilling inflection point in our history, catalyzed by the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Centering timeless themes in strikingly rich interpretations, the 2023/24 season finds the fresh in the familiar with a carefully curated blend of beloved texts and new voices.

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