Metea Valley Theater in Aurora to present ‘Legally Blonde the Musical'
A preview show featuring the understudies will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24, in the Metea Valley High School auditorium, 1801 N. Eola Road, Aurora.
Three other performances will be held at 7 p.m. May 1-3 at the school.
The show follows the transformation of Elle Woods and her journey to Harvard Law School after she breaks up with her boyfriend.
Seats are assigned and can be ordered online starting March 29 at www.meteavalleytheater.org. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors.
Jazz vocalist to perform at St. Charles Public Library
Chicago jazz vocalist Petra van Nuis will perform at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 30, at the St. Charles Public Library, 1 S. Sixth Ave. in St. Charles.
She will be singing with pianist Dennis Luxion, who was jazz legend Chet Baker's pianist in Europe in the 1980s, according to a press release about the event. They will be performing Great American Songbook standards, both familiar and obscure, officials said.
For more information about the free performance, go to scpld.org or call 630-584-0076.
Kifowit plans online session
State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, invites community members to join her for a live online Zoom session at 9 a.m. on Monday, streamed on Facebook and Spotify, that will feature Jaemie L. Neely, executive director of the Federation of Women Contractors and an advocate for women- and minority-owned businesses in the construction industry.
The discussion will touch on legislation impacting labor and business diversity in Illinois, efforts to increase vendor diversity and economic opportunities for small and minority-owned businesses and the importance of advocacy in shaping inclusive policies, according to a press release about the session.
Residents can watch live on Facebook: @RepKifowit and on Spotify: Coffee with Kiffy Podcast.
For more information about the event or to participate, contact Kifowit's office at 217-782-8028.
Art exhibition planned at Farnsworth House
An art exhibition called 'Movement: Water Into Wood,' celebrating the legacy of nationally acclaimed Ho-Chunk artist and teacher Truman Lowe, will open soon at the Edith Farnsworth House, 14520 River Road in Plano.
The exhibition will open to the public at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 30, with a reception in the Edith Farnsworth House Visitor Center and Barnsworth Gallery. The program will include remarks by Rebecca Trautmann, author of 'Water's Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe.'
The March 30 exhibition opening is free, but those who want to attend are asked to RSVP at www.edithfarnsworthhouse.org.
'Movement: Water Into Wood' will run from March 30 to Aug. 31, 2025, and is available with the purchase of Edith Farnsworth House tour tickets or grounds passes.
Bunny Burrow Express trolley rides offered
Fox River Trolley Museum's Bunny Burrow Express will be making runs to a secret rabbit warren on three Saturdays, April 5, 12 and 19, at the Jon J. Duerr Forest Preserve, 35W003 Route 31, South Elgin.
The antique trolley car rides will include egg hunts and other seasonal fun, according to the museum's website. Children will receive souvenir baskets to collect eggs.
Train trips last about 75 minutes and depart at 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tickets cost $30.
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USA Today
3 hours ago
- USA Today
Gay influencer couple Probably This broke up. The response is alarming at best.
Are we, as a society, OK when relationships ending on any sort of stage sends ripples across tens of thousands of people eager to engage in an algorithmic bloodletting? If you've spent any amount of time on the internet, you've probably heard this one before: Internet couple attracts an audience. Internet couple breaks up. Former internet couple's followers try to figure out who gets custody in the split. There's several somethings to be said about living your relationships Extremely Online in an attention economy, and they mostly boil down to this: Influencers are not your #RelationshipGoals. We were reminded of that again recently. On Aug. 16, influencers Probably This – a couple comprising Matt Armato (bald) and Beau Ciolino (not bald) – published a now-deleted video announcing they broke up after 12 years. I found their Instagram account in the depths of my 2020 pandemic doomscrolling and clicked the follow button for their design, renovation and decoration of a charming New Orleans home. Five years later, they've called it quits, but cited an enduring mutual respect and care for each other as they move on. (Armato got the Probably This TikTok account and Ciolino got the Instagram.) From one bald gay to another (though, I promise, not exclusively because of that), I empathize with Armato, whose clear discomfort was the impetus for the audience to scathingly pick Ciolino apart. Accusations of cheating, assumptions about open relationships and critiques of their differing demeanors (Ciolino seemed bubbly in a nervous way; Armato appeared quietly devastated) filled the comment sections of the now-deleted video. The discourse is discoursing, which prompted Armato to post a story highlight to his Instagram page. 'I know the video has sparked a lot of reactions,' Armato writes. 'Please know that there are no teams here. I see your compassion and I appreciate it, but if your support for me looks like tearing him down I don't want it.' People break up. The internet has changed what that looks like. People break up. Everyone does that. But the internet has changed our relationship with how relationships conclude, and it leaves us all spinning through the vacuum where there should be space, peace and processing. Because Armato and Ciolino made a living, at least on some level, by putting their relationship online and commodifying their personal lives, they felt they owed it to their audiences to explain their separation. I'm not part of their relationship, and I don't pretend to be an expert on either one of them. I've followed their content casually at best. But like Facebook rolling out legacy pages for dead users, we're still in the nascent stages of an internet that continues to redefine itself and the relationships around us. As a result, we're not thinking about what happens when a relationship publicly implodes, and our mileage in the aftermath may vary. In this case, we've gone from tablescapes to tribunals. I live for the mess. But we're not entitled to any of it. Admittedly, I live for it. I also desperately need us all to collectively march out our front doors and touch the nearest patch of grass. Perhaps it's that when gay audiences see gay people in relationships, they receive outsize attention and parasocial projections both on the relationship as a concept and also the individuals within them because of the representation the community sees from them – especially considering the historic lack of representation we've felt in spaces that were not ours to create. But, gay people set conveniently aside, the thematic thread in any kind of online relationship is that we're buying what they're selling in an economy predicated on attention. That comes with the highs and, for the more patient among us, the perceived ultimate low: the breakup that unfolds just as much online as the relationship did. Everyone loves a messy fight – at least, at my messiest, I'd water the sidewalk if it meant I could be nosy about an argument down the street – so social media is an ideal front porch to eavesdrop in real time as people and relationships unravel. Still, our parasocial relationships with these couples threaten to (and often do) shift our role as passive observers into active participants. We're not just watching and liking. We're commenting and taking sides in a void of context. Our currency becomes zingy reads and memetic reaction images and backhanded messages of support for one person or the other. That can't be healthy for any of us. Not for an audience that misunderstands our place in a relationship that has invited us in as casual observers. Not for a couple or content creator navigating a difficult space that sees their comment section revolting against the absence of a relationship that doesn't exist anymore. And not for the people somewhere in between, navigating a spew of videos by and about couples who aren't together anymore. What do influencers actually owe you? It's easy to wave this off as a piece of non-reality – it's not real and can't hurt us – but as our younger generations continue to experience higher levels of isolation, the internet grows as a bastion of community and connections, and thus the real-world impacts become more undeniable. The internet is real and it can hurt you. Perhaps there's some schadenfreude there in getting to see the walls crumble down and reality peek through. Real relationships and real people are deeply complicated, take a metric ton of work and you are not promised your idea of success. Seeing that stripped away thrills us because it's a reminder that the influencers who dupe us into buying their display of perfection are not all they pretend to be. It's fine to admire what you aspire for. It's good, even, to identify and appreciate that you have representation. But also accept that you are only getting the version of the story influencers choose for you. This is an attention economy, and they benefit from obfuscating the truth. It should not stop us from pursuing our own and living our lives defined by our own rules. The reality is that we never should've been idolizing relationships like Probably This – or the people who actually live them – to begin with. Otherwise, we're living in a digital panopticon of our own making. Did that former influencer couple ever really owe anyone the truth? And are we, as a society, OK when relationships ending on any sort of stage sends ripples across tens of thousands of people eager to engage in an algorithmic bloodletting? Probably not. Drew Atkins is an opinion digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at aatkins@
USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Steelers welcome legendary band Linkin Park to practice
The Pittsburgh Steelers had some special guests at practice on Tuesday — none other than the legendary band Linkin Park. One of the greatest rock bands of their generation, Linkin Park had a front-row seat to intense action at practice — with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Brian Batko reporting that Aaron Rodgers played a role in their attendance. Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, David Farrell, Colin Brittain, Alex Feder, and Emily Armstrong — the new co-vocalist following the late-great Chester Bennington's passing in 2017 — had a show later that night at the Pittsburgh Penguins' PPG Paints Arena, part of their From Zero World Tour. Their next stop is Nashville, Tennessee, at the Bridgestone Arena on August 21, but the Steelers won't forget the surprise appearance of the iconic Linkin Park. The Pittsburgh Steelers will need to shake off the starstruck nerves in a hurry, as they travel to take on the Carolina Panthers in their preseason finale on Thursday, August 21, at 7:00 PM EST — which you can learn more about here. For up-to-date Steelers coverage, follow us on X @TheSteelersWire and give our Facebook page a like.
Newsweek
4 hours ago
- Newsweek
Laufey Is an 'Anxious Cinderella' on New Album 'A Matter of Time'
"Dark sarcasm" isn't something that one would expect to hear in the jazz- and classical-influenced pop of Laufey. The 26-year-old Icelandic-Chinese musician is known for her romantic and dreamy tunes inspired by the Great American Songbook—a canon of classic pop songs, Broadway numbers and jazz standards from the first half of the 20th century, including works by such composers as George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hammerstein—and rendered with a Gen Z perspective. Yet several songs on her upcoming new record, A Matter of Time (August 22), take a more candid—and at times, sobering—tone that contrasts with her earlier material about growing up and being in love at a young age. Album announcement Album announcement Emma Summerton "I'm a very sarcastic person," Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay) tells Newsweek. "With the last album [2023's Bewitched], I showed the light, and I wanted to show a little bit of darkness on this album. I had a lot of fun doing it. It's kind of like an anxious Cinderella." A Matter of Time, Laufey's third studio record, marks another step in the career of the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, whose story reads like a fairy tale come to life. Since her 2022 debut album, Everything I Know About Love, Laufey has played sold-out shows; performed with such artists as beabadoobee, Norah Jones, Barbra Streisand and Billy Joel; and won a Grammy Award in 2024 for her second record, Bewitched. Her music attracts nearly 19 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and her TikTok account has 8.7 million followers. Larger and Bolder Sound For A Matter of Time, Laufey says she wanted to make a work that sounded larger and bolder. "But at the core," she adds, "I didn't want to move too much away from my own sound. There's definitely more sonic exploration on the album, which was really important to me." Helping Laufey achieve that vision were her longtime producer Spencer Stewart and, for the first time, The National's Aaron Dessner, whose production credits include albums for Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams. "I've always wanted to work with Aaron," Laufey says. "I'm such a big fan of his and The National. I worked with Aaron [on] a session, and something felt really right about it. It brought a level of speed and shine to the album that I was looking for." An example of Laufey branching out stylistically for this record is the country-inspired track "Clean Air." "It's about letting go of something toxic from the past, whether it's a job, a relationship or a friend," she says. "It immediately landed in this dreamy country world. I love the harmonies of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. I wanted to have that sound in some way, and it felt like it wasn't a far toss from my world." The song "Silver Lining," the first single released ahead of the new album, recalls early 1960s pop music; Laufey wrote it while she was at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. "I found this vintage electric guitar in a corner and was like, 'I want to write a '60s song with the fun strings and this mid-century vibe and reverbed-out kind of sound.' I wanted it to be a love song, but sarcastic. Icelanders are not good at saying things very directly. We find these side ways of saying it. And I think 'Silver Lining' was kind of my way to do that." Yet A Matter of Time isn't a drastic stylistic left turn from Laufey's first two albums—the lush and elegant arrangements and her sublime torchy singing voice remain the cores of her work, such as on the bossa-nova-styled "Lover Girl" and "Clockwork." But her perspectives about love and the world around her have matured. "It's definitely more bold as well," she says of the lyrics. "It's more honest. It's more raw. It was a fun challenge finding growth within myself." Snow White lead Snow White lead Emma Summerton The feisty "Tough Luck," which finds Laufey throwing shade at a rotten boyfriend, is a notable counterpoint to her usual romantic perspective. "I just wanted to write a mean song," she says. "I had this experience, and it was so funny to me. I was like, 'This is a song.'" On the lush and heartbreaking "Snow White," she critiques idealized beauty with the ironic lyric: "A woman's best currency is her body, not her brain." "I was frustrated with beauty standards and myself for needing to compete with those standards," she says. "Like, 'Why can't I just remove myself?' The lyrics are about how the world has kind of set us all up to need to fit into those standards to compete." "Sabotage" is the album's final and most dramatic track, featuring a dissonant-sounding coda that seems more appropriate for an indie rocker than a pop song; Laufey calls "Sabotage" the album's thesis statement. "It's about that contrast between this glass-like beauty and chaos. This album, for me, showcases the complexity of female emotion to the world. So often, we're good at putting up a beautiful front on the outside, but then there's a noise or mess going on inside, this anxiety. I wanted to find a way to use songwriting and music to describe that contrast." Although Los Angeles is her current home, Laufey pays homage to her Icelandic roots on the track "Forget-Me-Not," recorded with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra; some of the lyrics were written in her native language. "It's a song about the experience of leaving your home country and feeling like you're losing it a little bit," she says. "This was my way of reaching back and reminding it that I love [Iceland] and pleading to 'not forget me.' And so the lyrics—at least in the chorus—had to be in Icelandic because I want to speak to its soul." Born Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir, she was introduced to classical music through her Chinese violinist mother, and her exposure to jazz-pop standards came courtesy of her Icelandic father's record collection. At a young age, she played both cello and piano. "I was like listening to orchestra rehearsals in my mother's womb," Laufey, who was raised in Reykjavík and Washington, D.C., says. "I was given a violin when I was 2. Classical music was what I've heard at home my whole life. But also, it was a lot of jazz music and the Beatles." Although she harbored the idea of becoming a singer in addition to being a musician, Laufey initially didn't think it was realistic for her to forge a career in the vintage music that she grew up with. "I didn't have any example of success from somebody who looked or sounded like me in current times. My favorite singers were from the '40s, '50s and '60s. So I just didn't believe it. I knew that music was always going to be a huge part of my life. I was just too scared to jump into it. Laufey later attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship, which was a turning point for her. "There were so many people writing around me, and it kind of empowered me to explore my sound and try things. So I started writing in a way that reflected my favorite music, which was songs from the Great American Songbook. I realized that if I wrote in that form but used modern experiences, it could create something that people would be interested in." Her breakthrough came when she wrote and released a single, "Street by Street," in 2020 that topped the Icelandic radio charts. Laufey's fame grew around this period when she started posting popular videos online of her performances of classic standards by jazz legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker, as well as her original compositions. Through AWAL, a record company that allows its artists to retain ownership of their work, she released her albums Everything I Know About Love and, a year later in 2023, Bewitched. 'A Generation of Mixture' Much has been written about Laufey's huge popularity with her Gen Z audiences, which is remarkable given that jazz and pop songs from the 1920s to the 1960s are generally a tough sell to mainstream youth. One major aspect of Laufey's appeal to her young fan base is that, underneath the music, her mostly autobiographical lyrics are relatable and contemporary. "I loved it [the Songbook sound] so much growing up.... It's very natural to me to advocate for that. I couldn't fake being a pop singer—this is just what I do. I'm so lucky that people are interested in it. I think it's because Gen Z is just so open to different styles of music. And with the amount of access we have to music from all different genres and decades, the palette of young listeners has really changed. "There are so many artists who have styles that don't fall into a certain box, but are applauded because we are a generation of mixture. So many of my fan base are mixed race like me or from different cultural backgrounds. I think that's a part of it." Laufeyperforms with Gustavo Dudamel & LA Phil at the Coachella Stage during the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, 2025 in Indio, California. Laufeyperforms with Gustavo Dudamel & LA Phil at the Coachella Stage during the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, 2025 in Indio, Coachella Laufey will be touring large arenas in support of the new album—further evidence of her growing popularity—including two nights at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Yet she has stayed mostly grounded through all of the attention. "I've been practicing that since I was so young," she says, "like the highs and lows of going on stage, playing a recital, coming back home and knowing that I still have to finish my homework the next day. My Chinese upbringing is, 'Stay humble and thankful and respect everyone around you.' That is something that I carry with me always." "I am in true shock over my career," she adds. "It's always surprising to me. It's very hard to have any sort of ego about it when I'm kind of curious as to how it even happened in the first place." Further Listening Everything I Know About Love [ARTWORK] Everything I Know About Love [ARTWORK] Emma Summerton Everything I Know About Love AWAL, 2022 If someone was listening to Laufey's 2022 debut album for the first time and did not know that its music consisted of mostly original material, they could've sworn she was interpreting classic Broadway and jazz-pop songs from the era of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Tony Bennett. That's a credit to how Laufey faithfully mines that era with letter-perfect precision and authenticity: from the melodies and lovelorn lyrics to Laufey's wistful and sultry voice. "It's about dealing with growing up," Laufey said of the album in a press release at the time. "It's also very 'hopeless romantic.' All the songs are based on my personal experiences in the past years, but the way I write about them is like fiction." Bewitched Cover Bewitched Cover Emma Summerton Bewitched AWAL, 2023 Laufey didn't experience the dreaded sophomore slump with Bewitched. Instead, it won a Grammy in 2024 under the best traditional pop vocal album category. In addition to containing the hugely popular "From the Start" and the title song, Bewitched features Laufey's cover of the Erroll Garner standard "Misty." "This is a love album," she said in a previous statement, "whether it be a love towards a friend or a lover or life. The first album also touched a lot on things like moving out of my childhood home and moving into a new city for the first time—being an adult. With this one, I've experienced a little bit more of that, and I'm writing about the magic in the love of being young."
