Community news: Brookfield Zoo Chicago brings back its Ferris wheel, and more
Brookfield Zoo Chicago has another reason for people to visit this year, because its Ferris wheel has returned.
Through Labor Day weekend, when weather allows, patrons can enjoy a five- to seven-minute ride that offers views of the zoo grounds, animal habitats and even the Chicago skyline. The Ferris wheel is 110 feet high and features 24 riding gondolas and multicolored LED lighting.
Riders must be at least 32 inches tall to ride the attraction with a supervising companion; anyone 42 inches and taller may ride alone. Tickets are required and cost $8 for children, adults and seniors.
The zoo is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends. Details are at brookfieldzoo.org/visit.
Free choral concert includes Broadway tunes
The Hinsdale Sounds Good Choir presents its free spring concert at 7 p.m. May 6 at The Community House, 415 W. Eighth St., Hinsdale.
Concert selections include hits from 'West Side Story,' 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'Hamilton,' 'Oklahoma' and 'Porgy & Bess.' The show will be conducted by Daniel Segner and Jonathan Miller.
The event is free and open to the public, and children are welcome. No tickets or reservations are needed.
The nonprofit organization Sounds Good Choir is the Chicago area's largest 'no audition' choral program for adults 55 and older and also offers Good Memories for people with early stage dementia and their care partners.
Information is at soundsgoodchoir.org or 630-395-9542.
Oak Brook run to raise money for breast cancer patients
The Oak Brook Park District Annual Pink 5k Run/Walk steps off at 8 p.m. May 10 the Oak Brook Park District Recreation Center, 1450 Forest Gate Road, Oak Brook.
The race, which will be chip-timed through Central Park, is family friendly and teams are welcome. Online registration, which ends May 9, costs $35 per person. Day-of registration fee is $40. Teams, which must be at least 15 people, have a registration fee of $30 per person.
All registration fees will be donated to the Hinsdale Hospital Foundation Open Arms Breast Cancer Outreach Fund, which was established in 2011 to help breast cancer patients and their families via free mammograms to women in need because they don't have insurance or it isn't sufficient.
Individual packets may be picked up from 4 to 7 p.m. May 8 and 9 at the Family Recreation Center, 1450 Forest Gate Road. Race day pack pickup is from 6:45 to 7:45 a.m. Team captains may pick up packets regular hours May 7 to 9 at the Family Recreation Center by checking in at the front desk. None will be mailed.
Information and registration are at runsignup.com/Race/IL/OakBrook/OakBrookPink5k
Nazareth Academy to host fine arts showcase
Fine arts students at Nazareth Academy will present Scenes & Sounds Open House Showcase from 5 to 9 p.m. May 7 at the school, 1209 W. Ogden, La Grange Park.
Attendees can explore galleries of student work, meet fine arts faculty and interact with student artists. Musical performances include a choral concert at 6:15 p.m. and a band concert at 7:30 p.m. The event is free.
The academy is a Catholic, coeducational, college preparatory high school that serves families from 60 communities, was established in 1900 and sponsored by the congregation of St. Joseph. Information is at 708-354-0061.
Oak Park association schedules talk on hunter-gatherer societies
A retired medical researcher and urologist interested in evolutionary psychology will discuss recent anthropological findings about hunter-gatherer societies during the Evolution of Human Language, Aesthetics and Free Will at 1:15 p.m. May 4.
The program, presented by the Nineteenth Century Charitable Association, takes place in the second-floor ballroom of its headquarters at 178 Oak Forest Ave., Oak Park. Walters has coauthored and written papers about evolutionary psychology.
The session is free and open to the public, although donations are appreciated. The association promotes lifelong learning through multicultural programs featuring science, literature, music, art and the social sciences. Information is at www.nineteenthcentury.org,
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
On Tonys night, Broadway divided over Patti LuPone's remarks about Audra McDonald
More than a few years ago now, my mom asked me why the UK's royal family seemed to be all over the news all the time. That's all I see when I turn on my computer, she said. I think that might be because you've been clicking on some stories about Meghan and Harry, I told her, leading to lots more stories about Meghan and Harry. Similarly, I've lately been treated to many variations on basically the same recycled story about the great offstage Broadway drama featuring Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald. Stop, I cry, though if they weren't my Meghan and Harry, I wouldn't keep seeing this stuff. In case they're not your Meghan and Harry, here's the deal: A recent New Yorker profile of LuPone made news, none of it good for her. In the piece, she's quoted saying disparaging things about two Black actresses, her fellow Tony winners Kecia Lewis and McDonald, Broadway's most decorated star. Some 700 Broadway performers signed a petition saying LuPone should be disinvited from Sunday night's Tony Awards for her bullying and racially insensitive remarks. She then profusely apologized, falling on her own knife like Liù in Puccini's 'Turandot,' and various stage actors have been weighing in on whether or not she should be forgiven. Now, Patti LuPone has always been unfiltered, in that one way like the Donald Trump she's said she hates; you do not want to be caught with your cell phone ringing when she's on stage. Only she comes off in this profile as generous and gigantic and human and hurt and self-sabotaging but also finally going too far in letting loose on others, and in general. Is she for real or putting on a show when shouting at New York Rangers, 'Take your clothes off, boys! Naked hockey! No cups — I want full frontal! HA!' She is in let-'em-have-it mode throughout, referring to Glenn Close, the actress who replaced her in 'Sunset Boulevard' 100 years ago as a 'bitch,' and telling the New Yorker writer Michael Schulman more than once that the now Trump-run Kennedy Center 'should get blown up.' Which, hello, is not in any way OK. Serious or not, and people who say these things always insist that they were not, it's wrong to complain about Trump's violent rhetoric and then go around talking like this. So LuPone should also walk those remarks way the heck back. And I do not love to see women tearing down women; are things really not hard enough? Kevin Kline got off easy in the profile; all LuPone said about him is that he was a terrible boyfriend back in the day. Despite all of the many posts I have read about the explosions that followed the publication of the profile, I would never have understood the genesis of the contretemps without the guidance of New York Times theater reporter Michael Paulson. He reported on what happened after LuPone complained last year that noise from the Black-led Alicia Keys musical 'Hell's Kitchen' could be heard in the theater next door, where LuPone and Mia Farrow were performing in 'The Roommate.' LuPone took her gripe to the Shubert Organization, which runs both theaters. So far, perfectly normal, and something that happens all the time. Shubert fixed the problem. But then, Paulson wrote, after LuPone sent flowers to the 'Hell's Kitchen' sound crew, she was videotaped describing the musical as 'loud,' and refusing to sign a 'Hell's Kitchen' playbill. That's when Kecia Lewis, who is in 'Hell's Kitchen,' responded with a video calling LuPone's behavior 'racially microaggressive' by reinforcing stereotypes. McDonald weighed in by posting some supportive emojis on the video. In the New Yorker interview, LuPone said of Lewis, 'Don't call yourself a vet, bitch.' Which was way over the line. She said McDonald was 'not a friend,' and then declared that she needed a nap. Of course she did; setting yourself on fire can be very draining. McDonald wisely said she didn't know about any rift between herself and LuPone. Lewis has wisely not made any public statement. 'For as long as I have worked in the theater,' LuPone said in her own statement, 'I have spoken my mind and never apologized. That is changing today. … From middle school drama clubs to professional stages, theater has always been about lifting each other up and welcoming those who feel they don't belong anywhere else. I made a mistake, I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right.' Both McDonald and LuPone have given me so much joy, not just over the years but this year, that this is drama I could have done without. McDonald ripped my heart out and then handed it back to me with her 'this-isn't-your-Momma's-Momma-Rose' performance in 'Gypsy.' I spent a lot more than I could afford to be on the front row with our Aunt Mimi Turque, who was cast by composer Jule Styne to play June in an early national touring company of the show. LuPone also showed me a wonderful time recently with her show at the Kauffman Center, where she received five standing ovations, one before she sang a note. It's the only time in my experience — Can you say 'gay icon'? — that there hasn't been a line outside a ladies' room at the Kauffman at intermission, and I went home so energized from her performance, which these days in particular is worth a lot. So what I want to say is that with everything going on in the world that the arts stand squarely against, energy spent on fury at someone who has groveled from here to Argentina is energy wasted. I still love both of you 'Ladies Who Lunch,' the Sondheim anthem to female rage that I've seen both of you crush. I'd like to think that LuPone learned something from this whole episode — though again, those comments about the Kennedy Center still do need clearing up asap. We could all of us, of course, be less eager to pounce and readier to forgive. The many ageist comments about Patti, who is 76, by those Audra fans who aren't ready to let this go, and say they never will be, aren't OK, either. Unfortunately, art doesn't always bring even the relatively like-minded together. As always, that's up to us. UPDATE: I thought McDonald would win her 7th Tony tonight for the same role that LuPone won for in 2008, but no, the award for leading actress in a musical went to Nicole Scherzinger for her Broadway debut in a revival of 'Sunset Boulevard.' Pretty sure LuPone would not have wanted to be at the awards show, since it was Glenn Close who introduced Scherzinger singing, 'It's As If We Never Said Goodbye.' And Oprah Winfrey, who presented the award to Scherzinger, made some interesting faces as she made the show's only veiled reference to the controversy, but she did not mention LuPone by name.
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an hour ago
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The best photos from the 2025 Tony Awards
The best of Broadway was recognized Sunday night at the annual Tony Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The show was hosted by "Wicked" star Cynthia Erivo. 'Purpose' won the Tony for best play and 'Maybe Happy Ending,' one of the most nominated productions heading into Sunday's show, won best musical. Nicole Scherzinger also won her first-ever Tony Award for her best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for her role as Norma Desmond in the revival of 'Sunset Blvd,' which also won in the best musical revival category.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Best and Worst Moments From the 2025 Tony Awards
Best Reunion: The 'Hamilton' Cast It was plugged before what seemed like every commercial break, but when members of the original cast of 'Hamilton' finally gathered onstage at Radio City Music Hall for a 10th-anniversary reunion performance, the hype proved justified. Sleekly lit and dressed and choreographed, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. were gloriously back; so were Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones and that Tony-nominated guy who played King George. The eight-song medley — which included 'My Shot,' 'The Schuyler Sisters' and 'The Room Where It Happens'— snapped. I'd make room for it on any list of all-time-best Tonys performances. — Scott Heller Best Inspiration: Here's to You, Mr. Robinson The smooth baritone, the sly half-smile and the wink at the camera. This guy had to be an actor. And, once upon a time, he was. But Gary Edwin Robinson received a Tony Award last night for his second career, as a teacher, at Boys and Girls High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Accepting the honor in that voice that could make you believe anything, he said that he trained his students not merely to appreciate theater, but to find careers in it. Appreciation is of course valuable, but the harder thing is to instill in young people the idea that finding 'the theater in themselves' can be honorable, and even necessary. — Jesse Green Best Epic Acceptance: Nicole Scherzinger Nicole Scherzinger's acceptance speech was as epically demonstrative as her movements in 'Sunset Boulevard' are controlled, restrained, precise. The acknowledging of 'the exceptional warrior women in this category'! The shaking! The crying! The swooping motions from the hand that was not holding her new award! At times it felt like seeing a modern Maria Callas shaking her fist at the heavens, except that for once those heavens had ruled in her favor. There was an outsize grandeur to the drama of it all that felt classical. Can Medea be far off? — Elisabeth Vincentelli Best Placement: Cynthia Erivo's Balcony Bit Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
