Celebrating spring and a crop of new productions 

Job, a thriller about big tech and big secrets, will premiere in April at the Writers Theatre in Glencoe. (Photo courtesy of Writers Theatre.)

As we get ready for warmer weather, we can also look forward to a celebration of theater and music happening in April:  

Concentration: 

Chicagoan Arne Weingart’s theatrical adaptation of Concentration—his book of poetry written in the voice of a World War II death camp prisoner—will appear on the stage on the eve of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The book has been described as “one long narrative poem, comprised of 50 eleven-line lyric 

Stanzas, in which the reader is transported to the mind of a Jewish prisoner in one of the Nazi 

concentration camps where six million Jews were murdered.” 

The production to be staged at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts was co-produced by Temple Sholom of Chicago. 

Concentration runs April 11 and 12 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. A discussion featuring Weingart, director Anna H. Gelman, and composer Cherise Leiter will follow the 2:30 p.m. performance on April 12. Learn more at ruthpage.org. 

Pianist Evgeny Kissin and the CSO: 

Born in Russia in 1971, virtuoso pianist and composer Evgeny Kissin performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for two evenings in April. 

Described as “a deeply intuitive and sensitive musician,” Kissin became a British citizen in 2002 and an Israeli citizen in 2021; he now lives in Prague with his wife. He will be performing a dazzling program of three piano concertos by Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Prokofiev. 

Kissin will return to Symphony Center May 17, for what is described as “a spectacular, era-spanning recital featuring Beethoven’s revolutionary Piano Sonata No. 7 as well as five Chopin mazurkas and works by both Schumann and Liszt.” 

Kissin will perform, with the CSO under the baton of Andrey Boreyko, at 7:30 p.m. on April 16 and 18, at Symphony Center. For tickets, visit cso.org. 

Job: 

Arriving at Writers Theatre is Job, directed by David Esbjornson. It was written by Max Wolfe Friedlich, born into a New York Jewish family. 

In the play, an employee at a big tech company is placed on leave, after video of her emotional breakdown at work goes viral. She is forced to see a therapist to keep her job. The 80-minute show is a two-character play, initially staged on Broadway in 2024. 

Job will run from April 9 – June 14 at the Writers Theatre in Glencoe. Learn more at writerstheatre.org. 

The Dialogues of Memories: 

You also will be wise to purchase tickets well in advance for a new opera, The Dialogue of Memories. This world premiere is a production of the Seattle-based Music of Remembrance performing arts organization, whose purpose is “to find and perform music composed by victims of the Holocaust, as well as to perform related newly commissioned works.” This new work has been composed by Tom Cipullo and the multi-talented Chicago-based writer Howard Reich.  

The Dialogue of Memories is coming to the Studebaker Theater, housed in the Fine Arts Building, on May 23. Learn more at fineartsbuilding.com. 

Hedy Weiss, a longtime Chicago arts critic, was the Theater and Dance Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1984 to 2018. She currently writes for WTTW-TV’s website and contributes to its Chicago Tonight program.