Auditorium Theatre 2018-19 Issue 2 Hubbard Street Dance

January 19 - March 3, 2019 | AUDITORIUM THEATRE 2018-19 | 7 E ach year, the Auditorium Theatre's Creative Engagement department works withcommunities across theChicagoland area, connecting the messages of Too Hot to poetry and music. The Too Hot in-school residencies are free to Chicago Public Schools classes, and classes that participate also attend the Too Hot Student Matinee. This year, Too Hot residencies were held at elementary schools in South Austin, Englewood, Eden Green, Bronzeville, Rogers Park, and Back of the Yards neighborhoods. “Our in-school residencies give students across the Chicago area the opportunity to express themselves and what matters to them through poetry and music,” says Auditorium Theatre Creative Engagement Associate Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman, who oversees the Too Hot outreach. “We use the incredible history and score of Too Hot to Handel as a diving-off point for students to discover their own power as agents of change and representation, following the rich traditions established by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.” The Too Hot music residency gives students the opportunity to work as a community with their classmates to create a unique music composition. Working with Auditorium Theatre Teaching Artists, students examine the “sounds” of their own communities and reflect on the things that they would like to change. They listen to music from Handel's original Messiah and from Too Hot , and to excerpts from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, to compare different ways that music and words can make an emotional impact. On the last day of the residency, students perform an original composition. In the Too Ho t poetry residency, students find connections between the words of Dr. King and the text of Too Hot , examining the ways that words can be used to create an emotional impact. Students then create their own poems based on their experiences within their own communities, responding to the prompt “How has my community shaped me?” During the last class in the residency, students perform their poems for their classmates. The Auditorium also offers a citywide Poetry Contest, open to all students grades 3-12. Every year, students respond to a prompt that asks them to reflect on their own communities. Poetry Contest winners get the chance to recite their compositions before a performance of Too Hot , plus four tickets to the show. In addition to the in-school Too Hot residencies, the Auditorium Theatre is expanding its prison outreach project, now in its third year, to offer some of these programs to correctional facilities. For the first time, Teaching Artists will conduct a music residency with two groups of 15 students at the Illinois Youth Center (IYC)-Chicago and a poetry residency with residents of the Cook County Jail. At IYC, students will work with Teaching Artists in five one-hour workshops over the course of five weeks, culminating in a poetry recital and a screening of Too Hot . At Cook County, Teaching Artists will conduct a two-part poetry residency and curate discussions around viewings of Too Hot. A number of facilities, including the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) and the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, will watch a live-stream of one of the performances. “For years, our Too Hot outreach has centered around the idea of community and Dr. King’s messages,” says C.J. Dillon, Auditorium Theatre Chief Programming Officer. “With these new residencies at IYC-Chicago and the Cook County Jail, we’re excited to strengthen our outreach and bring the impact of Too Hot beyond the theatre walls to the residents at these facilities, giving them the opportunity to interact with and experience the performing arts as a part of the Auditorium Theatre community.” The Too Hot Master Class Choir