For actor Rachel Blakes, performing in her first in-person show since the start of the pandemic felt like returning to familiarity. Alongside two other castmates, Blakes portrays multiple roles in the play “Home” at the historically Black Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre through June 19. “It was like going home,” Blakes said. “I haven’t been to this place.
Throughout Rose Goodman’s childhood practicing at Dance Center Evanston, she said she always admired a particular photo of a dancer on stage. Last month, they got to be the dancer in the photo after landing the lead role in a revival of the same piece. Evanston Dance Ensemble, the center’s associated company, is a selective.
The Evanston Performing Arts Collective is the latest arts initiative to rethink how local groups can continue to share stories in a pandemic. The collective moved their work online to bring joy to the Evanston community.
“We’re storytellers; we have to tell stories,” said John Frank, co-founder and artistic director of Evanston 2nd Act Players, a group in the collective. “If we can’t do it in public we’ll do it online.”
At least 11 organizations, including 2nd Act Players and the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, united to form EPAC. The collective unveiled their second installation on Monday, in the four-part series “Celebrating Life, Community and the Arts.”
For Liana Wallace, spoken word poetry means vulnerability.
A Georgetown University sophomore and a 2019 Evanston Township High School alumna, Wallace said a club she joined in middle school introduced her to spoken word poetry. There, she drew inspiration from her peers, who freely described their personal struggles and views.
“I was really drawn to the depth at which they were talking about things,” Wallace said. “It’s just the ability to break down typical things you’re learning, and really profoundly describe those things and talk about them fearlessly.”
She said as someone who was developing her own racial consciousness, it was “beautiful” to see and participate in poetry that communicated her feelings and let her be completely vulnerable.
Coming together is more important now than ever. Three arts organizations are turning that philosophy into reality. Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, The Musical Offering, and Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre have formed the Evanston Performing Arts Collective.