"...like being on the set of a Hollywood movie and watching it on-screen at the same time." —Chicago Mag

The Emmy-award winning shadow puppetry masters of Manual Cinema are back. This season, they bring their performance of No Blue Memories, a work about celebrated Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). She was an icon, a poet laureate, and a Pulitzer Prize winner—but she was also a treasured educator and mentor to the countless writers and children who knew her as their very own “Miss Brooks.” Weaving together poetry, storytelling, and striking visuals, No Blue Memories is an exploration of Brooks’s beloved city of Chicago and a story of how she navigated identity, craft, and politics over the course of one of the most remarkable careers in American literary history. The performance combines over 600 paper puppets, live actors working in shadow, and an original score performed by live musicians for an unforgettable multi-media experience.

No Blue Memories is a production of Manual Cinema, written by Eve L. Ewing and Nate Marshall, with original music from Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods.