HeLa

by j. nicole brooks

november 18 - december 23, 2018

sideshow theatre company

 

scenic designer Yu Shibagaki
costume designer Noël Huntzinger

lighting designer Sim Carpenter

sound designer Michael Huey

 

★★★1/2!

"Rich and emotionally satisfying... a complex meditation on what makes our lives matter — even after we’ve ceased to be."

Chicago Tribune

 

"A transcendent play... [a] heartfelt examination of race, medicine, and basic humanity in America... If you don't feel something after seeing it, check your pulse."

Chicago Reader

"Jive ass planet. The pale blue dot is becoming lesser."
1951: A mother of five visits the “colored” gynecology ward of Johns Hopkins, knowing something unusual is happening in her body. 1981: A child watches Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on a basement television in Chicago as her auntie plays bid whist upstairs with the neighbors. The Distant Future: A gold-plated flying saucer hovers over the Earth, its pilot watching and waiting patiently as stars gently twinkle in her hair. All three stories connect, collide and expand, blending Afrofuturism with the true story of Henrietta Lacks and one little girl’s love of science. This winter, journey from East Baltimore to Chicago’s West Side to outer space, as J. Nicole Brooks’ new play explores who has the power over the stuff we are made of.