Arts & Culture Broadway in Chicago Presents Aladdin

Now Playing at Cadillac Palace Theatre through May 28th

The Newberry Library and The Pattis Family Foundation are pleased to announce the winner of the second annual $25,000 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award. Toya Wolfe, author of Last Summer on State Street, will receive the award, which celebrates works that transform public understanding of Chicago, its history, and its people.

“Toya Wolfe’s debut novel is an endearing, memorable, and page-turning work with broad appeal and deep ‘Chicago heart,’” said Daniel Greene, former President and Librarian of the Newberry and Pattis Award jury member. “Set during an important turning point in the history of public housing in Chicago, Last Summer on State Street is a compelling story of friendship, community, and home.”

“It is such an incredible blessing to receive the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award,” said Toya Wolfe. “Last Summer on State Street is my debut novel, and to win a prestigious award for my first literary endeavor is wildly affirming and will support me as I begin writing a new novel and TV pilots. I am so grateful to The Pattis Family Foundation and the Newberry Library for establishing this award; on behalf of Chicago writers, thank you for all the ways in which you lift us up and cheer us on!”

The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award is open to writers working in a variety of genres, including history, biography, social sciences, poetry, drama, graphic novels, and fiction—all relating to Chicago. Dawn Turner received the inaugural Pattis Award in 2022 for Three Girls from Bronzeville.

In addition to awarding Toya Wolfe, the juried panel also recognizes Heather Hendershot as the shortlist award recipient for authoring When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America. Hendershot will receive an award of $2,500.

Disney Theatrical Productions, under the direction of Thomas Schumacher, and Broadway In Chicago are delighted to announce that Disney’s ALADDIN is now playing at Broadway In Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.). The long-awaited return engagement is running for a limited time through Sunday, May 28 only.

ALADDIN, the hit musical based on the Academy Award®-winning animated film, opened on Broadway at

About Last Summer on State Street

the New Amsterdam Theatre to critical acclaim on March 20, 2014, and quickly established itself as one of the biggest new blockbusters, breaking 16 New Amsterdam Theatre house records and spawning nine productions on four continents. Worldwide it has welcomed more than 16 million people and can be seen currently on Broadway and on tour across North America, as well as in Tokyo and Madrid, with a UK tour slated to open later this year. The Broadway production recently played its 3,000th performance and joined the list of Top 20 longest Broadway runs.

TICKET INFORMATION

Individual tickets for ALADDIN are on sale now. Tickets start at $48.00 with a select number of premium tickets available. Tickets are available now for groups of 10 or more by calling Broadway In Chicago Group Sales at (312) 977-1710 or emailing GroupSales@BroadwayInChicago.com. For more information, visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.

Ticket buyers are reminded that Broadway In Chicago is the only official retail ticket outlet for all performances at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. Ticket buyers who purchase tickets from a ticket broker or any third party should be aware that Broadway In Chicago is unable to reprint or replace lost or stolen tickets and is unable to contact patrons with information regarding time changes or other pertinent updates regarding the performance.

Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens lives with her loving mother and older brother in Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She and two other girls from the housing project form a tentative trio and carve out for themselves a simple life of double Dutch and innocence. As their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of their families. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer

— just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed—Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left.

Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Last Summer on State Street explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one’s own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of find- ing a home—both in one’s history and in one’s self.

The presentation of the 2023 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award takes place at a free, public event at the Newberry Library on Saturday, July 15, 2023. Toya Wolfe will receive the award and discuss Last Summer on State Street with Gail Kern Paster, Interim President and Librarian at the Newberry. The event will also serve as a celebration of the power of storytelling and Chicago, featuring a roster of speakers whose work in the city strives to change our communities for the better.