MLK Day 2023 Theatre Events

Check out these events and shows happening at member theatres around the city for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2023!

Auditorium Theatre

Auditorium Theatre is presenting Step Afrika! on January 14. This production highlights the preservation of history through exceptional dance, as well as continuing and growing traditions through art. Learn more at https://auditoriumtheatre.org/events-details/step-afrika/.

Fleetwoood Jourdain

The Music Institute of Chicago and the Fleetwood Jourdain Theatre will present a free musical celebration of Dr. MLK, Jr., on Sun., Jan. 15 at 3 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave. Learn more at https://www.cityofevanston.org/about-evanston/community-celebrations/mlk-jr-day.

Goodman Theatre

Goodman Theatre presents the ripple, the wave that carried me home starting in previews on Jan 13. A family responds to injustice and a daughter reckons with her political inheritance in this new play.

Harold Washington Cultural Center

The Harold Washington Cultural Center is hosting a day of service for all performing arts lovers and an intimate evening with Dorothy Wright Tillman, former field staff organizer for Dr. King. To participate, email us at events@hwccchicago.com.

Invictus Theatre

Invictus Theatre Company presents Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a gripping reimagination of Dr. King’s last night in the Lorraine Motel after delivering one of his most memorable speeches. Ticket orders of two or more placed on or before January 16th can get one ticket free with the promo code MLKDAY. Opens February 20th. Purchase tickets here.

Mercury Theater

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill playing 1/27 – 3/26/23 at Mercury Theater. Turn back the clock to 1956 for an intimate cabaret performance with the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday. More than a dozen musical numbers are interlaced with salty, often humorous reminiscences revealing a portrait of the lady and her music. With a distinctive sense of musical structure and a deep knowledge of jazz and blues, she developed a singing style that was deeply moving. She left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since. Learn more at https://chicagoplays.com/event/lady-day-at-emersons-bar-and-grill/.

MPAACT at the Greenhouse Theater

Ezekiel’s Wheel playing 1/20 – 2/26/23 at the Greenhouse Theater Center. In the not too distant future two brothers, Drew and Zeke, search for their kidnapped father as they try to navigate depleting resources, their strained sense of loyalty and a prophecy they are beholden to but refuse to embraced. Addae Moon’s Ezekiel’s Wheel is grounded in, and inspired by, the rich tradition of Black Speculative Fiction by Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney, Frances Harper and Martin Delaney. Learn more at https://chicagoplays.com/event/ezekiels-wheel/.