Henson Keys (AKA “actfive”) is a Chicago-based actor and director who fell in love with opera while working for the Met Ticket Service in NYC in the early 80’s. An Equity actor since 1974, he has performed in over 130 roles in New York and regional repertory including 46 productions of Shakespeare. From 1999-2015 he was Chair of Acting Programs at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, having previously led programs at Ohio University and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He also writes opera CD/DVD reviews for Opera News.
In our current political climate with issues of immigration, tribalism, and white nationalists, the 1957 musical West Side Story has a distinctly contemporary feel. Lyric Opera of Chicago’s version, a co-production with Houston Grand Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival, is dazzling, thoroughly entertaining, fast paced, and, in the end, deeply moving. 
Saturday night, Lyric Opera of Chicago gave us a wonderful evening of vocalism in honoring Renée Fleming’s 25th anniversary at Lyric. 
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, he set in motion one of the most shameful chapters in American history: the incarceration in internment camps of over 120,000 Japanese-Americans for the duration of World War II. 
Cher Public