City Lit Theater Observers Banned Books Week – October 2-7

BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK, beginning September 27, will enter its 16th consecutive year of exploring the content of books targeted for suppression. 

City Lit Theater Company, in association with the American Library Association (ALA)’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, will again present BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK during BANNED BOOKS WEEK, October 2 – 7, 2023, with additional readings on September 27 and November 14, at various locations in and around Chicago. BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK is a 60-minute program of readings of short excerpts from the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2022, accompanied by background on each book, including the reasons for their challenges. The readings are followed by an audience discussion.

The actual or attempted restriction of access to books across the United States continues to rise at an alarming rate. For 2022, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented the highest number of attempted book bans since they began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022 nearly doubled the 729 book challenges reported in 2021. The vast majority of the titles targeted were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or by and about Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.

Every year since 1982, the American Library Association has released a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books as reported to their Office of Intellectual Freedom. BANNED BOOKS WEEK features those books.  BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK features those books, celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the first amendment.

City Lit Theater will present the 2023 BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK at eight different locations in the Chicago area: two Chicago Public Library branches, the DePaul University Library in Lincoln Park, the public libraries of Bellwood, Highland Park, and River Forest, the Vernon Area Library in Lincolnshire Public Library, and the Frankfort Public Library. There will also be a special encore presentation on November 14 at the Women of Temple Sholom Banned Books Event at 3450 N. DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Lakeview.

City Lit Artistic Director Terry McCabe believes that BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK actively celebrates the books most at risk and calls attention to the would-be censor’s threat to an educated democracy. “Our focus is literate theater, so we are naturally concerned by attempts to keep books away from people,” McCabe says. “We are privileged to continue our alliance with the ALA in this important work.”

The BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK script is adapted by City Lit Education Director Katy Nielsen (pictured). The 2023 cast will include Brandon Boler, Noelle Klyce, Lynda Cortez, Brian Pastor, as well as some special guests.

Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2022:
 
1.   Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Number of challenges: 151
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

2.   All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Number of challenges: 86
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

3.   The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Number of challenges: 73
Challenged for depiction of sexual abuse, EDI (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) content, claimed to be sexually explicit

4.   Flamer by Mike Curato
Number of challenges: 62
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ claimed to be sexually explicit

5.   (TIE) Looking for Alaska by John Green
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ claimed to be sexually explicit

5.   (TIE) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit

7.   Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
Number of challenges: 54
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

8.   The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Number of challenges: 52
Challenged for profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit

9.   Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
Number of challenges: 50
Challenged for depictions of abuse,  claimed to be sexually explicit

10. (TIE) A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for claimed to be sexually explicit

10. (TIE) Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for drug use, claimed to be sexually explicit

10. (TIE) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit

10. (TIE) This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, sexual education, claimed to be sexually explicit


The 2023 performance schedule for BOOKS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

Wednesday, Sept. 27 – 7:00PM
Monday, Oct. 2 – 6:00PM
Tuesday, Oct. 3 – 4:00 PM
Wednesday, Oct. 4  – 4:00 PM Thursday, Oct. 5 – 7:00 PM
Friday, Oct. 6 – 1:00 PM
Saturday, Oct. 7 – 2:00 PM

Tuesday, Nov. 14 – 6:00 PM  

Vernon Area Library
300 Olde Half Day Rd,
Lincolnshire, IL 60069

Bellwood Public Library
600 Bohland Ave.
Bellwood, IL 60104

Edgewater Branch
6000 N Broadway
Chicago, IL 60660

Lincoln Belmont Branch
1659 W. Melrose Ave.
Chicago IL 60657

Highland Park Public Library
494 Laurel Ave.
Highland Park, IL  60035

DePaul University Library
2350 N. Kenmore Ave.,
Chicago, IL 60614

River Forest Public Library
735 Lathrop Avenue
River Forest, IL 60305

Women of Temple Sholom Banned Books Event
3480 N Lake Shore Dr (Lake Shore Drive and Stratford)

ABOUT CITY LIT THEATER
 
City Lit is the seventh oldest theatre company in Chicago, behind only Goodman, Court, Northlight, Oak Park Festival, Steppenwolf, and Pegasus theatres.  It was founded in 1979 with $210 pooled by Arnold Aprill, David Dillon, and Lorell Wyatt.  For its current season, its 43rd, it operates with a budget slightly over $260,000.  It was the first theatre in the nation devoted to stage adaptations of literary material.  There were so few theatres in Chicago at the time of its founding that at City Lit’s launch event, the founders were able to read a congratulatory letter they had received from Tennessee Williams.
 
For four decades and counting, City Lit has explored fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, songs, essays and drama in performance.  A theatre that specializes in literary work communicates a commitment to certain civilizing influences—tradition imaginatively explored, a life of the mind, trust in an audience’s intelligence—that not every cultural outlet shares.
 
City Lit is located in the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church building at 1020 West Bryn Mawr Avenue. Its work is supported in part by the MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Ivanhoe Theater Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency and is sponsored in part by A.R.T. League.  An Illinois not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt organization, City Lit keeps ticket prices below the actual cost of producing plays and depends on the support of those who share its belief in the beauty and power of the spoken written word.

Photos are courtesy of City Lit