• Heartbreak
    Heartbreak Hotel’s Takesha Meshe Kizart, Geno Henderson, Katherine Lee Bourne and Zach Lentino (from left). Photos by Elider DiPaula
  • CastMembersFromFalsettosCOLOR
    Cast members from Falsettos, opening May 28, 2019, at the Oriental Theatre.Photo by Elider DiPaula
  • NOAK
    Noah Weinberg as Willy Wonka sings Pure Imagination from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, opening Oct. 2 at the Oriental Theatre.Photos by Elider DiPaula
  • Heartbreak
    Heartbreak Hotel’s Takesha Meshe Kizart, Geno Henderson, Katherine Lee Bourne and Zach Lentino (from left). Photos by Elider DiPaula
  • CastMembersFromFalsettosCOLOR
    Cast members from Falsettos, opening May 28, 2019, at the Oriental Theatre.Photo by Elider DiPaula
More than 15,000 people packed into Millennium Park Aug. 13 for a free, live teaser of coming attractions (and one currently playing attraction) of Broadway in Chicago’s (BIC’s) 2018-19 season. The event’s hosts were local ABC reporter Janet Davies and Santino Fontana, star of the upcoming, Broadway-bound musicalization of the 1982 movie Tootsie.

Tootsie numbers were absent, but a stellar crew of performers previewed a dozen musicals ranging from iconic war horses (“Memory,” the song of feline fading beauty central to the 37-year-old Cats; “Miracle of Miracles,” from Fiddler on the Roof) to new-to-Chicago tunes (the soaring anthem “Me and the Sky,” from Come From Away; Willy Wonka’s “Pure Imagination,” from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

The 90-minute show at the Pritzker Pavillion closed with the winners of Broadway in Chicago’s Illinois High School Musical Theatre Awards joining Ben Levi Ross (in Dear Evan Hansen) in “You Will Be Heard,” a number that speaks to the feelings of invisibility and self-doubt that plagues us all on our worst days.

For information about the upcoming season, visit BroadwayinChicago.com.