A Shadow Bright And Burning
Black Button Eyes Productions, under the leadership of producer/director Ed Rutherford, is now celebrating a decade of bringing lush, beautiful works of dark fantasy to Chicago stages. Their latest, an adaptation of Jessica Cluess' 2016 YA fantasy novel, A Shadow Bright and Burning , showcases the company's talents at their height. The story is set in an alternate vision of Victorian English where magic is real and commonplace, divided into a strict hierarchy. The Sorcerers (all male, respectable, scholarly upper crust gentlemen, stiff upper lip, Rule Brittania and all that) the Magicians (co-ed, dashing rogues and con artists) and Witches (well, you can guess, and as of this installment they've all been burned to death) The surviving Magicians are subjects of disdain because some time back, they and the Witches accidentally released the Ancients, (essentially Lovecraft's Old Ones, otherdimensional beasties that want to drive you mad, devour your body and so