- photos aren’t mine -

I can't explain the state that I'm in//The state of my heart//He was my best friend

Ricky Ubeda and Ahmad Simmons in ILLINOISE

The Sufjan Stevens dance musical Illinoise will become a surprise last-minute addition to the current Broadway season. Currently running Off-Broadway at Park Avenue Armory, the work will transfer to Broadway's St. James Theatre beginning April 24 and will open the same night. The strictly limited engagement will continue through August 10.

Sufjan Stevens | Casimir Pulaski Day

In the morning when you finally go And the nurse runs in with her head hung low And the cardinal hits the window In the morning in the winter shade On the first of March, on the holiday I thought I saw you breathing All the glory that the Lord has made And the complications when I see His face In the morning in the window All the glory when he took our place But he took my shoulders and he shook my face And he takes and he takes and he takes

It’s been a long time since I drew my favorite, Sufjan! I hope he is having a good day 

hi Illinoise has fundamentally changed me as a person and i’m not sure i’ll ever recover.

also Ben Cook is even more brilliant in person than he is through a screen and getting to watch him dance with my own two eyes has made my entire life

Jonathan and Lea at a performance of ‘Illinoise’ on Monday night, posted by Lea.

Illinoise (the ballet/musical based on Sufjan Stevens' album Illinois) is eying a move to Broadway after its current NY run in Armory Park ends and im just imagining it taking off among the bway Fandom because 1 it's fucking amazing 2 it's gay and sad and will make you cry (but doesn't bury its gays) 3 the characters are broad enough that fanon can do literally whatever it wants with them

But then we'd have a whole Fandom obsessed with esoteric Illinois history which would be so fucking funny.

illinoise on broadway

i think i’d sell my soul to see illinoise.

i’ve made so many comments on instagram (with many others) begging on my hands and knees for there to be an ACCESSIBLE way to see the show without having to spend thousands on traveling to new york city or chicago.

i feel that all fans are deserving & should have access to this, not just those privileged enough to afford it or that are close. at least give the option for purchasing a recording or streaming or something?

and i’m confused as to why there’s no explanation why they wouldn’t, because most comments are about it, one of my comments is on a post with 4 comments - there’s no way it’s unnoticed

very open to an explanation why they wouldn’t/ couldn’t do that + anyone who knows a way to watch it 👍

Mitski - The Frost / Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!

if i was crying in the van with my friend it was for freedom from myself and the land

As was the case with what he did for “Carousel” and “West Side Story,” both of which I thought choreographically superb, Peck articulates yearning so very well. He knows how to create pictures and then explode them, to encapsulate what happens to our bodies when we feel tense or afraid or untrusting of our partners or friends. But he also loves manifesting joy and thus he leads Stevens naturally introverted work firmly by the hand in that direction. I imagine Stevens would be surprised by how fun his own self could be.

she sufjans on my steven until i come on and feel the illinoise

Illinoise, Justin Peck’s narrative dance musical inspired by Sufjan Stevens’s concept album “Illinois,” opened in New York City on March 7, 2024 at the Park Avenue Armory. In making it a "Critic’s Pick," Jesse Green, theatre critic of The New York Times, called the production — with a story (without dialogue) by Jackie Sibblies Drury and Peck — “deeply moving.”  Photos by Sara Krulwich