Lyric Opera debuts new set of marquess messages

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Lyric Opera of Chicago is drawing inspiration from some of the music industry's biggest pop stars for the newest set of marquee messages.

You might recognize the Lyric Opera's historic Madison and Washington Street marquees and their clever messages on your way to work.

"To just sort of reflect on things that are going on in popular culture and things that show how opera can still be relevant today," Michael Solomon with the Lyric said.

Solomon said the marketing team works together to brainstorm message ideas, then the final messages are handed off to stagehand John Clark and his team.

The messages usually have to be edited because of limited space on the signs.

"We usually have to edit it because we only have 13 spaces, so if you have a space, punctuation, any of that, you have 13 characters – that's it," Clark said.

Then Clark and his team manually change the signs.

"They give us a piece of paper that has all four marquees on it… One guy's in the office, one guy hands it out the window, one guy's down the ladder inside the sign."

One of the latest messages references one of the pop hits of the summer.

"We have one referencing a Sabrina Carpenter song 'Espresso,'" Solomon said.

It reads, "We're workin’ late because we're opera singers."

"Another is a reference to Chappell Roan crying in public."

That one reads: "Love crying in public? We have a show for you"

"We try to let people know that they're welcome in the building and we try to open up the door just a little bit wider for them," Solomon said.

Solomon said the goal is to remind Chicagoans that opera can be "fresh" and is not "a museum piece."

"I just hope for a double take…. Maybe they don't understand what building they're walking by on the way to the train station but here we are,” Solomon said.

“Every person who can encounter opera in whatever way, I think that's a very good thing for us at Lyric."

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