A three-day, interactive music and arts experience complete with picnic packs is coming to downtown Naperville this weekend.
Park After Dark takes over the Naperville Community Concert Center in Central Park beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday and continuing nightly through Sunday.
Presented by Downtown Naperville Alliance and co-produced by Arranmore Events and Frieghtwood Creative Production, attendees can look forward to everything from puppet shows to covers of iconic hit songs from the 1950s and ’60s.
“We kind of wanted to bring something different to the concert center and make it unexpected, kind of interactive,” said Shannon Greene Robb, co-producer for Park After Dark. “We wanted to be a little bit different than just a typical kind of band experience.”
Greene Robb said she found inspiration for Park After Dark from her involvement with CabCab, an outdoor concert series held at the Arranmore Farm + Polo Club, which brings together local talents for a one-night-only band that performs different hits under a specific theme.
Park After Dark is similarly organized around a specific theme: reinvention. The theme will appear in multiple ways throughout the event, starting with the transformation of the concert center stage with a set design made out of cardboard.
“The concert center is just a presidium theater, right?” Greene Robb said. “We’re going to do some things with cardboard that’ll make it different and unique. We want to kind of reimagine the way the concert center is presented. … Frieghtwood’s going to create these little blankets with lanterns that are made out of cardboard, so really just a different way of looking at the space.”
And the cardboard does not stop at the stage design. On Saturday and Sunday, Freightwood will host a Cardboard Creation Studio sponsored by DJK Custom Homes. At that workshop, kids will be pushed to use their imagination to make their own playful structures and props out of cardboard.
Each night Park After Dark will begin with a variety of activities and performances led by Adventure Sandwich, a Chicago-based family entertainment group known for creative performances and activities involving music, puppets, games and more. The group is also known for incorporating cardboard into their performances in creative ways, tying back into the theme.
“It’s like, ‘How can we reimagine the stage? How can we reimagine the park?” Greene Robb said. “So we’re crossing over with those kinds of ideas of the reimagining.”
Musical headliners will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. each night. Friday opens with Feelin’ Groovy: Michael Mahler Sings Paul Simon. For that performance, guests can expect “a folk-rock fantasia of harmonious hits including, ‘Mrs. Robinson,’ ‘Cecilia,’ and ‘You Can Call Me Al,’” according to a news release for the event.
On Saturday, The Lovettes, who will do iconic songs from female artists of the 1950s and 1960s, will perform. Closing out the event on Sunday will be Better Together, “a five-piece ensemble whose set runs to soulful grooves, improvisation and genre-blending in the spirit of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles,” the news release said.
Guests are also encouraged to grab dinner at a downtown Naperville restaurant before the performances or bring it to the park as an outdoor meal through the event’s “Pack a Picnic” program. Partners include The George, Empire, Allegory, Tapville, Fiammé, The Belmont, Hugo’s Frog Bar and Fish House and Cookie Dough Creations.
“I hope that they are joyful and they feel a sense of community and the love of the downtown,” Greene Robb said when asked what she hopes attendees take away from the event.
Park After Dark is made possible in part by Naperville’s Special Events and Community Arts program, which is funded by a citywide food and beverage tax. The event received $74,000 in grant funding from the program this year, according to the city’s list of grant recipients. Other funding for the event comes from sponsorships.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
PARK AFTER DARK
When: 6:30 p.m., Friday to Sunday, July 17-19
Where: Naperville Community Concert Center at Central Park, 104 E. Benton Ave.
Admission: Free
Information: downtownnaperville.com/events/park-after-dark
