Review: Planets as Stars at ART House 360
Theatre LILA’s Planets as Stars, created and performed by Gina Cornejo, resists easy categorization. It isn’t quite a play, and it isn’t quite a poetry reading. Instead, it occupies a space somewhere between the two—an intimate, hybrid form of narrative performance where poem, memory, and movement fuse into something unmistakably its own.
Cornejo structures the piece around her poems, delivered with striking clarity and without theatrical disguise. That directness becomes its core. Her language is vivid and unfiltered, conjuring a constellation of joy, whimsy, trepidation, melancholy, indignation, and finally a grounded contentment. The specificity is what makes the experience universal: the Chicago details place the audience squarely within the geography of her life, and the portrayal of a failed marriage invites viewers to consider their own ruptures—or the moments they came close.
Full disclosure: I’ve collaborated with director Jessica Lanius on past projects, but my assessment here would be no different. Her work has always been marked by meticulous intentionality—every movement, every shift, carries meaning. That signature precision is on full display here. Lanius’ refined, spare direction gives Cornejo’s text the space it needs while shaping the performance with disciplined clarity.
The sound design by Asiah Wagabaza Doyle introduces an undercurrent of meaning that broadens the emotional field, enhancing the work’s depth without intruding on its intimacy.
If there was one element I could have used a bit less of, it was the repeated movement back and forth with the microphone. The piece is already so strong in its intimacy that the mic work felt unnecessary. But that’s a minor quibble in an otherwise beautifully crafted performance.
The production unfolds inside ART House 360’s Community Lounge, a cozy café-style space that blurs the line between performer and audience. In such close proximity, nothing is lost—not the breath between lines, not the weight of a gesture, not the charged silence that follows a difficult memory. It’s a rare environment where detail becomes its own kind of spectacle.
What ultimately distinguishes Planets as Stars is its emotional honesty. Cornejo isn’t interested in spectacle for spectacle’s sake; she invites the audience into the specificity of her world, trusting that what is deeply personal can also be expansive. The result is a small-scale work with unexpectedly large resonance—quiet, intentional, and deeply human.
Just one last chance to see...A luminous piece of storytelling, crafted with care and performed with heart.