BY CHRISTINA BIGGS
Victory
Gardens (VG) has a whole host of excitement on tap next year beginning
with Harold Gould in Family Drama, a new comedy by Annie Reiner, daughter
of Carl and sister of Rob (and a psychotherapist to boot). Family Drama
will be directed by artistic director Dennis Zacek. The delayed Hanging
Fire by Claudia Allen will be next, followed by Shoes, a historical drama
inspired by the tragic 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four
black girls (directed by Andrea J. Dymond, hot off Free Man of Color this
season). For VG’s fourth production, playwright Jeffrey Sweet will
mark his 25-year affiliation with the theatre with Berlin '45, a
love story set in Hitler’s Germany, set to feature Tandy Cronin
and Roderick Peeples, directed by Calvin MacLean. Barring schedule conflicts
with a potential project in New York, Tony Award-winning Steppenwolf ensemble
member and star of TV’s “Frasier,” John Mahoney, will
make his VG debut in Symmetry, David C. Field’s new drama about
science and power politics, also directed by Zacek. “Our 2004-05
season promises to reward those who prefer the fresh and the new with
a carefully assembled collection of important new works by an extraordinary
group of writers, including three by our own ensemble playwrights, and
nationally recognized artists like Harold Gould and Annie Reiner,”
says Zacek. The line-up will also include a sixth production this fall
in the Upstairs Mainstage, still to be announced.
Chicago
Shakespeare Theatre (CST) also announced their 2004-05 season, including
a Shakespeare triple—The Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for
Measure, both directed by artistic director Barbara Gaines, and Romeo
and Juliet, directed by Mark Lamos. Their international programming initiative,
The World’s Stage, will bring Ireland’s National Theatre The
Abbey to Chicago for a limited two-week engagement of J.M. Synge’s
The Playboy of the Western World, directed by The Abbey’s artistic
director Ben Barnes. The Abbey, which premiered Playboy in 1907, follows
London’s Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Paris’ Comédie-Française
in CST’s international fare. Team Shakespeare will also introduce
the Bard to more than 50,000 students through an abridged version of The
Comedy of Errors. And capping off the season, look for associate artistic
director Gary Griffin (recent Olivier Award-winner for the Chicago Shakespeare/Donmar
Warehouse co-production of Pacific Overtures), to kick off the holidays
with a musical staged in the upstairs space.
Naked
Eye artistic director Jeremy B. Cohen has his sights set on the
east coast as he heads to the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut this
summer. Cohen will walk into the position of associate artistic director
of Hartford, a post which was created for him. As a result, Naked Eye
is not announcing any full productions for the upcoming season, and instead
is shifting its focus to new play development. “Our last season,
in which we produced the world premiere of The Idiot Box and the
Chicago premiere of Nickel and Dimed, was the company’s most
successful season to date—critically and financially,” says
producing director Geoffrey Barr. “Naked Eye is in a very strong
position, both fiscally and artistically, so our company members and board
of directors have no intention to close our doors.” Potential future
projects include a fall symposium on Nickel and Dimed and script
development workshops. Cohen will remain Naked Eye’s artistic director
and is currently working with his partner (and Idiot Box scribe)
Michael Elyanow on a new theatre piece entitled 12 Volt Heart about
the life of photographer, journalist and activist Dan Eldon. The piece
will have a workshop production in early April, thanks to a CIRA grant
from Northwestern University.
Blue
Man Group, at the Briar Street Theatre since 1997, recently introduced
new material into their New York, Boston and Chicago productions. Among
the additions is a piece on the state of the rock world, a sequence in
an Internet coffee shop and a segment about the history of animation and
man’s attempts from the Stone Age to bring art to life which will
replace the Fractals video. “As artists, our job is to develop new
work,” says co-creator Phil Stanton. “The basic structure
of the show stays the same but there are a few sections we like to play
with, either because they are meant to be topical or we have something
new we want to try out.” The new material, culled from the Las Vegas
production, recording sessions and last summer’s rock tour, will
be added into the show over the course of the next several weeks.
Chicago
Public Radio sketch comedy group Schadenfreude has been nominated
in the Broadcast Commentary Category for a 27th Annual Peter Lisagor Award
for Exemplary Journalism. Their radio piece Sponges, a parody of TV news
sweeps week stories, got the nod this year, alongside two other entries
from 848 on WBEZ, which happens to be a show on which Schadenfreude writer
Justin Kaufmann is also a senior producer. The awards will be held on
April 30; however, in true performing tradition, Schadenfreude will not
be able to attend the ceremony as they will be recording their radio show
live in front of WBEZ listeners out on Navy Pier. Incidentally, Schadenfreude
will also begin performing their first in-house engagement since the radio
show began, running Fridays May 14 thru June 25 at the Lakeshore Theatre.
The
City of Chicago is continuing its Immersion Weekend program, with
a dip into the theatre industry April 30-May 2. Guests will stay at the
Hotel Allegro, see John Mahoney in I Never Sang For My Father at Steppenwolf,
tour the Goodman and enjoy breakfast with their artistic team and catch
the premiere of Trying starring Fritz Weaver at Victory Gardens. “We’re
delighted to be able to offer this very popular Immersion Weekend package
again. Guests will have a chance to see three of the city’s Tony
Award-winning theatres,” said Dorothy Coyle, director of the Chicago
Office of Tourism. The package is $460 for a single and $645 for a double
and can be reserved by calling 877/244-2246.
Actor
Bruch Reed appeared in the opening night performance of Northlight’s
Lady Windermere’s Fan March 24 but was then hit by a car
the following evening as he arrived for curtain. Reed was taken to Lutheran
General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he had surgery to repair fractures
in his tibia and fibula. His doctor expects him to make a full and complete
recovery over time. Heal well!
And finally, Stage Left board member Frank Dorigan passed away recently and will be sorely missed. Frank had been with the company since their inception in 1982, a fixture in the board room for more than 20 years. Condolences to all who knew and loved him.