Actor Dan Proctor continues to make progress nearly a month after he was shot in the head by an unknown assailant, early June 26. He’s still at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where friends and family are making sure he’s never alone. According to an e-mail briefing sent out July 14 (just before PI’s press deadline), he’s off the paralytic drugs that had kept him in a protective coma, his inner cranial pressure is within a normal range, fluids in the head continue to drain well, sedation has been reduced from Level 3 to Level 1 and he is responding to those around him who speak to him or hold his hand, although he’s still not fully awake enough to speak. Owing to hemorrhaging in his eyes at the time of his injury, he still cannot see, although the whites of his eyes are back and his right eye no longer is swollen.

As previously reported, Actors Equity Foundation has established a fund to assist Proctor and his family. For the July 13 opening of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, the theatre donated all proceeds from the opening night party to the Proctor Fund. The standard beneficiary of Marriott’s donate-what-you-can parties (a $5 minimum is suggested) is Season of Concern.

Court Theatre has selected Dawn Helsing as its new executive director following an eight-month national search. She succeeds Diane Claussen, who left Court last season to become managing director of the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. Ms. Helsing, 40, currently is director of development at Centerstage in Baltimore. Helsing also served as associate managing director for Yale Repertory Theatre where she earned an MFA degree. She has held additional management posts with the Ensemble Company for the Performing Arts in New Haven, CT and the Arena Stage in Washington, DC.

Two playwrights with local connections are at the 2005 Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. Rebecca Gilman headed out almost immediately following the June 28th Goodman Theatre opening of Dollhouse for a workshop of Snake Tank. Also, Melanie Marnich will be there with Cradle of Man. They will be among only eight O’Neill writers this year.

Lifeline Theatre quietly slipped an honor to Roche Edward Schulfer in May, its Raymond R. Snyder Award for Commitment to the Arts. The Award was presented at Lifeline’s annual benefit. Says the citation of Schulfer, “Through his work at the Goodman Theatre, the League of Chicago Theatres and on the board of Lifeline, he has had an indelible impact on the theatre scene.” Indelible kinda’ sounds like an ink blot you can’t get out of your shirt, but we know what they mean. Unmentioned in the citation is Schulfer’s long service as an arts advocate, including chairmanships of the American Arts Alliance and the Illinois Arts Alliance, his industry service as an officer of Theatre Communications Group and the League of Resident Theatres and his work with the Chicago Foundation for Women. Lifeline chose the right guy.

There’s more than one way to get a theatre named after you. The easy way is to give a lot of money: the Cadillac Palace Theatre, the LaSalle Bank Theatre, the Merle Reskin Theatre (although Ms. Reskin has done far more than write checks). The hard way is to hang around so effing long that they finally name something after you. I’m still waiting. Meantime, Victory Gardens Theater has announced that its new 299-seat mainstage house, currently under construction at the Biograph Theater, will be named the Zacek-McVay Theater.

As everyone knows, the husband-wife team of artistic director Dennis Zacek and managing director Marcelle McVay has been around forever. It may be true that they’ve taken Victory Gardens from a good idea to national prominence, winning the 2001 Regional Theatre Tony Award in the process, but still, aren’t there any rich people waiting in line? The Zacek-McVay Theater is expected to be ready in time for the 2006-2007 season.

Madison, WI sources have sent word of the death June 24 of Joel Gersmann, 62, head of the Broom Street Theater since 1969, and producer of more than 200 new works. He died at home of a heart attack. Madison obituaries emphasized his uncompromising artistic standards and continued belief in new, experimental and/or controversial work. Always an inquiring mind, Gersmann was translating “The Iliad” from classical Greek at the time of his death, and also had begun to teach himself Arabic.

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