10-27-06
Doodling Along at Live Bait
Bernard Shaw coined the word “sardoodledom” to lampoon the well-made plays of Victorien Sardou and his followers. We wonder what Shaw would have made of star-doodledom, a term that applies to Live Bait Theater’s annual Doodles by the Stars benefit. This year’s Nov. 4 auction will offer doodles by more than 70 celebrities, ranging from bicyclist Lance Armstrong and legendary French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot, to glitterati Helen Gurley Brown and Maya Angelou, to comedians Dom DeLuise and Phyllis Diller, to musical icons Pete Seeger and Grace Slick.
How does Live Bait persuade so many stars and celebs to cough up drawings? “By hook or by crook, any way we can,” executive producer John Ragir told us. Often, he said, they simply send a cold letter to a personality or his/her agent and hope for the best. Other times they use six degrees or less of separation, asking people they know to ask people they know to submit something. By this 18th star-doodle event, Live Bait also has a growing network of repeat doodlers, among them Edward Albee, Ray Bradbury, Jules Feiffer, Nicole Hollander and Lynda Barry.
Ragir says no celeb ever has asked to be paid for a doodle, although they do receive a number of turn-downs for various reasons. Former President George Herbert Walker Bush said no, as did J. K. Rowling. Woody Allen, says Ragir, “would turn us down except the one year he was at his lowest ebb (during his sex scandal), and then he gave us a doodle after years and years of asking.” Often, Ragir says, celebs have sent letters explaining that they don’t have time to doodle, taking as long to write the letter as it would to dash off a drawing.
Doodles have been auctioned off for as little as $45 and as much as $5,000, Ragir says, with a Frank Gehry doodle drawing the top dollar. The next year, Gehry submitted another doodle that didn’t go for nearly as much.
Puppetry, percussion and dance are the featured attractions at QuestFest 2006, an all-day, family-friendly event this Sunday (Oct. 29) hosted by 4-year-old Quest Theatre Ensemble, which bills itself as the People’s Theatre of Chicago. Indeed, Quest certainly is people-friendly in at least one way: Quest performances and events such as QuestFest 2006 are free. In this case, Quest has assembled more than 20 specialty troupes and artists to explore a range of puppetry and percussion techniques through performances and workshops beginning at 11:30 a.m. and ending with the 5 p.m. “Massive Drum Circle and Stilt Dance. Bring your drum!” We must admit that many of the participating troupes are names previously unknown to us, among them Fred Putz and Tag Along Puppets, Drum Divas, Groove Ova, Irreverence Dance & Theatre and Korzatkowski Contemporary Dance. Info: 312/458-0995 or www.questensemble.org.
A number of Chicago playwrights are participating Oct. 30 in a program at the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA, 820 N. Michigan Avenue) in support of the exhibit, The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama. The exhibit (through Jan. 15) features works by 88 contemporary international artists that support themes of compassion, harmony and unity. The Oct. 30 program features 13 Chicago area writers addressing the question, “What is the Missing Peace?” Among the contributing writers are playwrights Dean Corrin, Mark Guarino, Anne V. McGravie, Carlos Murillo, Michael Nowak and Douglas Post. The program is at 6 p.m. at LUMA.
It’s a tour-friendly year for Chicago performing arts groups. Chicago Shakespeare Theater took Henry IV to Stratford, England in June, and now Lookingglass, Steppenwolf and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater have touring gigs in their pipelines. Steppenwolf’s current revival of its 2005 hit, The Bluest Eye, the Toni Morrison novel adapted by Lydia Diamond, will play Nov. 3-19 at the Duke on 42nd Street Theater in New York, co-presented by Steppenwolf and the New Victory Theater. It’s the first Steppenwolf for Young Adults production to play outside Chicago.
The Lookingglass story is even bigger: the company will mount a tour of its 2005 hit, Lookingglass Alice. The winter-spring tour will see the production at the McCarter Theatre (Princeton, NJ) in January, the New Victory Theater in February and the Arden Theatre Company (Philadelphia) in May. The show then returns to Chicago in June to close Lookingglass’ season at the Pumping Station. Presented in association with the Actors Gymnasium, the tour will reassemble the complete original cast and production team.
Deeply Rooted will appear in New York for one performance only, Nov. 10, at the Gerald Lynch Theatre in Manhattan. The company will present Classical Roots: An Evening in Three Acts, playing this weekend (through Oct. 29) at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.
We had the pleasure of attending the gala event officially opening Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph, Oct. 14, and we noted the number of theatre professionals – chiefly actors and playwrights – who made substantial gifts to the $11.3 million Biograph project. Several of those who have made it big made big donations to Victory Gardens, but none bigger than William L. Petersen who, along with his wife Gina, contributed in the $250,000-$499,999 category. Wow! Other gifts of $10,000-$99,999 came from playwright John Logan, actor John Mahoney, producer Joyce Sloane and actor Roslyn Alexander (and husband Sam Grodzin). Many of Chicago’s most distinguished giving names also are on the VG honor roll, but we wanted to single out theatre artists who put their money where their hearts are.
Just in time for the gala opening, Northwestern University Press has published another in its occasional series of theatre anthologies, this time Victory Gardens Theater Presents Seven New Plays from the Playwrights Ensemble. Unlike the previous paperback anthologies, this one is cloth-bound (that is, hard-cover). The featured authors are Steve Carter, Jeffrey Sweet, Kristine Thatcher, Dean Corrin, James Sherman, Charles Smith and Claudia Allen. The other members of the Playwrights Ensemble, most of whom attended the opening gala, are Lonnie Carter, Gloria Blond Clunie, John Logan, Nicholas A. Patricca and Douglas Post.