5-26-06
Theatre Awards Season
The Tony Award nominations (see page 1) are big news, but they aren’t the only awards news. To wit:
The Obies: Steppenwolf Ensemble member Lois Smith won an Obie Award May 14 for her performance in an Off-Broadway revival of The Trip to Bountiful. Playwright Adam Rapp received an Obie Special Citation for Red Light Winter, which he directed in its world premiere production at the Steppenwolf Garage earlier this season. The play also was a runner-up ($5,000 cash) for the 2006 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award.
The Wilde: On May 14, Nicholas Patricca received the Oscar Wilde Award for Outstanding Achievement in New Writing for the Theater at the 3rd International Dublin Gay Theater Festival. He was honored for Oh Holy Allen Ginsberg, Oh Holy-Shit-Sweet-Jesus-Tantric-Buddha-Dharma-Road, the recent Bailiwick production that crossed the pond. Nick e-mailed friends from Dublin that the Oscar Wilde Award “made me very happy that the good hard work of [director] David Zak and all the Bailiwick folk and the excellent acting of the cast were recognized through this honor. We definitely impressed Dublin with the quality of the work…from Chicago.” Additionally, Patricca acknowledged support from the Illinois Arts Council in the form of a Governor’s International Artists Exchange grant.
The Primus: Mariela in the Desert, by Karen Zacarias, has won the 2006 Francesca Primus Prize ($10,000), awarded by The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation and the American Theatre Critics Association. Mariela in the Desert had its world premiere in January, 2005 at The Goodman Theatre. In addition to her work as a playwright, Zacarias is founder and artistic director of Young Playwrights’ Theater in Washington, D.C.
The Organic Theater Company has quietly changed artistic directors. With Ina Marlowe now engaged at the Feltre Library, the new artistic producing director is Alexander Gelman, chairman of the Northern Illinois University School of Theater and Dance. The troupe didn’t produce a mainstage season in 2005-2006, but has mounted a touring educational show about breast cancer that’s played several score engagements.
Gone-But-Not-Forgotten: Pyewacket Theatre Company recently received three Jefferson Citations Wing nominations, even though troupe folded last year citing financial burn-out. The small troupe had an $18,000 deficit, even though artistic director Kate Harris and other company members long had financed the troupe from personal resources. Curtain called Harris to ask if efforts to erase the deficit had been successful. The company has about $17,000 in remaining debts, she said. Pyewacket still hopes to derive some income (earmarked towards the deficit) from an Off-Broadway production of one of its successful film-to-stage adaptations. A planned production of Pyewacket’s Misery foundered over rights issues, but Harris said a New York staging of The Conversation remains a possibility.
The Federal government recently released a second report on the national response to a possible bird flu epidemic. Among the recommendations: people should avoid congregating in large groups. That got us to thinking how a flu pandemic would impact theatres, concert venues, comedy clubs, movie houses, sports arenas and museums. We took a non-scientific survey of League of Chicago Theatres executive director Deanna Shoss, Harris Music and Dance Theatre managing director Michael Tiknis and representatives of Symphony Center. “Hey,” we asked, “you guys thinking about Bird Flu and the box office?” The answer across the board was “No.” Perhaps our arts industry should be discussing it with city and county health officials.
In Shakespeare’s day, as I recall from my boyhood, London officials closed theatres whenever there was a plague outbreak. The closures could last a few weeks or a few months. The Globe Theatre company would tour the countryside on such occasions, salvaging a few pounds from their cancelled or postponed London livelihood. But the entire Chicago theatre industry can’t hit the sticks, even if half of them already spend their summers in Door County.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater public relations manager Jason Woehrle, a seven-year CST veteran, is moving on to greener – uh – felt. He leaves in June for Las Vegas in a move that offers considerable professional opportunity for his domestic associate, an education professional. Woehrle believes he’ll find plenty of opportunities, too, within the large entertainment marketing industry there. I believe other theatre journalists would join me in wishing Jason a bright and happy future. It’s been a pleasure to work with him.
PerformInk recently ran news of the closing of Urinetown the Musical at the Mercury Theatre. In the story, producer/director Tom Mullen said the show’s title and inability to draw suburban audiences were its undoing. I’ve been chewing that one over. Perhaps Urinetown closed precisely because efforts were focused on a suburban audience and not an alternative audience.
“Suburban audience” means theatre-goers who buy tickets for hit shows in The Loop. That audience rejected Urinetown the Musical when the national tour played the Shubert, so why go after them again? Surely, the first audience for Urinetown – as the show’s original Off-Broadway success proved – is a younger, hipper, edgier crowd. I saw Urinetown in New York, and was impressed by the high percentage of twentysomethings in the house; a far younger skew than the typical Broadway show. Perhaps the Chicago producers should have put their marketing dollars into alternative publications, FM radio promotions, nightclub tie-ins and the like. Once the show established itself, the suburban audience would have followed. Hindsight analysis is easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Kirk Johnson, Sr., owner of Chicago voice-over production studio, Audio One, died Sunday, May 7. He was 67. Starting as a gofer at NBC (back when it was in the Merchandise Mart), Johnson spent 10 years learning the broadcast and voice biz before opening his own shop in 1970. He began private voice coaching in 1979. Before he died, Johnson was at work on Beyond the Words, a book that summarizes his method of voice-over coaching. “He believed that everything you need for voice-over performing is already inside you. You just have to learn how to access your own unique magic,” said his wife Julie. She and Johnson’s children have pledged to complete the book. At press time, a memorial service was tentatively set for11a.m. Monday, June 5th at the Notebaert Nature Museum, at Cannon Drive and Fullerton. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Lung Association.