6-23-06
New Leader for TOTL
The Chicago Park District’s Theater on the Lake (TOTL) has appointed Hallie Gordon as artistic director. It’s kinda-sorta business as usual for Theater on the Lake and Gordon, who served as managing director of TOTL from 1999 to 2001, when she was employed by the Park District as a program specialist. She currently is director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults. Gordon succeeds Curt Columbus, who left Chicago for Providence, RI at the start of the year as artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company. Keeping it all in the family, Gordon shared a Steppenwolf connection with Columbus, who was associate artistic director.
Gordon is a 15-year veteran of Chicago theatre, with credits at Pillar Studio and Curious Theatre Branch. She’s a graduate of the New School for Social Research in New York City where she studied theatre and theatre in education. The 2006 Theater on the Lake season runs June 14-August 6, and offers one-week runs of hits from Porchlight Music Theatre, the Gift Theatre, Curious Theatre Branch, Barrel of Monkeys, Dog & Pony Theatre, Strawdog, the Neo-Futurists, MPAACT and Second City.
William Brown is trading in his mutton chop whiskers for the director’s chair. After five years as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre, Brown will stage the 2006 version and relinquish the lead role to Jonathan Weir. Show runs Nov. 17-Dec. 30.
In other shocking Xmas news, Bailiwick has announced that the 2006 staging of The Christmas Schooner will be its last, after 12 years. The troupe refers to the show as “the small Chicago miracle that premiered in Bailiwick’s studio theatre 11 years ago.” Bailiwick promises to send the show off in grand style “leaving only glorious memories of the great performers and audiences that have kept the show so buoyant.” The Christmas Schooner plays Nov. 17-Dec. 31.
The Arts & Business Council of Chicago threw a swank cocktail soiree June 15 in honor of its annual ABBY awards for achievement in the arts. Among the recipients of a 2006 ABBY were Goodman board chairman Les Coney (Leadership in the Arts), Lookingglass Theatre Company with the Albert Pick Jr. Fund, Chase and the Boeing Company (Arts/Business Partnership), Business Volunteers for the Arts (for work with greasy joan & company) and Pegasus Players board chair Jackie Renner (On BOARD Member of the Year). I always clap for the money people and you should, too!
Speaking of Pegasus, they must be doing something right ‘cause they just scored a grant that’s huge by any theatre’s standards. Even Goodman and Steppenwolf wouldn’t sneeze at it. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded Pegasus Players $375,000 over two years to support Pegasus’ 20-year-old Young Playwrights’ Festival and ongoing educational programs. The funding will support the playwriting programs that Pegasus takes to area high schools, from which the scripts are developed for the Young Playwrights’ Festival. In 2005, Pegasus reached over 6,000 students with tours, workshops and festival plays, and received 600 scripts written by almost 800 students representing 40 schools. Pegasus founder Arlene Crewdson says the grant is the largest gift by far that Pegasus has received in its 30-year history.
Two seldom-seen musicals that recently lit up local stages not only pleased the critics but also delighted their co-authors. Composer Marvin Hamlisch attended a gala performance of Sweet Smell of Success at Circle Theatre, May 28, schmoozed with everyone in the audience at the pre-show reception, and stayed afterwards to praise the cast and musicians. This is the first production anywhere of Sweet Smell since its 2002 Broadway failure. Hamlisch even made some revisions to the score. Then, lyricist Sheldon Harnick attended the June 8 performance of Fiorello! at TimeLine Theatre and stayed for a post-show reception. No failure, Fiorello! is one of the few musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, in 1960 (Hamlisch did it, too, with A Chorus Line, in 1976). But Harnick and writing partner Jerry Bock’s next show was Fiddler on the Roof, a mega-hit that sorta buried their other work.
A theatre in Batavia, IL has come to our attention. Perhaps it’s new, or perhaps it merely hasn’t been on our radar. In any case, Batavia is far, far west, not far from Geneva and St. Charles, and is best known as the site of the huge and secretive underground nuclear ring accelerator (actually, it was constructed at the tiny town of Weston, IL which was completely appropriated for the project, so that Batavia became the mailing address by default, but I digress). If further evidence of the growth of theatre in the Western ‘burbs was needed, the First Street Playhouse in Batavia – a city of fewer than 20,000 – may be it. Whatever, the First Street Playhouse appears to be an enterprise of one Randall W. Knott, who is acting in – and has directed – the June 16-July 23 production of The Complete History of America (Abridged) by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, or 500 years in 90 minutes. At the corner of First and Water streets in Batavia, the venue notes that parking is free and ample.
Our North Woods neighbors, the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, opened their long-awaited $125 million theatre complex on June 24, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Really, you can spit into the river. The 285,000 square foot complex holds three theatres of 1,100, 700 and 250 seats, a restaurant, bars and parking for 1,000 cars. The facility was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, and is one of the largest theatrical arts building projects in the country.
The opening of the Guthrie is proof of the triumph of art over politics. When former wrestler-turned-governor Jesse Ventura 86-ed the already-agreed-upon State of Minnesota contribution to the state’s Number One cultural institution – thereby jeopardizing the entire project – the Guthrie called his bluff with the state legislature and voting public and won. Jesse came and went in one term, and the new Guthrie got built.