11-7-08
Benefits and Donations
Welcome to the Election 2008 Hangover Edition of “Behind the Curtain.” I’m writing this about 10 days out from the Big Showdown. But even if the results go the way I’d like them to (take a wild guess which way that would be), there is still going to be an awful lot of work ahead for all of us.
The plight of the uninsured and underinsured came up frequently during the campaign, and with good reason. We all know lots of working artists (and other working stiffs) who can’t afford to buy health insurance or are stuck with subpar plans that don’t do much when a health catastrophe strikes. Well, there’s a way to help one of our own. Diane Izzo, the celebrated musician and songwriter, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. To make matters worse, her husband has had a kidney transplant in the last year. Some friends are pitching in to help the couple out with A Big Brain Benefit featuring Robbie Fulks, the Waco Bros with Sally Timms, Califone, Vernon Tonges, and Curious Theatre co-founder Beau O’Reilly and the Crooked Mouth String Band. It’s this Sunday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at the School of the Art Institute Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan. Tix are $20. Call 773/508-0666 for information.
A benefit for a happier cause takes place on Nov. 15. Theatre-Hikes, purveyors of outdoor theatre at Lisle’s Morton Arboretum and other bucolic settings, hosts Every Seven Years a New Body at the North Lakeside Cultural Center at 6219 N. Sheridan Rd. The company pays all of its staff, Equity and non-Equity alike, and proceeds from this benefit will help produce their 2009 season, which they hope will include a musical about John Muir and a piece about noted nature girl Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Call 773/293-1358 for more information.
No benefit could help Forbidden Broadway Dances With The Stars. Despite stellar reviews, Gerard Alessandrini’s latest high-voltage parody of Broadway excess closed early at the Royal George cabaret space, and the planned holiday version has also been scrapped. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune has started the drumbeat for the Royal George to revamp its image, including repairing its damaged exterior sign. Whether the show was the victim of indifferent signage, general economic malaise, or poor marketing, it’s troubling that such a well-known franchise with a presumably built-in audience base couldn’t make a go of it this time around. We’ll see how Don’t Dress for Dinner, featuring New York theatre and television star Patricia Kalember (“Sisters” and “Thirtysomething”) does on the Royal George main stage. It opens in previews on Nov. 14
On the other hand, Lifeline Theatre’s current offering, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is apparently aging well—the company announces an extension until Nov. 16.
Black Ensemble Theatre isn’t singing the financial blues this month. The company has been awarded a cool quarter mil from the Chicago Community Trust for their new space’s capital campaign. That location at 4440 N. Clark encompasses 50,000 square feet and the total cost for build-out is estimated at $20 million—$6 million of which has already been pledged by the city’s much-maligned TIF program (though Black Ensemble seems a far worthier recipient than well-heeled developers in the Loop, for sure). No official opening date, but the two-venue space is in the capable hands of theatre architect John Morris. The company is kicking back right now with an old favorite, Jackie Taylor’s The Other Cinderella.
Send in the Clowns—500 Clown, to be exact. The much-applauded physical comedy group received $28,000 from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Ensemble Theatre Collaborations Grant (whew!) They’re using it to work with composer/lyricist John Fournier to create a new clown-musical piece, 500 Clown and the Elephant Deal, which combines a rock band, Bertolt Brecht’s The Elephant Calf and A Man’s a Man, and the troupe’s usual daredevil antics. The show premieres in December at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in Maryland, which commissioned the show and where the group is serving a nine-month residency, and bows locally at Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre in June 2009.
From publicist to playwright: former Goodman publicity associate Jennifer Dobby gets a world premiere of her script, Tester, with 20% Theatre Company. The dark comedy plays at the Viaduct through Dec. 6. 20% aims to produce more work by women—an issue that, as I write this, has moved deeper into the spotlight thanks to a townhall meeting Oct. 27 in Manhattan between female scribes and off-Broadway producers. By the count of playwright Sarah Schulman, male playwrights get produced at the 14 largest off-Broadway venues at a rate four times greater than that of women—more proof that “change” isn’t just a political slogan, but something we all need to pay attention to as a matter of course.
Musical theatre creators get a chance to hobnob at the Chicago Musical Theatre Dramatist/Director Exchange, co-hosted by Douglas Post, the regional rep for the Dramatists Guild, and Karin Shook and Elizabeth Margolius of Directors Lab Chicago. The schmoozer takes place Monday, Nov. 10, 7-9 p.m. at the Goodman. E-mail mryerson@dramatistsguild.com to RSVP. Space is limited.
And musicals also take the spotlight this weekend at Victory Gardens Biograph in Cabaret! Cabaret!, a showcase of musical work on Chicago stages this season, presented in conjunction with Chicago Public Radio. Excerpts include pieces from Bare Boned Theatre’s The Ville (Jeff Bouthiette wrote the music and lyrics for this ensemble-created piece, set in Andersonville and playing at Mary’s Attic Nov. 10-Dec. 15); Bohemian Theatre Ensemble’s current production of Michael John LaChiusa’s Bernarda Alba; and a sneak peek of American Theater Company’s much-anticipated production of Yeast Nation, by Urinetown: The Musical creators (and former members of the late great Cardiff Giant) Mark Ray Hollmann and Greg Kotis. It takes place tonight and Sunday—call the box office at 773/871-3000 for info.
Know an aspiring teen playwright? American Theater Company accepts submissions through Nov. 22 for this year’s contest, sponsored by Indiana State University’s theatre department. No fee to enter, but submissions (which can include monologues and musicals, and casts of 1-7) should be in standard play format, and e-mailed to ISUMHSPC@yahoo.com or snail-mailed to Indiana State University Department of Theatre, Midwest High School Playwriting Competition, 540 N. 7th St., Terre Haute, IN, 47809. Three winners are offered an $8,000 scholarship to Indiana State as a theatre major and will receive a reading at the school’s professional company, Crossroads Repertory, in July.
The election is over, but the news doesn’t stop: send items and bon mots to kerryreid@comcast.net.