12-5-08
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...
Tis the season of giving and thanksgiving, and three Chicago theatre artists received early holiday goodies in the form of Meier Achievement Awards from the Tim Meier and Helen Coburn Meier Foundation The foundation was set up to recognize mid-career arts professionals by the husband-and-wife team (Tim is a visual artist, and Helen is an actor). Recipients were chosen with the help of what Helen terms “talent scouts” who make the initial nomination, and with the foundation’s board of directors, who make the final cut. The foundation notes that the awards give preference to “underpublicized” artists, as well as “artists who push the envelope.” This year’s class includes Mark Messing, longtime composer with Redmoon and founder of the gypsy/punk marching band Mucca Pazza, who has just completed an opera based on Don Quixote; TimeLine Theatre Company artistic director PJ Powers; and Gift Theatre co-founder and artistic director Michael Patrick Thornton. Each receives a no-strings-attached purse (or should we say “envelope?”) of $24,000.
Companies and artists are also giving back with holiday-themed benefits. Second City presents its 7th annual improv benefit, The Second City That Never Sleeps: Letters to Santa, in its trademark 24-hour marathon, from Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 9 p.m. to Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 9 p.m. at Second City e.t.c. In addition to improvisational teams, an auction and raffle items, the event, which helps buy toys for needy kids, features musical performances by Robbie Fulks, the Breeders, and a closing set by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. Tickets ($10, or $20 if you’re staying for Tweedy) are available at the door.
SPACE, the Evanston performance venue that made its bow this year, hosts cabaret trio Foiled Again (a.k.a. Allison Bazarko, Rob Lindley, and Anne Sheridan Smith, with musical direction by Doug Peck) in a benefit for the Wilmette Theatre Education Project on Dec. 15. The holiday-themed warbling helps WTEP reach underserved communities—at-risk youth, the elderly, and the disadvantaged—with visual and performing arts programming and workshops. Call 847/251-1197 for reservations and info. Tickets are 30 clams.
Oak Park Festival Theatre offers Belinda Bremner’s Mrs. Coney in a concert reading at First United Church of Oak Park on Dec. 5 and 6. The reading will benefit the theatre company and the Walk-In Ministry, which helps provide food, transportation and clothing to unemployed and homeless people in the greater Oak Park area. Since Bremner’s play, set in Depression-era Kentucky, is about the “magic of kindness,” it’s an apt choice. Tickets are $15 adults, $10 kids over six. Contact Galen Gockel at 708/445-4440 for more information.
And why not show some love to your favorite companies? About Face offers a benefit concert performance of My Fair Lady—with a twist: Eliza is now an aspiring drag queen trying to learn the ropes. (“Why can’t a man be more like a woman?”) The piece, conceived and directed by new About Face executive director Rick Dildine, takes place at Center on Halsted Dec. 11, 12, and 14. $20 gets you the show and two free drinks. The company is also collecting hats, gloves, and scarves for Howard Brown’s Broadway Youth Center. Visit www.aboutfacetheatre.com for more info.
Corn Productions hosts its “Third Annual Holidaze Gift Bizarre” at Wishbone on Lincoln Dec. 10. No admission price: just show up between 6-9 p.m., eat and drink, and a portion of your tab will go to the plucky folks at Corn. There will even be a signature “Corn Cocktail” on tap (which sounds to us like ethanol gone very, very wrong). Call 773/407-5186 for more info.
Strawdog Yuletacular 2008 benefits Strawdog, natch. Join the company at Morseland in Rogers Park on Monday, Dec. 8, for a retro-style variety show, a holiday cooking demonstration, and big-band tunes by the Jenn Rhoads Project. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door at 773/528-9889 or www.strawdog.com. The company also brings back its interactive The Game Show Show and Stuff in a special holiday-themed late-night format on Dec. 12 and 13.
And what would the holidays be without something a little bittersweet? You can say “Farewell to 1229” (1229 W. Belmont, that is) on Dec. 29 (12/29, get it?) in a benefit for its departing tenant, Bailiwick Repertory. The company looks back at 15 years of musicals with performances from some of its greatest hits, from Pope Joan to Jerry Springer—The Opera, Dr. Sex to Hunchback. An after-party at Joey’s Brickhouse allows BR vets to share more war stories. Tickets are $50 general, $75 VIP, and $25 for industry at 773/883-1090 or bailiwicksales@gmail.com.
Former Weatherman Bill Ayers got a lot of play this election season, but performance artist Nicole Garneau offers a more expansive look at the tumult of 1968 than what we got in inflammatory campaign sound bites with Uprising #12, a site-specific performance piece that Garneau has been creating over the last year, using volunteers in different settings to explore the concept and practice of revolution, as well as “our collective obsession with the 1960s.” Links Hall presents this latest chapter at Jane Addams Hull House, 800 S. Halsted, on Dec. 6, 2-4 p.m.. To volunteer for an “Uprising” event, contact nicolegarneau13@sbcglobal.net.
From Jane Addams to Charles Addams: Stuart Oken’s Elephant Eye Theatricals (formed with Michael Leavitt and Five Cent Productions) goes back to the beloved cartoonist’s original macabre spirit in The Addams Family, a new musical about the creepy, ooky clan featuring a book by Jersey Boys writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and a score by Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party), and directed by Phelim McDermott, who showed his morbidly funny chops years ago in his staging of Shockheaded Peter. That one won’t hit the Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre until next fall for its pre-Broadway excursion. Meantime, Rob Roy: The Musical, based on the famous Scottish warrior and created by David Warrack, makes its North American debut in February at the Arie Crown—a place that used to see a lot of high-profile triple-threat traffic, but which has been out of the big musical spotlight for several years.
As I write this, August: Osage County is awaiting its London reviews, but if the early buzz in the British papers is any indication, it will take the West End by storm—Steppenwolf hasn’t sent a show there since The Grapes of Wrath nearly 20 years ago.
This season is all about fresh beginnings, so we want to close with congratulations to another Adams Family. Halcyon Theatre founders Tony and Jenn Adams welcomed baby daughter Charlotte Catherine on Nov. 23.
May the blessings of the season be with all of you and your loved ones, too.
Ring in tidings of 2009 at kerryreid@comcast.net.