8-29-08
Arson at Morse, Changes and Travels
Hello, and welcome to my first outing of “Behind the Curtain.” With apologies to Dorothy Parker, this is where I note that I’m following in the exquisite footsteps of Jonathan Abarbanel, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers. But let’s give it a go, shall we?
As reported in the June 20 edition of this column, the Morse Theatre at 1328 W. Morse delayed its summer opening. Another setback hit the owners of the former nickelodeon and vaudeville house on Sunday, Aug. 10 in the form of arson. As reported in an Aug. 11 Tribune article by Jeff Long, the perps broke in through a side door and set fire to a wooden bench using an accelerant, and also left a message scrawled on a second-floor lobby wall reading “You want war, [Come] get uz,” which Rene Camargo of DevCorp North, the community and economic development group that has been working to improve the blighted Morse corridor for years, interpreted as an anti-gentrification action. Owner Andy McGhee and his two partners, who have spent $6 million and worked for three years to turn the Rogers Park venue into a jazz club with a restaurant and bar, have bowed out of this year’s World Music Festival, but according to their website (www.themorse.com), they will be up and running by early October.
The Brown-ing of About Face Theatre continues. In addition to the recent appointment of artistic director Bonnie Metzgar, the former director of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University, About Face has also picked up Rick Dildine as their new managing director. Dildine’s resume includes producing the annual Brown University/Trinity Rep New Plays Festival and coordinating the graduate playwriting program under Metzgar and Paula Vogel.
In the same vein, Silk Road Theatre Project has continued its links with the University of Chicago, of which both artistic diretor Jamil Khoury and managing director Malik Gilliani are alums. The theatre named Kyle Gorden as director of advancement. Gorden served as producing director of The Civilians, a highly regarded New York-based experimental troupe, and has also been a management consultant for SRTP, in addition to past work with Theater on the Lake, Court Theatre, and the Hyde Park-University of Chicago Arts Fest (which he founded). His new gig with Silk Road will encompass press relations, marketing, and development.
And one of our favorite publicists (not that we don’t love you all!) is leaving the world of schmooze for the halls of academe. Andra Velis Simon, who has served as the PR point person for Raven Theatre and the Neo-Futurists for the past few years and has also worked as a musical director for several companies, including Signal Ensemble, Bohemian Theatre Ensemble, and Open Eye Productions, is taking on the job of musical director for the theater department at Columbia College Chicago. Christa Rolf is now handling PR for the Neos and Raven, and Simon says she will continue to be available for freelance work as a vocal coach, musical director, and pianist.
As the Bard said, “What’s in a name?” First Folio Shakespeare Festival shortens its moniker to First Folio Theatre in recognition of the fact that the company, housed at the Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook, presents much more than Shakespeare. They open their first show under the new handle, The Passion of Dracula by Bob Hall and David Richmond, on Oct. 1 in the newly updated main hall of the old Peabody Mansion.
We already know that Chicago theatre dominated the New York awards season, but now we’re taking over the United Kingdom. Chicago Shakespeare’s recent production of Funk It Up About Nothin’, created by the Q Brothers (who also unleashed The Bombitty of Errors) won widespread plaudits during its short run in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this past month. And Osage County just extended its borders to include London and Hollywood: the legendary Steppenwolf production of Tracy Letts’ stratospherically successful August: Osage County opens at London’s National Theatre on Nov. 21 with the original crew and much of the original cast (including Rondi Reed, who will take time out again from Madame Morrible duties in Wicked to reprise her Tony-winning role). And a film version, to be scripted by Letts, is also in the works. You can keep up with all the latest Steppenwolf news on the company’s new bi-weekly podcast at www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/podcasts. But fear not: the company isn’t forgetting its hometown. On Sept, 8, Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion hosts a free performance of the Steppenwolf Traffic presentation of Dream Chicago, featuring seven pieces by contemporary local writers such as Elizabeth Crane, Stuart Dybek, and Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice.
Local showfolk hit the links at Marengo Ridge Golf Club in rural McHenry County on Aug. 11 for the 2nd Annual Chicago Theatre Community Golf Open, organized by Steppenwolf’s general manager David Schmitz and Claude Binder. Participating companies included Next Theatre, The House Theatre of Chicago, Polarity Ensemble, Stage Left, the Hypocrites, and Collaboraction. Steppenwolf teams came in both first and last (how’d that happen?), and the House took second place. Now if only someone would put together a Chicago theatre beach volleyball team!
Collaboraction’s season opener, Heroes and Villains by Daniel Janoff, represents a Sketchbook reunion. All eight of the cast members (including Peter DeFaria, who had a great run this past year with Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain) are vets of the company’s annual short-attention-span theatre festival. Anthony Moseley stages this world premiere, which takes place in a beauty salon that doubles as a saloon, and houses a superhero (or IS he?!?!) Appropriately enough, several of the cast also got a bit of face time in The Dark Knight. The show runs Aug. 28-Sept. 21 at the Theatre Building.
That’s it for this first outing. How’d I do? Send news, notes, and complaints to kerryreid@comcast.net.