6-19-09
Huff Play to Star James Bond and Wolverine
The Tonys didn’t feature the glittering array of made-in-Chicago talent that last year’s ceremony provided, but Broadway and off-Broadway will get a couple of shows this fall that made big splashes here. Keith Huff (whose Mud People is now running at Mary-Arrchie) makes his Broadway debut with A Steady Rain, which premiered under Russ Tutterow’s direction at Chicago Dramatists in fall of 2007 and then moved for an extended run to the Royal George. The gritty Chicago cop story took home three Jeff Awards last year for outstanding production, outstanding new work, and outstanding actor in a principal role for Randy Steinmeyer. Unfortunately, Steinmeyer and his co-star, Peter DeFaria, won’t make the move. The producer, Barbara Broccoli, decided to go with a couple of unknowns named Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. The show will also mark James Bond’s, er, Craig’s Broadway debut. As of press time, the venue hadn’t been announced, but it’s sure to be a smoking-hot ticket. (Though if Jackman and Craig look like typical Chicago cops, I am Marie of Romania.)
And beginning on Oct. 7, the Cherry Lane will host The Lady with All the Answers, David Rambo’s play about Ann Landers (if you’re under 25, ask your parents) that made its Midwest premiere under BJ Jones’ direction at Northlight in 2008. The show, starring Judith Ivey, will essentially be a remount of the Northlight show.
Is the internet the enemy of live entertainment? Not as far as The New Colony is concerned. The company received a grant from Google’s AdWords programming, which functions as an in-kind advertising donation. According to New Colony’s web director Whit Nelson, what happens is that whenever anyone Googles for live theater, they’ll see ads from New Colony, which the company gets to place for free, and users who click on the text ad will go right to the company’s web site, with the hope, of course, of landing some asses in the seats. New Colony’s latest, Tupperware: An American Musical Fable, created by James Asmus, Andrew Hobgood, and Will Cavedo, will burp away from July 13-August 9th at La Costa Theatre.
The theatre and visual arts community bids farewell to the Peter Jones Gallery, 1806 W. Cuyler, which provided studio space for dozens of artists for 25 years, and also contained a 40-seat performance space. According to an article by Deanna Isaacs in the May 28th issue of the Reader, Jones’ daughter, Rebecca, who had been in charge of the day-to-day operations after her 67-year-old dad dialed back his workload, had hoped to be able to keep at least some of the space available for the resident artists, which include performance groups Eleffant Foot, Black Forest Theater, and Jason Trusty’s much-loved “Puppet Bike,” but the landlord resisted. The final art show, “The Grand Goodbye,” runs through June 21, with a farewell party on June 20 (Eleffant Foot’s current show, A.W.O.L, goes through June 28). Visit www.peterjonesgallery.com for more information.
Pegasus Players, entering their 30th season, scored a lot of snap, crackle, and pop from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—a $50,000 grant to support the company’s growth in the wake of the retirement of founder Arlene Crewdson, and to support the annual Young Playwrights Festival. Crewdson, who just won a special award at the non-Equity Jeffs, will be saluted on June 20 at WBEZ’s studios on Navy Pier in a celebration featuring former Tribune theater critic Richard Christiansen and Pegasus alum Harry Lennix (star of Fox’s “Dollhouse”).
In other personnel news, David Catlin will step down as artistic director of Lookingglass Theatre effective next June. He will remain active as an ensemble member and direct his adaptation of Icarus in December. It’s expected that his successor will also be an ensemble member.
Open Eye Productions has named Jon Sevigny as artistic director, replacing Chris Maher, who, as reported here on May 22, will take over as AD at Infamous Commonwealth. Sevigny takes back the reins of the company he helped found in 1996. In another follow-up, Northwestern University’s Michael Salomon, one of two NU students named finalists in the Dentyne/Manhattan Theatre Club’s 10-minute playwriting competition (May 8 “Behind the Curtain”), won first place with RMEO + JULEZ and nabbed $7,500 and a one-year mentorship with MTC.
Steppenwolf for Young Adults and Fidelity Investments honored four arts educators in the third annual “Fidelity Investments Inspire the Future Awards”—Edward Cisneros of Multicultural Arts School; Kirsten Hanson of Lane Tech; Lisa Ehrlich-Menard of Curie Metro High; and Susan McDonough of Austin Career Education Center. Each receives a $2,500 grant to support arts programming at their respective schools. On June 26, Steppenwolf hosts a special benefit performance for the Princess Grace Foundation-USA of Princess Grace Award-winner Bridget Carpenter’s Up. (No, it doesn’t star Ed Asner!) Tix are $125 for the show plus a pre-show nosh at Vinci, $50 for the performance only. A discussion with Carpenter and director Anna D. Shapiro follows. Call Yolanda F. Johnson at 212/317-1470 or e-mail yjohnson@pgfusa.org for reservations.
No one ever accused the folks at Corn Productions of possessing Princess Grace’s elegance, but the company puts on the class with its “10th Semi-Annual Cobby Awards Show Benefit” on July 8 at the Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln. $25 gets you cocktails, entertainment, and a chance to ogle the luminaries who take home the Cobbies for categories such as “Best Boobs in an Epic” and “Most Resembles Michael Jackson.” (Once again, do not expect Mr. Asner!) Call 312/409-6435 or go to www.cornservatory.org for reservations.
Indestructible, the feature-length documentary by the late Chicago actor and filmmaker Ben Byer, who died last summer after a years-long struggle with ALS, inspires a benefit on June 22 at the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 E. Walton Local visual artists and composer Chad Willetts used Byer’s film in creating new work for this event, which will benefit the ALS Film Fund, dedicated to raising awareness of the disease and “inspiring change through creative means for ALS patients worldwide.” Tickets are $50 and can be purchased at 312/848-5919 or at www.indestructiblefilm.com/art.
Artistic Home hoped to score a coup this summer with a rare revival of the late Paddy Chayefksy’s The Latent Heterosexual, but according to marketing director Eustace Allen, despite long-term conversations with the Chayefsky estate, the company couldn’t reach a final agreement for producing the play, which the author of Network and Marty had kept in the closet since its initial run in 1968. The company will get to remount its critically acclaimed revival of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock at Theater on the Lake July 28-August 1.
Finally, in this age of belt-tightening, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC) has decided to cut back on extraneous consonants. The professional society is now known as “Stage Directors and Choreographers Society,” but will go with the slimmer acronym of SDC. As of press time, there were no reported name changes from the People’s Front of Judea.
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