Chicago's Best Theatre Artists Come Play at Sketchbook
Now the audience gets to play, too.

BY Kerry Reid

Morgan McCabe and Jack McCabe in Mara Casey's Pie, directed by Marika Mashburn

After eight years, Collaboraction’s annual Sketchbook Festival has become a staple for local theatre artists. Brett Neveu did some of his earliest work in the festival, and Hypocrites artistic director Sean Graney has also made the festival a calling card for his ventures into playwriting. But playwrights with a national profile have also been a part of the festival since its inception. Thanks to an association with former Goodman casting director Tara Lonzo, earlier festivals featured prominent writers such as Eric Bogosian, David Mamet, and Regina Taylor. That trend has continued.

“For Collaboraction, Sketchbook has become a large relationship machine,” says Anthony Moseley, the company’s executive artistic director. “It’s a cycle. Some relationships start with Sketchbook, and some move from there to other things. We put a lot of conscious effort into nurturing relationships and finding the writers and directors and artists that we long to work with, and then really going after them.”

One of the playwrights Moseley pursued for this year’s festival is Jose Rivera. The two met when Moseley worked on Rivera’s Massacre (Sing to Your Children) in a co-production of Teatro Vista and the Goodman in the latter’s Owen Theatre last year. Rivera’s short, Yellow, goes up under the direction of Adam Belcuore. Sketchbook’s unique selection process requires directors to submit their concepts for various scripts in order to find the right match for each project. Belcuoure got the nod over six other directors. Says Moseley, “I would have hunted down a good director until we found one that fit, but I’m not going to do it just because it’s Jose Rivera.”

One playwright who came in through the transom (or more accurately, over the internet—Collaboraction takes all their Sketchbook submissions online) is rising New York writer Itamar Moses, whose work was last seen locally when Writers Theatre produced Bach at Leipzig last year. “We didn’t solicit him at all,” says Moseley. “It was kinda like, ‘Hey guys! Guess who submitted?’ And then high-fives ensued.” Joanie Schultz directs Moses’ Treadmills.

But local playwrights remain the focus of the festival, including Laura Jacqmin, who just won the second annual Wendy Wasserstein award from the Dramatists Guild (along with the $25,000 purse), and whose play 10 Virgins is now in its world premiere at Chicago Dramatists. Jacqmin first appeared in Sketchbook when she was still a grad student at Ohio University. “She did a short internship with us after she moved here, and she’s turned into one of our favorite writers,” says Moseley. Greg Allen will direct Jacqmin’s piece, Parkersburg, and Allen is also the author of Hackneyed, directed by Jen Ellison.

John Wilson and Nancy Friderich in Greg Allen's Hackneyed, directed by Jen Ellison

Two other artists are pulling double duty as directors and writers, but with their own pieces—Eric Ziegenhagen, who penned Bad News, and Ann Boyd, who conceived and directed Fragment. Ziegenhagen, whose work as a director and writer has been featured in several previous Sketchbook festivals, would have been fine with someone else directing, according to Moseley, but “it’s a real beautiful simple piece and it made sense to give Eric the full rein.”

One new development in this year’s festival is “Submit.” Audience members can visit the company’s website (www.collaboraction.org) and answer 14 “inquiries” derived from the themes of the pieces in this year’s festival. Submissions can be in text, audio, video, or still images, and can also be phoned in to 206/337-0678. Then the Collaboraction team will devise 14 “interludes” from these submissions that will appear, both live and on video monitors, in between the regular Sketchbook pieces.

For Moseley, this innovation brings the audience into more direct dialogue with the stories on stage. “We already know how the internet gives the user the power, and we have playwrights submit their plays and directors apply online, so we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could invite the audience to also submit their ideas and hopes and dreams and fears and find a way to integrate that into the overall experience?’” But as always, the technology is in service to Collaboraction’s goal of creating an inviting environment for new live work. Says Moseley, “In this technologically driven age, the strength and magic and power of theatre is the ability to be in a room together and be fully present.”

I’S N UR B1UDStR33M C0ZIN FA60SIT0SIZ by Sean Graney; directed by Michael Patrick Thorton
Written in leet—or Internet slang—this play tells the story of a child blogger who suffers from a congenital disease.

Fragment written and directed by Ann Boyd
Memory, time and identity are explored through a variety of specific pieces in this new multi-media work.

Count Orlock’s Castle by Gregory Moss; directed by Joel Moorman
A silent black and white movie crossed with a ’70s slasher flick crossed with a theatre in hell.

Treadmills by Itamar Moses; directed by Joanie Schultz
A couple discusses their future while exercising together.

The Lurker Radio Hour by Drew Dir; directed by Karin Shook
Steve Larker, host of a horror radio program, copes with his cheating wife on air with the help of Alice, his trusty sound effects girl.

Bad News written and directed by Eric Ziegenhagen
An estranged Midwestern father and daughter are reunited in a Dallas hotel room.

Parkersburg by Laura Jacqmin; directed by Greg Allen
Three women dig for coal on the day when they must find a vein or lose their jobs.

Program B

R UNHO ME TE DDY by Jesse Weaver; directed by Cecilie Keenan
Wheelie Ronnie Nally’s just shot Teddy up on Parnell Street. Can Teddy run home before he bleeds to death?

Cowboy Birthday Party by Emily Schwartz; directed by Amanda Berg Wilson
It’s a birthday party for a cowboy. Thrown by some of his rough and tumble cowboy friends, Cowboy Bill gets an unexpected birthday surprise.

Hackneyed by Greg Allen; dir. by Jen Ellison
A blackout, a scream, a shot and a thud are used in a variety of ways in this new piece.

Pie by Mara Casey; dir. by Marika Mashburn
Lyla and Harrison have been married for more than 40 years. Seated at a diner over a piece of pie, they discuss their marriage. Some may call Lyla cruel, but she’s just bored. Some may call Harrison a push-over, but he’s just in love.

Dated: A Cautionary Tale For Facebook Users by Ira Gamerman; directed by John Gawlik
Young Guy relays the hilarious, sad and sometimes tragic details of what it is like to get dumped in the Facebook generation.

Chicago Summer by Cassandra Sanders; directed by Scott Illingworth
On a Chicago summer night a girl heading west meets a boy heading east. They ride their bicycles and sing a tune.

Yellow by Jose Rivera; dir. by Adam Belcuore
Marcelo and Nadine have a yellow ribbon tied around the oak tree outside their house. When the doorbell rings and they are greeted by a young American soldier, they are forced to reexamine the extent of their patriotism.