1974
Chicago
artists Warren Casey, Cordis Heard, Roberta Maguire, Mac McGuinnes, Cecil
O’Neal, June
Pyskacek and David Rasche each put up $1,000 to start an off-Loop theatre. Stuart Gordon adds a light board. Victory Gardens is born, dedicated to developing and producing news plays, with a special emphasis on Chicago playwrights.
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Marcelle McVay in 1974
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Victory Gardens’ first production, The Velvet Rose by Stacy Myatt, opens October 9 to lukewarm reviews at the Northside Auditorium Building, 3730 N. Clark St., now home to the Cabaret Metro.
Marcelle McVay, current managing director, is hired as Victory Gardens’ first employee.
Victory Gardens bounces back with its second production, The Magnolia Club. The country-western musical, produced in association with commercial producers, becomes a hit.
1975
Dennis Zacek directs his first show at Victory Gardens, Harold
Pinter’s The Caretaker with Frank Galati and William J. Norris.
It wins eight Jeff nominations. Zacek, a Chicago-born graduate of Northwestern
and then an associate professor of theatre at Loyola, is asked to join
the theatre’s board of directors. He later appears on stage in Frank
Shira’s Strangle Me. Zacek and McVay, fellow students at Northwestern
University, had been married since 1972.
1977
A community-based board of directors headed by Allen M. Turner
assumes management responsibilities for Victory Gardens from the founding
artistic board. Zacek is appointed artistic director, a position he has
held ever since.
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Dillinger
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1978
During Zacek’s first year as artistic director, Victory
Gardens begins presenting a racially-intergrated season with the Chicago
debut of Lonnie Elder III’s Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.
Zacek casts a relative unknown in the title role of William J. Norris’ Dillinger—William L. Petersen. The Victory Gardens Training Center alumnus earns his first Equity card, quickly grows into one of the top talents of Chicago’s burgeoning off-Loop theatre scene, and later establishes himself as a national star in the motion picture To Live and Die in L.A.
1979
Sandy Shinner joins Victory Gardens as marketing director.
She is later promoted to associate artistic director, and has since directed
more than 40 plays in her 22 years at Victory Gardens.
Victory Gardens presents a studio premiere of Porch, the first of 10 plays by Jeffrey Sweet produced at VG. Sweet receives royalties for the first time. Porch is remounted on the VG mainstage later that year, and has since been staged by more than 100 theatres.
The Latino Chicago Theatre Company, Chicago’s first professional Latino theatre ensemble, is founded by Victory Gardens, funded by a special grant from CBS. Latino Chicago now operates independently.
Victory Gardens premieres Steve Carter’s play Dame Lorraine starring his friend Esther Rolle, the first national star to appear on the Victory Gardens stage. Carter becomes the theatre’s first playwright-in-residence.
1981
The theatre’s reputation for creative fundraisers is born
with its first Casting Auction. Supporters raise $8,393 by bidding on
all the roles in a one-night-only production Tobacco Road. The
Casting Auction, now in its 17th year, raises thousands each year for
the theatre with a different amateur production of a musical theatre classic.
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Board member Fred Bates
with McVay and Zacek just after they moved into their current space
with the Body Politic Theatre. Look at all that hair!
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Victory Gardens moves to its current location at 2257-63 N. Lincoln Avenue, occupying the first floor facilities, with Body Politic Theatre residing upstairs. The Joseph Jefferson committee presents both theatres with a special "creative collaboration" award two years later.
1983
Shelly Berman appears on the Victory Gardens stage in Jeffrey
Sweet’s acclaimed drama The Value of Names.
1984
Zacek directs the world premiere of Marisha Chamberlain’s
Scheherazade starring Aidan Quinn and Barbara Gaines. The production
earns Victory Gardens its first national honor, the FDG/CBS New Play Award.
1985
James Sherman’s first play, The God of Isaac, premieres.
The Chicago Sun-Times christens him "the Neil Simon of Lincoln Avenue."
Sherman becomes a playwright-in-residence a year later.
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| The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy |
Lonnie Carter’s The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy becomes a world premiere hit in the Victory Gardens studio, moves to the Chicago Theatre Company, and is remounted at New York’s New Federal Theatre in 1989.
1987
Victory Gardens and Body Politic Theatre inaugurate Play Expo,
a cooperative project designed to give greater visibility and production
opportunities to Chicago playwrights.
1989
Victory Gardens premieres Jelly Belly, Charles Smith’s
tale of an inner-city drug dealer. Two years later, Victory Gardens co-produces
Jelly Belly with New York’s New Federal Theatre. Smith is
subsequently inducted into the prestigious New Dramatists.
Playwright Claudia Allen makes her Victory Gardens debut with The Long Awaited. Two years later, Allen’s Still Waters premieres at Victory Gardens. Both shows, directed by Sandy, win Jeff Awards for Best New Play.
The James Sherman/Dennis Zacek collaboration Beau Jest becomes a smash hit and the theatre’s biggest box office success. It transfers to the Halsted Theatre Center, and its New York premiere becomes the Lamb’s Theatre’s longest-running production ever (1991-93). Productions of Beau Jest in Canada, Mexico, South Africa, England, Venezuela, Australia, Turkey, and Germany have brought Sherman and Victory Gardens international acclaim.
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| Beau Jest |
1990
Steve Carter’s Pecong debuts at Victory Gardens,
winning a Jeff Award for Best New Work. It goes on to open the 1993-94
season at San Francisco’s ACT, and has since been presented in the
U.S. and London.
After the birth of her and Dennis’ son Zack, McVay assumes the position of development director. John Walker joins Victory Gardens as managing director from commercial producers Cullen, Henaghan and Platt.
1991
Victory Gardens stages its first Chicago Stories benefit. Three
top Chicago personalities—Father Andrew Greeley, lawyer Sara Paretsky,
and architect Stanley Tigerman—write 10-minute play, which are presented
as the centerpiece of the theatre’s gala benefit. Since 1991, other
popular Chicagoans, including Mike Royko, Roger Ebert, Phil Jackson, Carol
Moseley-Braun, and George Wendt, have penned plays for Victory Gardens.
Theatres in Seattle and San Francisco have replicated the "Chicago Stories"
concept to raise funds in their own markets.
1992
Victory Gardens’ long-running play Hauptmann by
John Logan transfers to the prestigious Cherry Lane Playhouse in New York
City.
1993
Freefall
by Charles Smith, starring TV star Malcolm Jamal-Warner, premieres at
Victory Gardens. The play is subsequently produced at New York’s
Theatre Row Theatre.
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| Sandy Shinner |
1995
Victory Gardens and the Goodman Theatre create the Scott McPherson
Award, a $5,000 playwriting commission given on alternate years to honor
the memory of the author of Marvin’s Room, who died of AIDS
in 1992. Marvin’s Room, one of the treasures of Chicago theatre,
had its first staged reading at Victory Gardens.
Body Politic Theatre ceases operations, and Victory Gardens purchases their share of the facility. The 20,000-square foot Victory Gardens complex now includes a first floor lobby and box office, an 195-seat mainstage, and a 60-seat studio theatre. The second floor includes offices, a lobby, an 195-seat mainstage theatre, and a 60-seat studio theatre. A restaurant/bar rents the remaining first floor space to offset building expenses.
Victory Gardens assumes leadership from Remains Theatre of The Access Project, an innovative program that uses technology to make theatre more accessible for persons with disabilities. Thanks to the Access Project, Victory Gardens is now Chicago’s number one presenter of barrier-free live theatre.
John Logan’s Never the Sinner, a drama about the Leopold and Loeb murder case, is a major hit. It also garners Dennis Zacek a 1996 Academy of Theatre Artists and Friends Award for his portrayal of Clarence Darrow. Logan later departs for Los Angeles, where he now has three major motion pictures in production.
Jest A Second!, James Sherman’s follow-up to Beau Jest, opens in May and is extended through September. Numerous productions are licensed, including a 1995 production in Montreal, the theatre’s first international export, and a 1997 production at New York’s National Jewish Theatre.
1996
Victory Gardens completes a $250,000 renovation of its four-theatre
complex, resulting in a first-floor lobby redesign, a face lift for the
facade, and a new Victory Gardens marquee. Thanks to the installation
of a new elevator to the second floor, all four theatres at Victory Gardens
are now accessible.
Victory Gardens opens its 23rd season with an acclaimed production of Kristine Thatcher’s Emma’s Child, marking the veteran Chicago actor’s hometown debut as a playwright.
1997
John Walker resigns to take a position in the L.A. film industry.
McVay is reappointed managing director.
The Illinois Arts Alliance honors Dennis Zacek with the Sidney R. Yates Advocacy Award.
The Illinois Arts Council, in conjunction with the 1997 Governor’s Awards, honors Charles Smith and jazz trumpeter Malachi Thompson for Victory Gardens’ world premiere of Smith’s The Sutherland.
The Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble is formed. This coming together of a diverse group of writers under the roof of one producing organization is virtually unparalleled in resident theatre in America. The ensemble includes Claudia Allen, Dean Corrin, Lonnie Carter, Steve Carter, Gloria Bond Clunie, John Logan, Nicholas Patricca, Douglas Post, James Sherman, Charles Smith, Jeffrey Sweet and Kristine Thatcher.
1998
William L. Petersen returns to Chicago to star in Victory Gardens’
season-ending world premiere of Jeffrey Sweet’s Flyovers.
The show becomes a smash hit. Gary Cole steps into the lead role for the
show’s extension.
1999
Actors’ Equity Association honors Victory Gardens, Zacek,
and McVay with the Rosetta LeNoire Award, a national award given annually
to a theatre or producer that has made significant contributions in the
area of diversity.
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| Zacek and the Playwrights Ensemble |
Victory Gardens ends its 25th anniversary season with the debut of Claudia Allen’s Winter, starring Julie Harris.
Victory Gardens announces its 26th anniversary season: five world premieres by five members of the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble: Jeffrey Sweet’s Bluff, James Sherman’s Door to Door, Charles Smith’s Knock Me a Kiss, Kristine Thatcher’s Voice of Good Hope and Claudia Allen’s Cahoots.
2000
Victory Gardens enters its 27th season with Douglas Post’s
Blissfield, and an extended world premiere of Hello Dali: From
the Sublime to the Surreal.
2001
Javon Johnson’s African-American drama Hambone
and Jeffrey Sweet’s The Action Against Sol Schumann play to
critical acclaim, surpassing all single ticket projections.
June 3—Victory Gardens receives the 2001 Tony Award for Regional Theatre at the 2001 Tony Awards at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.