1-19-07
Awards, Awards, Awards
Nativity Scenes
It was the stork, not Santa, bringing an early Christmas present to TimeLine Theatre artistic director P. J. Powers and wife Shelley, with the birth of their first child in early December, a daughter, Zoe. Congratulations!
Awards and Honors
Chicago Shakespeare Theater artistic director and founder Barbara Gaines will receive the 2007 Public Humanities Award from the Illinois Humanities Council (IHC). The award is given annually by the IHC to individuals and organizations for contributions to public understanding of the role the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities. Since founding Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 1985, Gaines has staged almost all of Shakespeare’s works, three of which have received Jeff Awards in the Production/Play category. Gaines will receive the award at an April 26 luncheon at the University Club of Chicago, open to the public (a benefit for the IHC).
Observed IHC board chair Arthur M. Sussman, “On Navy Pier, Chicago Shakespeare Theater is at the very heart of our city life, helping us see that Shakespeare’s great themes affect us as individuals and as citizens: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a responsible member of a community? What is just?”
The Chicago Academy for the Arts is one of only two high schools countrywide named as a National School of Distinction in 2006 by the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education. The honor, announced last September, included an invitation for the Chicago Academy to perform at the Kennedy Center. The performance, set for March 24 on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, will feature 25 Academy students in a showcase of musical theatre and dance. A work by choreographer Randy Duncan will be performed. But Academy administrators decided that the entire school won the honor and the entire school should go. Accordingly, school officials expect around 150 students (out of a total enrollment of 160) to make the journey.
As a warm-up and fundraiser for the Washington road trip, the Academy will present its Kennedy Center program on Feb. 12 at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, just down the street from the school. Call Amanda Holland, 312/421-0202 for more information. Tickets from $25.
United States Artists, the new consortium of private funders who have pooled resources in support of individual artists of high distinction, announced its first 50 fellowships on Dec. 6 – at a rate of $50,000 per fellow. Grants were made in eight categories: Architecture and Design, Crafts and Traditional Arts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theatre Arts and Visual Arts. The only Chicago-based fellows named, both in Visual Arts, were cartoonist Chris Ware and costume sculptor Nick Cave.
The seven Theatre Arts fellows included some familiar names, such as Ping Chong, Meredith Monk and Basil Twist, but among them only director Anne Bogart has a Chicago connection through her ongoing relationship with Court Theatre. The Dance and Media categories also included several artists who have worked here, although not based here, such as choreographer Alonzo King (who set a dance for the Joffrey) and producer David Isay, whose award-winning radio documentary Ghetto Life 101 was set in Chicago and taped here.
United States Artists – USA – was created in 2005 with $20 million in seed money from the Ford, Prudential, Rasmuson and Rockefeller foundations. The organization intends to develop a sufficient endowment to continue its fellowship program indefinitely.
Appointments and Disappointments
Adam Thurman has stepped down as executive director of Congo Square Theatre Company after three years, in order to focus on developing a non-profit management consulting business. His resignation became effective Jan. 1, but Thurman continues as an executive consultant to Congo Square to ensure an orderly transition. The Congo Square board will conduct a nationwide search for Thurman’s successor. Development consultant Erin Gilbert will assume day-to-day duties as interim executive director.
During Thurman’s tenure as Congo Square’s first executive director, the troupe increased its annual attendance from 3,000 to more than 10,000 and saw its budget grow from $200,000 to more than $670,000. Thurman said, “For the past three years, I have had the privilege of working with the extraordinary ensemble, board and staff of Congo Square Theatre Company, as well as many of the most prominent funders of Chicago’s philanthropic community. I will miss working with Congo Square on a day-to-day basis, but I’m excited about the opportunity to be of service to a broader sector of the non-profit world.”
Producer and actor Steve Hickson quietly has left his post as managing director of Hell in a Handbag Productions, the troupe he co-founded with artistic director David Cerda. Without going into details, Hickson explained that his model for developing the troupe was different from that embraced by Cerda and the company board. Hickson currently is acting in Sordid Lives for Easy Street Players at the Athenaeum, and also remains an associate with A Reasonable Facsimile Theatre Company. Last year, he helped produce the little hit Band Geeks for Single Box Turn Productions.
News from New Jersey: former Steppenwolf Theatre Company executive director Michael Gennaro has left his post as president/executive producer of the Paper Mill Playhouse after less than three years. He was wooed away by his former ‘wolfie associate, Curt Columbus, who has brought him to Providence, Rhode Island as managing director of Trinity Repertory, where Columbus has been artistic director for a year. Gennaro left Paper Mill Playhouse before Christmas. In turn, Gennaro had hired Diane Clausen away from Court Theatre to be his Number Two at Paper Mill. Clausen remains in New Jersey at the present time.