9-28-07
New Leaders Everywhere
Appointments
PJ Paparelli, the newly-named American Theater Company artistic director, should find Chicago very congenial: our summers can be as steamy as those in Washington, DC and are winters can be as icy as Alaska. It so happens those contrasting locales are where Paparelli has spent the last decade. Since 2004, he’s been artistic director of the Perseverance Theatre Company in Juneau and before that spent six years as associate artistic director of DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, thus spanning the continent in his professional pursuits. Although his resume is heavy with Shakespeare and musical theatre, Paparelli has embraced the ATC mission of producing American stories that ask what it means to be an American. Expected to begin in November, Paparelli succeeds Damon Kiely, ATC’s artistic leader for nearly nine years, who left last June to join the faculty of the Theatre School, DePaul University.
Kitty-corner from the falafel joint and above the Polish funeral parlor in Andersonville, the Neo-Futurists have promoted ensemble member Jay Torrence to artistic director, replacing Sharon Greene who has moved out of the area. Torrence has been a Neo-Futurist for over five years, performing regularly in their long-running late-night show Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. He also has performed in seven original full-length productions with the company, among them The Santa Abductions and Poker Night at the White House and last season’s hit, Roustabout, which Torrence wrote and co-directed. Hitting the ground running, Torrence is co-creator of Picked Up, a new Neo-Futurist show premiering this spring. He also curates The Neo-Futurist’s annual pride benefit, 30 Queer Plays in 60 Straight Minutes, which raises funds for different LGBQT charities.
Lifeline Theatre is taking care of business by appointing Angelo Barone as managing director, working with artistic director Dorothy Milne. He succeeds the long-serving Vivienne Dipeolu, who relocated to California to work at the Pasadena Playhouse. Barone’s eclectic professional history includes service as director of finance for Goodwill Industries in San Francisco, ownership of an art gallery in Rome, and work in Chicago’s debt capital markets. He’s a George Washington University MBA, and holds a Juris Doctor from George Mason University. A first generation Italian-American, Barone speaks fluent Italian. He began at Lifeline last month.
The other line in town, TimeLine Theatre Company, has named Elizabeth K. Auman as managing director, replacing Brian Voelker who has moved to the West Coast. Auman has been at Victory Gardens Theater for 15 years, the last 12 as general manager, during which time Victory Gardens won a Tony Award, more than doubled its annual budget and successfully purchased and renovated the historic Biograph Theater. Before Victory Gardens, Auman held positions at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and DePaul University. She holds a BFA in theater from Illinois Wesleyan University. Auman will begin at TimeLine Oct. 8.
Strawdog Theatre Company also has a new MD, Alex Goodman, who began work Sept. 1, in time for opening of Strawdog’s 20th anniversary season. Young Mr. Goodman is a 2003 theatre grad of Western Michigan University, where he took acting honors. In Chicago since 2004, he co-founded MOB Productions and acted in MOB’s The Age of Consent and produced Closer and Evolution for MOB. Goodman also held a Steppenwolf theatre management apprenticeship and continues to work front of house at ’wolf and Victory Gardens.
Victory Gardens itself recently filled two posts, arts education director and literary manager. The new ArtsEd guy is Chicago native Robert Cornelius, while the new Lit. Mgr. is playwright Aaron Carter. Cornelius comes with more than two decades of experience as an educator, singer (with Poi Dog Pondering and the Dave Matthews Band) and actor (he’s been in five VG shows among many others). For the past four years, he’s been integrating arts with education at The Chicago Academy for Learning and Theater Laboratory, a school that he and his sister Cynthia incorporated, which is supported by a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Aaron Carter, originally from Ohio, received his MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University where his professorial mentor was VG Playwrights ensemble member Charles Smith. Carter is the grandson of a black Baptist preacher and white vaudeville performers, which is reason, in part, that his work focuses on race, faith, and obscure performance skills. Locally, Carter’s plays have been produced or read at MPAACT, Collaboraction, the side project, Victory Gardens, Prop, EP Theater and Chicago Dramatists, where he is a resident playwright. Carter succeeds Andrea J. Dymond, who was the VG literary manager for the last two years. Dymond now will be teaching at Columbia College Chicago, but will remain with VG as resident director.
It’s a growth spurt in Rogers Park, as the side project has named eight new ensemble members, more than doubling the company size to 15. The new team players (and their other affiliations) are: Anna Bahow, Sean Bolger, Jarrett Dapier, Gina LoPiccolo, Steven Marzolf, Sadie Rogers, Will Schutz and costume designer Marsha Villanueva. Most of them have affiliations with other Off-Loop companies, which they will continue. Founded in 2000 by Adam Webster, who continues as artistic director, the side project first created an ensemble of six (plus Webster) in 2005.
The Poetry Center of Chicago has appointed Francesco Levato as its new executive director with responsibilities for directing and managing the staff, strategic planning and curating the Poetry Center’s venerable reading series. A poet, activist and new media artist, Levato is the author of Marginal State (Fractal Edge Press, 2006) and was a contributor to Witness: Anthology of Poetry (Serengeti Press, 2004). His poetry has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online. His awards include two consecutive poetry fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center. His poetry-based video artwork has been shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center, and exhibited in galleries in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. Levato is a vocal advocate of using the arts as a form of political engagement and social responsibility.
Passings
Ellie Punkay (pictured below) died, alone in her apartment, of a heart attack sometime during the first week of September.
Ellie Punkay
She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t old. You may not know the name, but a great many readers will be able to visualize the person and remember the laugh. Actor David Heimann, who also knew Punkay at church, sent the following e-mail:
“Who is Ellie Punkay? Well, most of us know her, because she was a determined veteran audience member of Chicago theatre. She was a short woman, with a humped back, who was relatively poor. She loved the theatre, and would volunteer at any theatre company that would allow her to usher, in order that she could see the shows that many of us performed in. Can’t remember her? Then you would definitely remember that she was always the LOUDEST person in the theatre, who was the MOST generous, and LAUGHED at everything, with enthusiasm, even at shows that were bombing… That was Ellie Punkay. She didn’t keep a lot of close associations, so I don’t know that the news has spread, but she is a woman who affected every one of us in the theatre community of Chicago. Take a moment or two, if you will, and if you feel comfortable, to just remember her.”