This should be a celebratory time for Chicago theatre. Three of the city’s major institutions are all celebrating significant milestones in their long, illustrious histories. And yet, rather than reveling in celebration, I find myself singing, “one of these things is not like the others.” I feel like I’m looking at the three-headed dragon meme of Chicago theatre: two fierce, steely-eyed legends and one that’s—well, it’s just happy to be there.
First, Steppenwolf announced its 50th anniversary season, featuring five shows and 20 ensemble members, including the world premiere of Windfall, by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by Awoye Timpo. Anna D. Shapiro will return to direct Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Kenny Leon will be in town to direct Glenn Davis and Namir Smallwood in Topdog/Underdog, and ensemble members Amy Morton and K. Todd Freeman will direct Mia Chung’s Catch as Catch Can and Rajiv Joseph’s Mr. Wolf, respectively. (You can find more coverage of the season from the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.)
This month also saw the presentation of this year’s non-Equity Jeff Awards (it’s 51st—so close), with Kokandy Productions taking home five awards for its production of Into the Woods, including best production (musical or revue), best ensemble (musical or revue), and best direction (musical or revue). City Lit Theater Company’s production of Seven Guitars, took home the award for best production of a play. The ceremony also saw the Theatre School at DePaul University presented with a special Jeff Award as the storied school, which got its start as the Goodman School of Drama in 1925, celebrates its 100th anniversary.
(You can read more coverage of the awards from the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.)
Of course, that also means that the Goodman itself is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and doing so in style. The season includes six world premieres among its 11 productions and slew of stars. Much like his Steppenwolf colleague, former Goodman artistic director Robert Falls will return to his stomping grounds to direct a world-premiere adaptation of Philip Barry’s Holiday by Richard Greenberg. Susan V. Booth will direct Jenna Fischer (of The Office fame) in the world premiere of Lee Kirk’s Ashland Avenue; Megan Mullally will hit the Chicago stage for the world premiere musical Iceboy! Or, the Completely Untrue Story of How Eugene O’Neill Came to Write ‘The Iceman Cometh’; Marco Antonio Rodriguez will bring his world-premiere adaptation of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (based on Junot Díaz’s novel), directed by Wendy Mateo; and Dael Orlandersmith will premiere her newest work Blood Memory, directed by Neel Keller.
That’s plenty to satiate any theatregoer, but the Goodman is also fitting in the world premiere of Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s Revolution(s), which features music and lyrics by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello (check out this interview between Morello and WBEZ anchor Clare Lane), as well as Chuck Smith and Harry Lennix tackling August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a year-long effort to present 100 free acts of theatre across Chicago’s 50 wards, and the opening of an off-site cultural attraction in David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar’s Theatre of the Mind. (You can read more about the season from the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.)
Then there’s Victory Gardens, which should be celebrating its own 50th anniversary. If you have a habit of periodically checking their website ever since the company fell apart following its messy dismissal of then-artistic director Ken-Matt Martin, then you’ll know it alternates between depressingly blank for what should be a celebrated theatre company and infuriatingly opaque. It’s been years now with a website devoid of anything that might resemble theatre leadership, with the same message on repeat: “While there are currently no planned productions at Victory Gardens Theater, the Board of Directors is working on new ways for the theatre to achieve its mission to nurture relevant, new theatrical work reflecting the diverse stories of our world and contributing to the vitality of American Theatre.” (That message is still on their website’s mission and history page as of this writing.)
American Theatre has previously attempted to reach the VG board to learn more about what it is they have planned for the future of what used to be, for this editor at least, a favorite company in the city. There’s been no response. Then, suddenly, the company recently announced that it’s “thrilled” to partner with Relentless Theatre Group to present David Mamet’s Henry Johnson, with Criminal Minds actor Thomas Gibson set to star.
Setting aside the fact that Gibson was fired from Criminal Minds in 2016 after kicking a writer-producer (a third strike in five years, according to Variety) and the continuing animosity between Mamet and the city he once called home, the move from VG continues to raise the question many have had for years: What is the plan here? It seems there’s still no artistic staff at the company, and it is being awkwardly led by a board which previously announced plans to transition VG from a producing company to a business that rents out its historic Biograph Theatre; they’ve yet to release any more details.
As Chris Jones notes in his Tribune report, former longtime VG artistic director Dennis Začek is on board as an executive producer, giving his stamp of approval and calling Henry Johnson director Eddie Torres his “protégé.” Still, as Jones notes, there’s no word on whether this production, to run April 9-May 4, marks some sort of return of Victory Gardens or if it’s just a one-off. (Apart from securing comments from the creative team and Mamet, the VG board didn’t respond to Jones’s request for comment either.)
I wish I had some major point to make here. Really I just feel sad. Victory Gardens was long a dream for Chicago theatremakers. We should be celebrating three major anniversaries right now from three pillars of Chicago theatre. Yet here we are, with two companies shooting for the moon and a third stubbornly earthbound.
-Jerald Raymond Pierce
Now See This
“Nothing about us without us”: This is the mot d’ordre of many activists in the disability justice movement. Watching Teatro La Plaza’s Hamlet, you get the overwhelming conviction that this extends to every story, whether or not it was written with certain identities in mind. For two weeks in March, an ensemble of actors with Down Syndrome entreated audiences to make space for their stories and words through the framework of Hamlet. I know I’ll never see this play the same way again. Teatro La Plaza flew in from Peru, but you can still catch disability justice frameworks in Chicago-based storytelling year-round. A.B.L.E. Ensemble, for instance, will present a punk-inspired Frankenstein April 25-27 at Chicago Shakespeare, as well as showcases and open studio sessions over the next few weeks. As spring stirs and the skies mourn, I hope you’ll take time to listen to voices rarely heard onstage and, when you can, ensure they’re “where the decisions are made.”
-Gabriela Furtado Coutinho
Around Town
In other news around the city, for the Sun-Times, Mike Davis spoke with Black Ensemble Theater’s Jackie Taylor about updated plans for the company’s Free to Be Village—which is to include a 13,000 square foot performing arts education center, retail space, affordable housing for artists, and more, at an estimated price tag of $76 million. “This has been a dream of Jackie’s for decades,” Kris Nesbitt, senior director of planning at Black Ensemble, told Davis.
Davis also highlighted the inaugural Social Change Theater Festival (which ran March 1-3), an effort that showed how emerging writers are moving playwriting in a more community-centered direction. “We’ve grown up in a time and in a space where there’s constantly things happening and drawing us in and traumatizing us,” Kevin Aoussou, associate director of Still Point Theatre Collective, told Davis. “There is a desire to create change through what we create physically, even if we’re not able to create change on a structural level.”
Sun-Times reporter Abby Miller covered Collaboraction Theatre’s new space, called the House of Belonging, as they broke ground in Humboldt Park, aiming to uplift and connect with their community as an arts hub. “Our goal is to build a thriving arts hub in Humboldt Park, one that amplifies diverse voices and broadcasts stories of social change to the world,” Darlene Jackson, the company’s CEO and executive director, told Miller. “To lead by example: That’s the call and model to the world that we can be because theater is more than a stage and seats — it’s a cornerstone of culture, connection, creativity, community.”
Over at the Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones previews Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Sunny Afternoon (through April 27), based on the music of The Kinks, and reports on how a $10 million gift from an anonymous donor is allowing Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art to increase live performances in its theatre.
This month also saw Chicago theatre lose longtime publicist Margie Korshak, who died March 2 at 86. Korshak, whose company boasts clients ranging from Navy Pier to Broadway in Chicago and numerous pre-Broadway Chicago engagements, is remembered by the Tribune’s Chris Jones and the Sun-Times’s Miriam Di Nunzio.
In case you missed it, the Reader’s Kerry Reid penned a beautiful essay for our Theatre Futures series, entitled “Singing From the Last Ditch” and reprinted in the Reader, in which she discusses the fight for survival currently happening at the Chicago Reader. “I can only hope that we’ve helped audiences gain a deeper appreciation of the role the city has played in fostering work beyond the next Broadway-bound playwright or Oscar-nominated actor,” Reid writes. (Indeed, the Reader has been one of the steadiest hands in theatre coverage in Chicago for as long as I can remember, and Reid one of the art’s staunchest supporters.)
Also in the Reader, Charli Renken makes the case for more opportunities for drag kings to perform. “Drag kings are often token performers on a bill, something that gets real lonely, real fast,” Renken writes. “If we’re in a show at all (and we struggle to get booked compared to queens), we’re usually the only performers of our kind, and audiences don’t always know what to do with us.”
Chicago magazine published an interview with Michael Shannon by Mike Thomas, where the actor touches on watching Bill Murray revise scenes, being a young actor in Chicago, and the reality of acting as a profession.
Also for Chicago magazine, Kimberly M. Vazquez talks to Ricardo Gamboa, whose Concrete Content is bringing an updated production of The Pillowman to Humboldt Park’s AfriCaribe Cultural Center (through April 12). Then, for the magazine’s Next Big Thing series, Judy Sutton Taylor profiles multihyphenate Terry Guest.
Chicago Chisme
Gabriela checks in with a Chicago theatre artist about what’s getting them out of bed in the morning and keeping them up at night. This time around, we’re gathering strength and inspiration. More below from Phillip Andrew-Monnett, a performer who just earned a Jeff Award at the non-Equity ceremony (performer in a principal role – short run) for his performance in Dave Osmundsen’s new play Light Switch at Open Space Arts, which Kerry Reid described as “a warm look at queerness and neurodiversity.”
What are your self-care practices right now?
Phillip: My self care practices in general are staying as active as I can surrounding myself with folks who I love. When possible I love being on the lake—I thrive during the summer, so to realize that I’m finally going to be able to be outside again whenever I want has definitely become a mantra/meditation/calming reminder for me.
What’s one thing you wish people knew about the art you make or the way you make it?
Phillip: I think what I wish more people had an interest in theatre in general—even to be in the audience, you’re involved in telling the story.
What are your hopes or resolutions for the American theatre in 2025?
Phillip: More queer art! Always.
