Ryan G. Dunkin/ Photo: Hilary Camilleri

By Johnny Oleksinski

“Even if you think you don’t know Buddy Holly’s songs, you probably do,” says actor Ryan G. Dunkin reassuringly. He knows them better than most people. Dunkin plays the role of The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.) in the twenty-fifth anniversary tour of “Buddy—The Buddy Holly Story,” which begins in Chicago this week. But beyond that, this tour is the actor’s seventh production of the popular show to date, so he’s been hearing the music of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and friends near-nightly for years.

While he says “touring life can be exhausting,” Dunkin is not tired of it yet—actually quite the contrary. The Big Bopper’s enduring hit, “Chantilly Lace,” which he gets to perform in the show, “is a song everybody knows,” and he says the audience’s enthusiasm for the character and for the entire musical never diminishes from city to city.
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By Johnny Oleksinski

“Smokey Joe’s Cafe”/ Photo: David Heimann

Another year, another Non-Equity Jeff Award Ceremony.

Folks around these parts call it “Theater Prom” for a reason. The banter is awkward, the recipients are unprepared and the liquor flows freely—no matter where you get it. I personally snuck a water bottle full of vodka and cranberry juice into the venue to avoid paying oodles for drinks (Sorry, Park West). You know, kind of like your average Midwestern high-school prom. And this year’s ceremony, the fortieth, certainly lived up to its unofficial monicker. Read the rest of this entry »

By Johnny Oleksinski

Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Right away I knew something was up at the Civic Opera House on January 5. The lights dimmed and the familiar, soothing British brogue of Lyric Opera principal conductor Sir Andrew Davis boomed its usual, prerecorded message prohibiting the use of cellphones in the Ardis Krainik Theatre. So far, so good. Then Davis announced that a vehicle with the license plate “FLEMING DIVA 1″ was blocking Wacker Drive. Wait, what? Moments later, the sprightly omnipresent voice informed us that a wealthy patron’s mink coat checked in the lobby was still alive. Huh? No, this was not opening night of “La bohème” or “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” or even the closing of “Don Pasquale”; this was “The Second City Guide to the Opera,” another exciting product of the fledgling Lyric Unlimited program. Read the rest of this entry »

By Johnny Oleksinski

Playwright and Chicago native son David Ives is receiving a rolling homecoming by happenstance this season and next. Last winter, Chicago Shakespeare Theater presented his adaptation of Molière’s “The Misanthrope,” called “The School for Lies.” Next March, the Goodman Theatre will stage the Chicago premiere of his thunderous Best Play Tony Award-nominated “Venus in Fur” (Nina Arianda won Best Actress). And coming up later this month is “The Liar,” Ives’ modernly classic take on Pierre Corneille’s little-known “Le Menteur” at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe.
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By Eric Shoemaker

Photo: Jeff Busby

The Back to Back Theatre ensemble is no ordinary group of performers. The company has existed since 1987 to bring disabled actors to the stage in order to build, together, a performance that speaks to not only their experiences as a minority but a holistic view of what it really means to be human. Back to Back is playing at the Museum of Contemporary Art in their production, “Ganesh versus the Third Reich,” opening May 16, in which Ganesh attempts to reclaim the swastika from the Nazi party.

I spoke with Bruce Gladwin, the artistic director of Back to Back Theatre since 1991, to get a sense of the work that he does with this extraordinary group. Read the rest of this entry »

Mary Ann and Jessica Thebus

By Johnny Oleksinski

“Three generations,” points out director and actress Mary Ann Thebus. She’s sitting on a couch against the back wall of the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater lobby next to her daughter Jessica Thebus and Jessica’s young daughter Willa. Willa, still in the single digits, lounges across mom and grandma’s laps as we discuss their new project, one unprecedented for the duo. The Thebuses are co-directing Donald Margulies’ “Collected Stories” with American Blues Theater: their first production at American Blues and, more amazingly, their first-ever production as co-directors. Born into a theater family, Willa has a school play coming up as well, but we’ll save that for another interview.

For those familiar with Margulies’ play about a writer and teacher’s tug-of-war with her protégé, this mom-daughter arrangement will strike you as clever and appropriate, but the thematic parallels are happenstance. As are the predecessor-and-successor casting of former ABT artistic director Carmen Roman and current artistic director Gwendolyn Whiteside. Read the rest of this entry »

“Floyd Collins”/Photo: Peter Coombs

By Johnny Oleksinski

The 2013 Non-Equity Jeff Award nominations have been announced, with Bohemian Theatre Ensemble and The Hypocrites leading with fourteen and twelve nominations respectively. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 3. Read the rest of this entry »

Young Jean Lee/Photo: Blaine Davis

By Zach Freeman

As a twenty-six-year old graduate student studying Shakespeare at Berkeley and working on her dissertation, a frustrated Young Jean Lee, fed up with academia, went to a therapist for help. The therapist started by posing a question to Lee that she was told to answer off the top of her head: “What do you want to do with your life?” Lee was so shocked by her own response (“I want to be a playwright.”) that she asked the therapist for a do-over. Recounting the moment later, Lee jokes that, “If you’re studying Shakespeare and you say that you want to be a playwright and you have no experience playwriting, it’s like being a veterinarian and saying that you want to be a dog.”

Still, over the last decade, the Korean-American Lee has managed to make more than a name for herself in the world of experimental theater, she’s won Obies and created an oeuvre of provocative, high-profile pieces that defy easy categorization. Among others, there’s “The Shipment,” a “Black identity politics show” (her words), “Church,” a surprisingly earnest exploration of Christianity and “We’re Gonna Die,” a show about that one thing that every single living human has in common (hint: see title). Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Deana Lawson

By Johnny Oleksinski

“I’m a sock guy. I love socks,” says Tarell Alvin McCraney, glancing down at my feet. I’m wearing striped socks with an alternating spectrum of pinks divided by thin lines of navy blue. That proudly garish footwear is accompanied by a new blazer with patched elbows, a pressed pink shirt buttoned up to the neck, dark skinny jeans and black leather shoes. My outfit was strategic. It’s always ideal to relate to the person you’re interviewing, not unlike in a job interview, and McCraney is an impeccable dresser.

A perusal of his past photo shoots reveals a meticulous ensemble that’s Buddy Holly-cum-GQ model, scholarly but easygoing. Explaining my own prim-and-proper appearance, I tell him that I’m prematurely dressed for the opera—a partly true statement. Sure, I am going to Lyric later, but I’d attend the opera in a hoodie without much hesitation. Right now, I am dressed to impress. “I actually have those socks,” he points out. Skeptically I reply, “I bought them at an H&M, but I’m sure a lot of people make them.” “No. I have those socks. I love socks. If you came on a day when I actually had on clothes, you’d see I have all kinds of socks like polka-dot socks, crazy color socks.”

Today, McCraney, one of the most prominent playwrights of his generation, adorns more casual attire, and he laments the inevitability of another photo shoot for this story. “We need to sell tickets, right?” I nod. “Because usually I’m not thinking about that, so I just showed up in some sweats, some sneakers and white socks for God’s sake.” He assures me, “I never wear white socks.” I tell him, honestly, that I think he looks good. “Oh God, I look like hell. But I always look like hell ‘cause see I’m in tech, so I kinda like—I always look like hell. I’m always just sleeping and reading and then, you know, working on stuff. I don’t go outside.” He laughs a truly disarming laugh. His excuse is as good as any. It is tech week for “Head of Passes,” a world-premiere play by McCraney at Steppenwolf Theatre, where he is an ensemble member. And during tech, as the playwright physically recedes into the darkness and his words become illuminated on the stage, his clothing can become comfy. Read the rest of this entry »

Court Theatre in Hyde Park has announced its 2013-2014 season (also its fifty-ninth), which notably features the Chicago premiere of 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner “Water By The Spoonful” by Quiara Alegria Hudes. Read the rest of this entry »