Photo: Michael Litchfield

RECOMMENDED

Sometimes all you need is a simple premise and a flexible, talented cast. Writer and producer Laura Jacqmin’s “Dental Society Midwinter Meeting” is a deceptively light-on-its-feet satire that succeeds in finding humanity in small episodes between characters you may only meet once or twice.

Scandal has rocked the North Shore Regional Dental Society: President Morris J. Morris, Jr., has been found to have been sleeping with his hygienist and letting her, unlicensed, perform advanced dental procedures. The members of the society have convened for the midyear meeting with the single goal of rectifying this mess.

The exceedingly clever script by Jacqmin pokes loving fun at its dentist characters without condescending to them. Words can’t express briefly the merits of the six-member ensemble cast, who are largely responsible for the aforementioned humanity. Late in the play there’s a scene in a karaoke bar, and it’s the saddest, funniest, most heartbreaking scene about dentists you’ve ever seen. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

At Play Productions at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 West Chicago, (773)828-4331.  Through August 7.

Will Cooper, who only started writing plays in 2004 after “accidentally” taking a playwriting class his wife couldn’t, has his first full-scale professional production, “Jade Heart,” at Chicago Dramatists after his first play “Book of Leaves” debuted at Village Players in 2006. We spoke to Cooper the week before the show opened about identity, race and coming of age.

So just a little about the play. Would “family drama” be an accurate description?
Definitely a good place to start. Here’s the slug paragraph: “Jade Heart” tells the story of Jade, a woman abandoned as an infant in China and adopted in America by a single mother. It follows their lives from Jade’s childhood until her early twenties. It’s a fictional account of transnational, transracial adoption… It touches on the social and political issue of overpopulation in China and the one-child rule of 1979, but it’s not a piece of propaganda… I’d hope it’s a human story primarily about the relationship between a mother and her daughter, and the daughter’s struggle to answer questions about origin and identity. Read the rest of this entry »

Tara DeFrancisco, No. 36

In this town of performers—theater makers, dancers, comedy creators—you’d think it’d be pretty easy to assemble a list of artistic influencers and innovators. And it is. The challenge is paring that list down to a mere fifty. It’s a testament to the wonders of the performing-arts culture in Chicago that we easily came up with about 200 names when we set out to create this year’s version of The Players. Unfortunately, we’re only listing a fraction of those worthy of your attention, but that’s the problem with an abundance of riches. Hopefully you’ll see a handful of recognizable names and a whole lot more you’ll start noticing from this point on. We’ve retooled the criteria for this year, focusing on onstage artistic achievement, rather than the backstage influence of artistic directors, executive directors and the like—who will get their day again next year. Let the arguments begin. Read the rest of this entry »

The Addams Family at The Oriental/Photo: Samuel Adams

By Brian Hieggelke

As the wind blows the snow sideways this December evening, the weatherman is telling Chicagoans to stay bunkered; the deserted downtown streets reflect their obedience. All save the sidewalk near the intersection of State and Randolph, as TV crews jockey for faces on the red carpet in front of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, where more than 2,000 patrons, including a who’s who of backstage Broadway, are gathering for the world premiere of a new musical featuring a AAA list of talent, onstage and off. “The Addams Family,” with multiple Tony winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in its leads, a book from the librettists of “Jersey Boys” and so on, is certainly Broadway bound, but tonight—tonight—Chicago is the center of theater in the world.

That’s the story of Chicago theater in the zeroes: the decade in which it grew up and got big. Whether it’s the launch and monumental success of Broadway In Chicago, the maturation and astonishing quality of a remarkable number of small and mid-sized companies or the increasing demand for Chicago product and Chicago talent on Broadway, Chicago theater has fully come into its own. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter DeFaria and Randy Steinmeyer in "A Steady Rain" at Chicago Dramatists

Annoyance Theatre
Coed Prison Sluts: $64,000, 5,380 people

The Artistic Home
Peer Gynt: $19,044 box office, 1,200 people

Chicago Dramatists
A Steady Rain: $21,000 box office,1,500 people at CD, 10,000 at Royal George Theatre
Cadillac: $23,000 box office,1,600 people at CD, 1,500 at Theatre on the Lake

Collaboraction
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, $150,000 box office, 6,500 people Read the rest of this entry »

The 2006/07 season brought the grand opening of the new Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, following more than $11 million in renovations

Annoyance Theatre (founded 1987)
“We don’t really have a regular operating budget—just plan as we go along.”
—Jennifer Estlin, President, Annoyance Theatre

The Artistic Home (founded 1998)
End of nineties: $62,000
End of zeroes: $164,500

Bailiwick Chicago (founded 2009)
End of nineties: N/A (Bailiwick Repertory is now defunct)
End of zeroes: $120,000 projected 2010

Chicago Dramatists (founded 1979)
End of nineties: $171,000
End of zeroes: $550,000

Collaboraction (founded 1996)
End of nineties: $50,000
End of zeroes: $500,000

Court Theatre (founded 1955)
End of nineties: $2.6 million
End of zeroes: $3.2 million Read the rest of this entry »

Pizza? Theater Oobleck's "Strauss at Midnight"

As part of this story, we sent a few questions to leaders of the theater community in Chicago and received about forty written responses. Here are excerpts from some of their answers. The full text will also soon be published online.

Any observations or thoughts about Chicago theater in the last decade?

“When one theater has a hit show, its not just a hit for that show, it’s a hit for Chicago.”
—Deb Clapp, Executive Director, League of Chicago Theatres

“I love the shake-ups that are happening as a result of management changes, economic pressures, and influx of new artists. It’s exciting to see the landscape shifting so dramatically, the new work that is being created as a result, and the new artists and management teams that are getting a chance at bat.”
— Kevin Mayes, Executive Director, Bailiwick Chicago

“The first SKETCHBOOK was produced in January 2000 and has gone on to create 135 world premiere short plays with over 1000 different artists for over 30,000 audience members and launching numerous careers.”
— Anthony Moseley, Executive and Artistic Director, Collaboraction Read the rest of this entry »

2000

Milestones

500 Clown, Steep Theatre, the side project and Teatro Luna are founded

Broadway In Chicago launches as a joint venture between Live Nation and the Nederlander Organization

Goodman departs its original home in the Art Institute of Chicago and moves into $51 million new digs in the North Loop

Chicago Shakespeare moves into a $24 million theater on Navy Pier

Collaboraction produces its first Sketchbook

The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs opens The Storefront Theater

Passings

Michael Maggio, Goodman Theatre Associate Artistic Director and Dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our decade retrospective, we surveyed more than forty theater companies for their observations to a couple of questions. What follows are their formatted but unedited responses.

Deb Clapp
Executive Director, League of Chicago Theatres (founded 1979)

Any observations or thoughts about Chicago theater in the last decade?
Over the last decade, Chicago has seen the downtown theater district grow and thrive, Goodman moved downtown and several theaters were re-furbished. Lookingglass moved into their new digs on Michigan Avenue and theater has flourished. Several exciting new companies have been established including The House Theatre of Chicago, Silk Road Theatre Project, New Leaf Theatre and Rasaka, among many others.

Is there a “Chicago style” anymore (if there ever was) and has it changed? What, today, distinguishes Chicago theater from anywhere else?
A number of unique characteristics distinguish Chicago theater. We have a unique ecology encompassing a wide range of theater artistry, from spectacle to culturally specific, horror to improv, houses with thousands of seats to houses with 18 seats. Our community is very collegial and collaborative, sharing ideas and resources. When one theater has a hit show, its not just a hit for that show, it’s a hit for Chicago. Our directors, authors, actors, stagehands, producers, all are Chicagoans and all create for a Chicago audience.

Outside of your own company, who or what excites you most about local theater right now?
Chicago is the best place to see and to make theater in the world. A lot of attention from other parts of the country and the world is being paid to Chicago theater right now and while that is wonderful and will inevitably lead us to greater things, what continues to happen every night in Chicago theater brings me joy. Telling our stories and the stories of others, bringing the world on stage every night, that’s what excites me most. Read the rest of this entry »

With a commanding performance by its title character, “Lucinda’s Bed” may offer one of the finest star turns ever by an inanimate object. Playwright Mia McCullough cleverly tells a woman’s tale by setting every scene in and around her bed: it’s where the dreams and prayers of childhood unfold, where the mischief of sexual awakening unfurls, where a marriage and family are cradled, where betrayal is contemplated, where betrayal is covered up. It’s a place of birth, a place of death. How could a mere actor compete with such gravitas?

A teen Lucinda prays to an absent god but meets the monster under her bed. He’s not scary, though, but embodied by a devilishly seductive Lucas Neff, who plays the monster (in all his incarnations) with a charismatic understated cool. In this world premiere late in its run at Chicago Dramatists, director Jessi D. Hill hustles us through the life of Lucinda, played with earnest vigor by Elizabeth Laidlaw, keeping the pace so crackling that we don’t think much about how empty her life really is, until Lucinda realizes it herself late in the play. Read the rest of this entry »