Congrats to the folks at Steppenwolf for their amazing wins last night at the Tonys. Also, kudos to Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on their special award. Last night made us proud to be a part of this wonderful Chicago theater community.
Congratulations to Misha Fiksel and Gregor Mortis on winning the Jeff Award for incidental music for their work on A Lie of the Mind. Well deserved!!!
Strawdog Announces Its 21st Season
a scene from the 1920’s production of RUR (look, ma, robots)
Strawdog will open their 21st anniversary season with Karel Capek’s classic “R.U.R.- Rossum’s Universal Robots”. Originally debuted in 1921, Czech playwright Capek dramatizes the rise of robots over the human race. Strawdog welcomes back company member Shade Murray, director of Strawdog’s “Detective Story” (Jeff Award-winning Best Production, Director and Ensemble in 2003) and “Marathon ’33” (Best Ensemble 2006). Murray was recently assistant director for Steppenwolf’s smash production “August: Osage County.” He also won a 2006 Jeff Award for “The Chosen” at Writer’s Theatre.
The second production of Strawdog’s 2008-2009 season is Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” directed by Strawdog company member Kimberly Senior. One of the most celebrated classics of American drama, this play tells the story of the Keller family, reunited after the war only to uncover the secrets that will tear them apart. Senior returns to Strawdog after directing their critically acclaimed “Three Sisters” in 2005 (remounted at Theatre on the Lake in 2006), who has also directed “The Busy World is Hushed” for Next , and TimeLine’s “Dolly West’s Kitchen.”
The season will close with British playwright Peter Barnes’ “Red Noses,” directed by House Theatre’s Matthew Hawkins in his Strawdog directing debut. It’s the 1300s, and a quarter of Europe is dead from the plague, pestilence is everywhere, and humanity is convinced this is Armageddon. A priest receives a command from God to gather a group of believers, teach them and send them off into the world to be clowns among men. A frequent Strawdog collaborator, Hawkins’ directing credits include House’s “Hatfield and McCoy,” and “On My Parent’s One Hundredth Wedding Anniversary” for The Side Project.
Enjoy some pics taken by Chris Hainsworth from the Old Town process and then come and see the show in this last weekend! If you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, stop being a fool…
Click to Listen
Welcome to the first episode of the Strawdog Theatre Podcast. Tell Your friends, family, enemies, and frenemies. In our first episode:
-Mike Dailey Interviews Kyle Hamman, director of Old Town
-Mike Dailey gives you, listeners, the NEWS!
-Kyle Hamman explains of the wonders of Strawdog Late Nights!
-Aly Greaves brings it home
-”Politics as Usual” from Old Town by Brett Nevue and Music by Misha Fiksel
Keep listening for more exciting content from the Strawdog Podcast!
“Director Kyle Hamman infuses the proceedings with a sweeping elegance and…the entire cast is first-rate.” — Chicago Free Press
“***1/2″ — Gay Chicago “an intriguing, quirky little show” — Chicago Reader
“the entire Strawdog ensemble acts the hell out of it”— Windy City Times
“by turns accurate, funny, and poignant”— EDGE
THIS WEEKEND THERE’S A SPECIAL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND COUPON DEAL!!! STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS!
Richard III (Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway, Chicago, through March 29). Nic Dimond’s lean, mean production of Richard III is anchored by a charismatic title role performance by Strawdog ensemble member John Henry Roberts and a soulful one by Jennifer Avery as Queen Elizabeth. The fine supporting cast barely fits all at once in Strawdog’s tiny performance space, but Joe Schermoly’s pared-down set makes the most of the claustrophobia. All in all, electrifying (OGIC)
From the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout’s arts journal weblog About Last Night. Reviewed by their “Our Girl in Chicago”)
What attracts you to this play? What are some questions that it poses
that still resonate today?
I’m a reluctant Shakespeare fan. Yes, these plays contain the greatest “action poetry” in the English language, but somehow most of the time when I’m watching them I feel like there’s an important something getting lost in the translation. When I do encounter one of his stories that speaks to me, it’s generally because there are strong elements that echo aspects of my own life, and those elements shine through the translation issues that I generally have. In Richard III (amidst all of the baffling political intrigues that are so prohibitively present in all of his histories) I could plainly see a gut wrenching story about a closely knit family. Granted, this family is royalty and is deeply steeped in traditions of honor and violence and intrigue and my family runs a furniture store on the south side, but when you put aside the political history lesson to think about the basic weapons of family warfare and how they are employed in even the most humble of family businesses, this play becomes much more human. With this cut of the script, it’s our goal to transform a museum quality history into a relatable tragedy about family dynasties.
Another reason that this play is so attractive to me is that I’m personally compelled by studies of power - where it comes from and how it moves. I’ll leave the lovely love stories to the more romantically minded directors around town, because I’m dedicated to thoughtful, aggressive explorations of the stories about control and cruelty. Honestly, one of the reasons I need to make theatre is because it provides me a place to safely explore the various bad behaviors that seem to be constantly simmering right beneath my surface – I’m fairly certain I’d have found a way to get myself incarcerated by now if it wasn’t for that outlet, and as Richard is one of Shakespeare’s most cherished villains, this particular journey provides some pretty good exercise for those particular demons.
How is the production’s approach to the material unique?
When we cut, we don’t cut simply for time – we cut for story. In Shakespeare’s day, there was an expectation of multiple storylines and 5 hour productions. These days, we find it more effective to pick the storyline that turns us on the most, and highlight that in it’s entirety – for instance, we entirely cut Norfolk, Oxford and Hastings so we can present the “Now comes the winter” and the Richard/Anne scenes in their entirety. It’s not a nickel and dime approach – its more slash and burn. In the past, we’ve imagined it as microsurgery with a chainsaw, and we’re generally pleased with the results. By coming up with the right mix of irreverence for the Shakespearean mythology and respect for the actual work, and by applying our patented nerd/thug approach, we know we can tell this story in an entirely fresh and original way.
As for production concept, we try to make it interesting and sexy, without relying on too much cleverness. I believe that for 21st century theatre audiences that come to Strawdog, period Elizabethan costumes would be distracting from the story that we are trying to present. We look at Shakespeare shows as an opportunity to really create our very own worlds from scratch, but we also want to work with some familiar forms to help people relax into the experience. This leaves us room to build up an idea by pulling together whatever various Richard III-related inspirations from all over the place – movies, music, similar historical incidents. For this one thoughts of medieval castles intersect with thoughts of high-end board rooms intersect with thoughts of private prep school politics and thoughts of Stalinistic tactics. Glamorous nightclubs. Chainmail. There might be some Iron Curtain in there as well. So, for the set I’m imagining stainless steel and rough-hewn blocks of granite. For costumes, I’m imagining contemporary lines with period fabrics. For sound, I’m imagining NIN meets a Mozart string concerto.
Do you think Richard is a hero or a villain? Why?
Oh, I don’t think that I believe in heroes and villains – I believe that people behave in different ways at different times, mostly due to their circumstances and their motivations. I should mention that I have never read the comments about Richard’s deformity as actual physical defects – it’s always felt psychological, just the inside manifesting itself on the outside. Sure, I can wrap my head around him being the runt of the litter (How would you like to grow up in the shadow of Edward the mighty warrior-king and ladies man? No pressure…) but manifesting him as a hunchback seems to cheapen the whole story in some way. Put yourself in his shoes. Coming back from a horrifying war having earned a reputation for savage effectiveness, how does an emotional cripple flip the war switch off? I’m not saying it’s excusable, I’m saying it’s understandable.
Yet while Richard is trying to have so much fun carving his way to the crown and then suffering the inevitable tragic fall and having a breakdown on the eve of battle, all of his victims find the strength to walk tall into his betrayals. I believe that true character is revealed by how gracefully one moves through tragedy, and that this noble strength must count for a lot. While I do love me some bad behavior, like most people I’m also on the search for redemption. My belief in the existence of that kind of strength in the face of powerful evil helps me get out of bed in the morning.
Peter Sellers does Richard III … with chickens…click here. (thanks to Amber Bel’cher, our dramaturge)
