Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Its name comes from the Hermann Hesse novel. Two years later, the moved to a 211-seat facility at 2851 N. Halsted Street, which was their home until 1991. In 1982, Sam Shepards True West, starring Sinise and John Malkovich, was the first of many Steppenwolf productions to travel to New York City, Steppenwolf is an ensemble theatre founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry. In 1988, Steppenwolf presented the premiere of Frank Galatis adaption of The Grapes of Wrath, based on the John Steinbeck novel. In 2000 Steppenwolf presented the premiere of Austin Pendletons Orsons Shadow. In December 2007, Steppenwolf opened a new play written and directed by members at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. Tracy Letts August, Osage County was hailed by the New York Times as, flat out, no asterisks and without qualifications the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years. Directed by ensemble member Anna D. Shapiro and featuring seven members, August. Letts went on to win the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play, August closed on Broadway on Sunday, June 28,2009, after 648 performances and 18 previews.
In 2009 Steppenwolf was recognized by The Wall Street Journal as a Top Small Workplace in America, additionally, in 2010 Steppenwolfs apprenticeship program was honored for the second consecutive year as one of the Top 10 Internships in America by leading career website Vault. com. Among its many honors are the Tony Award for Regional Theatre Excellence, Chicago theatre List of museums and cultural institutions in Chicago Steppenwolf Theatre Company official website Steppenwolf Theatre Company at the Internet Broadway Database
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Chicago Shakespeare Theater is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. The theater had garnered 77 Joseph Jefferson awards and three Laurence Olivier Awards, in 2008, it was the winner of the Regional Theatre Tony Award. The companys present artistic director Barbara Gaines founded the theater in 1986, in 1999, the company received permission to build its permanent home, a two-venue facility at Navy Pier. Productions at the theater include works from the Shakespearean canon as well as other plays, in addition to its own original productions, the Chicago Shakespare Theater hosts touring productions from other theater companies. The move was accompanied by a public relations blitz, which even involved Mayor Richard M. Daley naming April 23,1997 Shakespeare Repertory Day, the company began a large-scale capital campaign to finance the move, and opened its 1999-2000 season in its new, state-of-the-art facility. Since then, CST has grown from the third-largest theater company in Chicago to the third-largest in the entire Midwest, the first performance at this facility was Eric Idle reading from his novel, The Road to Mars.
Chicago Shakespeare Theaters Team Shakespeare program is the largest arts-in-education program in the state of Illinois and its extensive work with approximately 1,000 educators annually includes free teacher workshops and web-based resources
Joseph Jefferson
Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson, was an American actor. He was the actor of this name in a family of actors and managers. Jefferson was particularly known for his adaptation and portrayal of Rip Van Winkle on the stage. Through his appearances in the latter, he is believed to be the earliest born actor to appear in a film, Jefferson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a designer and actor and his mother an actress. He appeared onstage early in life, often being used when a play called for a babe in arms and his first recorded appearance was at the Washington Theatre in Washington, D. C. where he appeared in a benefit performance for the minstrel Thomas D. Rice. Jefferson bought a place in 1869 called Orange Island in New Iberia, the location is at a peninsular area on Lake Peigneur, and was subsequently renamed Jefferson Island. In 1833 at the age of four years, Jefferson was carried on stage at the Washington theatre in a bag by an actor named Thomas D. Rice.
He put Jefferson alongside him in face and dress with Rice performing his well-known character Jim Crow. In 1837 now age eight, Joseph performed at the Franklin theatre in New York City with his parents as a pirate. After the end of the season of 1837-1838 Mr. and Mrs. Joseph sang comic songs, played bit parts and his father died when he was 13, and young Jefferson continued acting and helping to support the family. From there both Jefferson and Burke performed continuously and the family would travel the American West. Traveling theatre to theatre Mr. Jefferson performed and worked everywhere in between Boston to Charleston as far as Chicago, the family led the lives of Strolling Players. This term is a given to a troupe of itinerant actors. At one point along with his family they followed the American army from 1846-1848 during the Mexican–American War. As a strolling player, Joseph performed in places some not even a theater space. Some performances were given in the rooms of country hotels. This play was the turning-point of his career, as it would be for the actor E. A.
Sothern, when Sothern complained about the small size of his role, Jefferson supposedly replied with the famous line, There are no small parts, only small actors
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Galsworthy was born at what is now known as Galsworthy House on Kingston Hill in Surrey, England and he attended Harrow and New College, after which he trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1890. However, he was not keen to begin practising law and instead travelled abroad to look after the shipping business. During these travels he met Joseph Conrad, the first mate of a sailing-ship moored in the harbour of Adelaide, Australia, in 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. After her divorce ten years later, they were married on 23 September 1905, before their marriage, they often stayed clandestinely in a farmhouse called Wingstone in the village of Manaton on Dartmoor, Devon. In 1908 Galsworthy took a lease on part of the building.
From the Four Winds, a collection of stories, was Galsworthys first published work in 1897. His first full-length novel, was published in an edition of 750 under the name of John Sinjohn – he refused to have it republished, although he continued writing both plays and novels, it was as a playwright that he was mainly appreciated at the time. Along with those of writers of the period, such as George Bernard Shaw, his plays addressed the class system and other social issues. He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family and these books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, and upper-middle class lives in particular. Although sympathetic to his characters, he highlights their insular, snobbish and he is viewed as one of the first writers of the Edwardian era who challenged some of the ideals of society depicted in the preceding literature of Victorian England. The depiction of a woman in an unhappy marriage furnishes another recurring theme in his work, the character of Irene in The Forsyte Saga is drawn from Ada Pearson, though her previous marriage was not as miserable as that of the character.
Through his writings Galsworthy campaigned for a variety of causes, including prison reform, womens rights, and animal welfare and he was too ill to attend the Nobel awards ceremony and died six weeks later. Galsworthy lived for the seven years of his life at Bury in West Sussex. He died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, the popularity of his fiction waned quickly after his death but the hugely successful television adaptation of The Forsyte Saga in 1967 renewed interest in his work. A number of John Galsworthys letters and papers are held at the University of Birmingham Special Collections, in 2007, Kingston University opened a new building named in recognition of his local birth. Galsworthy Road in Kingston, the location of Kingston Hospital, is named for him
Theatre
The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, song and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, the specific place of the performance is named by the word theatre as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι. Modern theatre, broadly defined, includes performances of plays and musical theatre, there are connections between theatre and the art forms of ballet and various other forms. The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated, participation in the city-states many festivals—and mandatory attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member in particular—was an important part of citizenship. The Greeks developed the concepts of dramatic criticism and theatre architecture, Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama, tragedy and the satyr play, the origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle, the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus.
The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10, the stage consisted of a dancing floor, dressing room and scene-building area. Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics, the actors wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus and Euripides, the origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institution alised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus. As contestants in the City Dionysias competition playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays, the performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE, official records begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced.
More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics, Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the surviving plays of Aristophanes. New Comedy is known primarily from the papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus, the satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyrs themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal companions, often engaging in drunken revelry
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances, and has been revived on Broadway four times, winning three Tony Awards for Best Revival. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century and he is 63 years old and very unstable and self-deluded. Willy tends to re-imagine events from the past as if they are real and he vacillates between different perceptions of his life. Willy seems childlike and relies on others for support and his first name, reflects this childlike aspect as well as sounding like the question Will he. His last name gives the feel of Willys being a low man, someone low on the ladder and unlikely to succeed, however. Linda Loman, Willys loyal and loving wife, Linda is passively supportive and docile when Willy talks unrealistically about hopes for the future, although she seems to have a good knowledge of what is really going on.
She chides her sons, particularly Biff, for not helping Willy more and she is the first to realize that Willy is contemplating suicide at the beginning of the play, and urges Biff to make something of himself, while expecting Happy to help Biff do so. Biff was a star with lots of potential in high school. He wavers between going home to try to fulfill Willys dream for him as a businessman or ignoring his father by going out West to be a farmhand where he is happiest. He likes being outdoors and working with his hands, yet wants to do something worthwhile so Willy will be proud. Biff steals because he wants evidence of success, even if it is false evidence, harold Happy Loman, Willys younger son. Hes lived in the shadow of his older brother Biff most of his life and seems to be almost ignored, but he still tries to be supportive towards his family. He is always looking for approval from his parents, but rarely gets any, Willys somewhat wise-cracking yet kind and understanding neighbor. He pities Willy and frequently lends him money and comes over to play cards with him, Willy is jealous of him because his son is more successful than Willys.
Charley offers Willy a job many times during visits to his office, yet Willy declines every time, in Willys flashbacks, he is a nerd, and Willy forces him to give Biff test answers. He worships Biff and does anything for him, later, he is a very successful lawyer and expecting a second son ‒ the same successes that Willy wants for his sons, in particular Biff. Bernard makes Willy contemplate where he has gone wrong as a father, uncle Ben, Willys older brother who became a diamond tycoon after a detour to Africa
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as the father of realism and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre and he is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Dolls House became the worlds most performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era. Ibsens work examined the realities that lay behind many façades and it utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic early play Peer Gynt, has strong surreal elements, Ibsen is often ranked as one of the most distinguished playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare and he is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare. He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene ONeill, Ibsen was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902,1903, and 1904.
Ibsen wrote his plays in Danish and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal, born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, Ibsen shaped his dramas according to his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen, Ibsens dramas continue in their influence upon contemporary culture and film with notable film productions including A Dolls House featuring Jane Fonda and A Master Builder featuring Wallace Shawn. Ibsen was born to Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg, in a merchant family, in the small port town of Skien in Telemark county. Ibsens grandfather, ship captain Henrich Ibsen, had died at sea in 1797, Knud Ibsens paternal ancestors were ship captains of Danish origin, but he decided to become a merchant, having initial success. His marriage to Marichen Altenburg, a daughter of ship-owner Johan Andreas Altenburg, theodore Jorgenson points out that Henriks ancestry reached back into the important Telemark family of Paus both on the fathers and on the mothers side.
Hedvig Paus must have well known to the young dramatist. Henrik Ibsen was fascinated by his parents strange, almost incestuous marriage, Henriks sister Hedvig would write about their mother, She was a quiet, lovable woman, the soul of the house, everything to her husband and children. She sacrificed herself time and time again, There was no bitterness or reproach in her. The Ibsen family eventually moved to a city house, owned by Knud Ibsens half-brother, Ibsen would both model and name characters in his plays after his own family. At fifteen, Ibsen was forced to leave school and he moved to the small town of Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist and began writing plays. In 1846, when Ibsen was age 18, a liaison with a servant produced a child, whose upbringing Ibsen had to pay for until the boy was in his teens
Grease (musical)
Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey with additional songs written by John Farrar. The score attempts to recreate the sounds of rock and roll. In its original production in Chicago, Grease was a raunchy, aggressive, subsequent productions sanitized it and tamed it down. Grease was first performed in 1971 in the original Kingston Mines nightclub in Chicago, from there, it has been successful on both stage and screen, but the content has been diluted and its teenage characters have become less Chicago habitués and more generic. At the time that it closed in 1980, Greases 3, 388-performance run was the longest yet in Broadway history and it remains Broadways 15th longest-running show. Aspects of the play would be incorporated into the productions 2016 live TV musical. The script was based on Jim Jacobs experience at William Taft High School, Warren Casey collaborated with Jim and together they wrote the music and lyrics. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and made a deal to produce it Off-Broadway, the team headed to New York City to collaborate on the New York production of Grease.
The new production, directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, though Grease opened geographically off-Broadway, it did so under first class Broadway contracts. The show was deemed eligible for the 1972 Tony Awards, receiving seven Tony Award nominations. On June 7,1972, the moved to the Broadhurst Theatre in Broadway, and on November 21, it moved to the Royale Theatre there. For the five weeks of the run, the show moved to the larger Majestic Theatre. By the time it closed on April 13,1980, it had run 3,388 performances. Replacements in the run included Jeff Conaway, Gail Edwards, Marilu Henner, Peter Gallagher, Ilene Graff, Judy Kaye, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Jerry Zaks and Treat Williams. Richard Gere was an understudy for many roles in production, including Danny Zuko, Teen Angel. Later Paul Nicholas and Elaine Paige, who had been in the London production of Hair, kim Braden would play Sandy. It was revived in London at the Astoria in 1979 with Su Pollard, the revival opened at the Dominion Theatre and transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in October 1996, where it ran until September 11,1999.
Other performers who played Danny were Shane Richie, Luke Goss, Ian Kelsey, the original score includes four songs written for the film adaptation, Hopelessly Devoted to You, Youre the One That I Want, and the title number
Hurlyburly
Hurlyburly is a dark comedy play by David Rabe, first staged in 1984. The title refers to dialogue from Shakespeares Macbeth, Hurlyburly depicts the intersecting lives of several low-to-mid-level Hollywood players in the 1980s. Fueled by large quantities of drugs, they attempt to find meaning in their isolated, the title is derived from dialogue in Act I, Scene I of Shakespeares Macbeth, First Witch, When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain. Second Witch, When the hurlyburlys done, / When the battles lost, the plays first staging was produced by the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It opened off-Broadway at Manhattans Promenade Theatre in June 1984, the Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, opened on August 7,1984 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it ran for 343 performances. The original cast included William Hurt, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Jerry Stiller, Judith Ivey, Sigourney Weaver, Nixon was performing in The Real Thing at the same time. Replacements in the run included Danny Aiello, Susan Anton, Christine Baranski, Frank Langella, Ron Silver, John Rubinstein and Candice Bergen.
A2005 Off-Broadway revival was produced by The New Group, and starred Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, Bobby Cannavale, Parker Posey, Wallace Shawn, Halley Wegryn Gross, the production received critical acclaim and garnered a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play. Tony Award for Best Play Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play Rabe wrote the screenplay for a 1998 film version directed by Anthony Drazan and he condensed the action into two hours and updated the setting from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. The cast included Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Robin Wright Penn, Garry Shandling, Anna Paquin, penns performance won him the Volpi Cup and Drazan was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Penn was nominated Best Male Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards, Hurlyburly at the Internet Broadway Database Hurlyburly at the Internet off-Broadway Database Hurlyburly at the Internet Movie Database
Illinois
Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants.
Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has said to mean tribe of superior men.
The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
Chicago
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, film, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language.
The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S.
The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
