SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, HENRY V and MERRY WIVES Set for Illinois Shakes 18

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival and new artistic director John C. Stark have just announced what's in store for the summer of 2018, with all kinds of intriguing developments on the horizon.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's domestic comedy about frisky housewives, their husbands and how they interact with Falstaff, a rowdy, blustering rascal, will open the Festival on Friday, July 5. The Merry Wives of Windsor was last performed at the Festival in 2010, in a sparkling production set in the 1920s. Deanna Jent, whose play Falling moved from St. Louis to New York with great acclaim and then back to Normal at Heartland Theatre, will direct this Merry Wives, which will get the theater at Ewing to itself that first week. Jent is an alumna of Illinois Wesleyan University, a professor of theatre at Fontbonne University, and artistic director of the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis. This is her first directing assignment at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

The second play in the line-up, Henry V, the stirring "once more unto the breach" history play, wherein (spoiler alert) the same Falstaff we saw in Merry Wives kicks the bucket. Off-stage, though. Henry V was last staged here in 2007. This time, the immensely talented Karen Kessler, who directed the only production of The Taming of the Shrew I ever liked, set in 1950s Little Italy, will be at the helm of Henry V.  It's set to open one week after Merry Wives, on July 12, also at the theater at Ewing Cultural Center.

And the third play, which will be performed on campus at the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, bows on July 19. This one will be one of the most popular plays of 2017, Shakespeare in Love, adapted by Lee Hall from the screenplay of the Oscar-winning film by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. It will be directed by Marti Lyons, another IWU alum and another in-demand director with credits ranging from Lookingglass and Chicago Shakespeare in the Windy City to Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays. Shakespeare in Love premiered on stage in London in 2014. Its North American premiere took place last year at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, and it's been going gangbusters across the United States ever since.

In addition to the staggered start indicated above, Illinois Shakes' managing director William Prenevost announced that changes are in the works across the ticketing side of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Subscription choices, seating levels and prices are getting a makeover, online ordering will be added, and the special perks that used to come with Platinum Plus tickets will now be offered to Illinois Shakespeare Festival Society members, as the Platinum Plus level of tickets is phased into plain old Platinum. All the details will be unveiled on the Illinois Shakes website as we get closer to the summer season.

Qui Nguyen's SHE KILLS MONSTERS Flies High Tonight at Illinois State

Yes, there is such a thing as "geek theatre," and playwright Qui Nguyen is one of its bright lights. Note that on his own site, he's chosen to refer to himself as "Playwriter, Screenwriter, Geek!" And it appears in a font that looks like it came right out of a comic book.

As co-artistic director and co-founder of Vampire Cowboys, a New York theater company often credited for creating the concept of geek theatre, Nguyen has worked to show that theaters can be a perfect venue for fans of comic books, video and role-playing games, science fiction and fantasy, and, in general, people who understand and identify with underdogs and outsiders.

Although Nguyen won the 2015 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for Vietgone, a more autobiographic piece, his 2011 play She Kills Monsters falls squarely in the geek theatre category, sending a woman named Agnes head over heels into the world of Dungeons and Dragons in an attempt to understand her younger sister Tilly's death. It's been described as "a high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture" and "a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all."

Director Paul Dennhardt brings She Kills Monsters to the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts starting tonight, with performances running through Saturday, November 4. Dennhardt is a professor of theatre at ISU as well as an expert in stage combat and movement and a perfect choice for a play filled with swords and battles on an epic scale.

To create the fantastic world of the play, Dennhardt is working with ISU colleagues John Stark, the scenic designer tasked with putting this imaginary world on stage, Michael Vetere, a puppet-master who can create dragons out of whole cloth, and costume designer Amanda Vander Byl to help bring life to the characters of She Kills Monsters, both real and imaginary. Dennhardt has also enlisted Vertigo Rigging Company to make his warriors fly high (literally).

For ISU, Johanna Kerber will play Agnes, with Spencer Brady as her little sister Tilly. Actors Jacob Artner, Autumn Egger, Josh Harris, Lauren Hickle, Kayla Jones, Angie Milton, Becky Murphy, Tyler Szarabajka, Chloe Szot and Jack Van Boven were cast to fill out both Dungeons and the real world with heroes and villains.

For information about upcoming performances of She Kills Monsters, click here or here.The show's Facebook page also has ticket information.

Heartland's FALLING, Opening Nov 6, Spotlights a Family Dealing with Autism

When Heartland Theatre opens Falling, Deanna Jent's play about the challenges of living inside a family with a profoundly autistic son, it will represent Step 3 in the journey director Lori Adams has taken with this play. Adams directed the show's world premiere at the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis as well as its Off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theatre. And her husband, scenic designer John C. Stark, designed both productions, along with a return stand at the Mustard Seed.

What made Falling rise above all the other new plays that pop up regionally, enough to send it straight to New York? The fact that it is in part based on Jent's real life as the mother of an autistic son certainly makes it stand out. And the rising profile of autism, along with larger and larger numbers of children diagnosed somewhere on the spectrum, makes it timely and compelling.

Adams and Stark are once again on board for Heartland's take on the family drama, bringing everything they learned about Jent's script back home for the benefit of local audiences who may not have been able to get to New York or St. Louis to see it there.

For this production, Karen Hazen and Rhys Lovell, who appeared together at Heartland in Middletown in 2013, will appear as Tami and Bill Martin, the couple whose marriage is tested by the demands of their older child. Daniel Esquivel, an ISU student in the School of Theatre and Dance, will play Josh, the child in question, while fellow Redbird Ashley Pruitt will play his younger sister Lisa. The family's fragile balance begins to falter when Grammy Sue, played by Ann B. White, arrives for a visit.

Playwright Deanna Jent will add to the Falling experience with a visit to Bloomington-Normal for what Illinois Wesleyan University is calling an "IWU Weekend with Deanna Jent" over November 15, 16 and 17, including events at Wesleyan as well as Heartland Theatre. Jent will stick around after Heartland's performances on the 15th and 16th to answer questions and give the inside scoop on Falling. These after-show discussions will be free and open to the public. To cap off her weekend in B-N, Jent will be present for a reading of her brand-new play Bloodlines at Heartland at 7:30 pm on Sunday the 16th.

In addition to Jent's appearances for post-show discussions, Heartland has arranged "post-scripts" involving various issues raised in the play, from daily life and employment opportunities for people with autism to bridging the gap between theater and disability. Lori Adams, John Stark and the cast of Falling will also be available after certain performances to give their perspective on the process. For the complete list of discussions scheduled, check Heartland's Show Times page here.

Falling opens tomorrow night at Heartland Theatre with a special Pay What You Can preview performance, followed by ten performances from November 7 to the 23rd. To see the complete schedule of performances, click here. For reservation information, click here.

2013 Drama Desk Awards (Including Our Very Own Nominees)

How exciting was it when Illinois Wesleyan alum Deanna Jent and Illinois State University's Lori Adams and John Stark took Jent's play Falling to New York after a smash engagement in St. Louis? Adams, who is head of acting in ISU's School of Theatre and Dance, directed Jent's play, with scenic design by Stark, who is head of design and production at ISU. The little play that could and its Minetta Lane production scored Drama Desk nominations for Jent for Outstanding Play as well as actors Daniel Everidge and Julia Murney. And that's about as major as it gets.

Broadway World photo of Jent and Adams on opening night
Photo credit: Walter McBride

Fellow nominees included the likes of Annie Baker, David Byrne, Christopher Durang, Tom Hanks, Nathan Lane, Tracy Letts, Bette Midler, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Shalhoub and Cicely Tyson.

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York awards to nominate and honor Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway shows in the same categories of competition. And that allows all the New York theatrical folk who cross those boundaries to be together for one night of big fun and excitement.

Sunday night, the Drama Desk Awards were handed out at Town Hall in Midtown Manhattan, with Christopher Durang's mixed-up Chekhovian comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike taking honors in the Outstanding Play category and Matilda, a musical version of the Roald Dahl novel with book by Dennis Kelly and music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, named Outstanding Musical. The Broadway transfer of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf took the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play, while Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson's Pippin won in the Outstanding Revival of a Musical or Revue category.

Acting honors were spread around, with winners including Virginia Woolf's Tracy Letts, Cicely Tyson for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful, Billy Porter in Kinky Boots and Laura Osnes in Cinderella. In the "featured" categories, Richard Kind (The Big Knife), Judith Light (The Assembled Parties), Bertie Carvel (Matilda) and Andrea Martin (Pippin) took home the trophies.

The Outstanding Director awards both went to women directors, with Pippin's Diane Paulus and Virgina Woolf's Pam MacKinnon honored.

To see the complete list of nominees and winners, click here.

FALLING Flies High in Its Off-Broadway Home

Lori Adams

Falling, the play directed by Illinois State University professor Lori Adams, has officially opened Off-Broadway. Playwright Deanna Jent wrote Falling, about a family trying to find ways to stay a family while dealing with the challenges of an autistic child, and the play received great notices when it began its life in St. Louis, where Adams received Best Director honors from St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Judith Newmark and the play itself took the 2012 Kevin Kline Award for Best New Play. Those notices were strong enough to earn it an Off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theater, where it's been in previews, with opening night last night.

This New York production includes not only Adams as director, but also ISU's John Stark as scenic designer and former ISU faculty member Julie Mack as lighting designer.

Reviews are beginning to trickle in, and they're stellar. In today's New York Post, Frank Scheck notes that "this heartfelt and nuanced family drama is shot through with dark humor, as cathartic for the audience as it is for its conflicted characters," and he calls the action "superbly staged" by Lori Adams.

Rex Reed opens his review in the New York Observer by praising the play's "Graceful writing, great acting, exquisite direction, suspense, [and] profound subject matter..." before concluding that Falling "teaches you something and leaves you sated—and it rocks."

At Talkin' Broadway, Matthew Murray writes that Falling is a "meticulously crafted and intensely moving play, given a sterling production by director Lori Adams."

The New York Daily News also put Falling in the No. 2 spot on its list of "top 10 things on New York stages" for this week.

You can also see interviews with the cast, including lead actress Julia Murney, on this page at Broadway.com, and see pictures and ticket information at Playbill's online site. Testimonials for the play have been posted on Youtube, if you're interested in the reactions of real-live audience members.

Note that $5 from each full-price ticket purchased for performances in October will benefit Autism Speaks, the world’s leading autism science and advocacy organization.

If you, like me, are unable to get to New York in time to see Adams' Off-Broadway directorial debut, you can enjoy this picture of the marquee for the show, as posted at Playbill online. Beautiful!

Lori Adams and "Falling" Headed Off-Broadway to Minetta Lane

Lori Adams

Last year, St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Judith Newmark awarded ISU's Lori Adams "Best Director" honors in her 2011 list of St. Loui's best theatrical endeavors for her work on the play "Falling," by Deanna Jent. As she talked about the play and why it stood out, Newmark wrote, "'Falling' comes endowed with a keen mind, a warm though troubled heart — and a future. There's hope to bring it to New York, probably Off-Broadway; productions at other theaters around the country are virtually certain."

Newmark knew whereof she spoke, as Broadway.com is reporting that "Falling," with Lori Adams once again at the helm, will receive its Off-Broadway premiere at the Minetta Lane Theater in the West Village. It's a wonderful theater, the launching pad for plays like Moises Kaufman's "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" and Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays With Morrie."

"Falling" is scheduled to begin previews on Thursday, September 27, with its official opening night scheduled for Monday, October 15, 2012.

Jent's play involves parents trying to balance the needs of their teenage daughter and their austistic son. Or, as Playbill's listing and the banner above frame the issue: "Family is not the most important thing: it's everything. Who will be there to catch you?" Jent herself is the mother of an autistic son and Newmark noted in the article linked at the top of this piece that "Falling" is based on Jent's own family. Along with being a playwright, she is the Artistic Director of the Mustard Seed Theatre, where the play was produced in St. Louis.

For its New York production, "Falling" will feature the work of scenic designer John C. Stark, who is also Adams' husband and Head of Production/Design at Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance; costume designer Tristan Raines; lighting designer Julie Mack; sound designer Raymond Schilke and fight choreographer Rick Sordelet.

Adams is the head of the Acting Program at ISU, and she also directs and acts in local productions. Last season, she directed William Inge's "Picnic" as part of the ISU theater season and the annual Holiday Extravaganza at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. She has acted in many local plays, including taking on the titular woman in Alan Ayckbourn's "Woman in Mind" at Heartland Theatre and playing Fanny Kemble in the touring one-woman show "Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble."