IWU's "Playground Creatures" Examines the Gilded Cage

Add April de Angelis's name to the list of female playwrights currently getting productions in this area, with Illinois Wesleyan's production of de Angelis's "Playhouse Creatures" showing exactly why it's important to highlight women's work.

"Playhouse Creatures" deals with a topic that every actress ought to find fascinating. The play is set in the 1660s, after Charles II had been restored to the throne of England, after he'd reopened the theaters the Puritans had shut down, and after he'd made it legal for theatrical companies to employ women on the stage. No more boys playing girls' roles! No more male Juliets and Lady Macbeths hiding under wigs and rouge!

For girls like Nell Gwyn, born into a life where selling oysters on the street or hawking oranges in the theater stalls was the best she could hope for, life upon the wicked stage was a definite step up. Using her beauty, wit and charm, Gwyn parlayed herself into a career as England's most celebrated comic actress of the Restoration period, a side life as the King's mistress, and a pension, a house and a title for her son (who was also the King's son). She also died at 37, probably from complications from syphilis.

In "Playhouse Creatures," de Angelis's fictionalized versions of Nell and her colleagues Elizabeth Farley, Mary Betterton and Beck Marshall all come up hard against the dark side of their progress. Their career gives them money and prestige, at least for a while, but they're still dancing to other people's tunes, still at the mercy of their powerful lovers' desires, the whims of the theater company owner, and the vicissitudes of age and illness and bad luck.

It's not just women in theater we're seeing here, it's women in general, in what you might call a No Win Situation. Just as in the play, women may be told the only way to get ahead is to use their looks and sexuality. But if they do, they're whores. If they don't, they're uptight, humorless whores. If they use contraceptives, they're double whores. And if they get pregnant... Triple whores!

De Angelis's non-linear, somewhat floaty script creates indelible characters and a compelling situation, as well as a bit of humor in the early going. Director Christopher Connelly and his cast do an excellent job filling out the characters, aided by Aaron O'Neill's wide, theatrical scenic design, and a beautiful (if asphyxiating, at least in terms of the corsets) array of lingerie and gowns from costume designers Celeste V. Kelley and Mariah Williamson.

Among the cast, Annie Simpson stands out as the very picture of youthful exuberance and optimism as a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked Nell Gwyn, with Allison Sutton also quite wonderful as Mrs. Betterton, showing all the affectations of an older diva who has figured out how to cock her head like a clock to demonstrate different emotions.

Lizzie Rainville takes on the challenges of ill-fated Elizabeth Farley's ups and downs with good skill, while Laura Williams looks lovely and gives spirit to Beck Marshall, laid low because she tries to retaliate against a villainous suitor. Abigail Dryden is stone-cold and scary as a Janie-Come-Lately in their theatrical world.

As Doll, Kirsten Andersen gets the unenviable role of being the old lady who cleans up after everybody else, as well as a sort of narrator, but she goes for it, shining especially on her speech late in the play where she talks about the bears who used to be tortured to make them dance in this very place.

There are only two men on stage in a turnabout of sorts, with Antonio Gracias and Ian Scarlato doing a) hapless and b) nasty quite nicely.

The only downside to this production of "Playhouse Creatures" is that there are only three total performances, and opening night was sold out, with a Standing Room Only crowd. If you can get in, you really ought to try.

PLAYHOUSE CREATURES
By April de Angelis

E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre
Illinois Wesleyan University

Director: Christopher Connelly
Scenic Designer: Aaron O'Neill
Costume Designers: Celeste V. Kelley and Mariah Williamson
Lighting Designer: Leigh Huff
Sound Designer: Christopher Connelly

Cast: Kirsten Andersen, Abigail Dryden, Antonio Gracias, Lizzie Rainville, Ian Scarlato, Annie Simpson, Allison Sutton, Laura Williams.

Running time: 2 hours, including one 10-minute intermission

Remaining performances: March 7 and 8 at 8 pm

For reservation information, click here.

Heartland Theatre Is Looking for "New Plays from the Heartland"

Are you a playwright plying your trade in the Midwest? Have you written a one-act that involves summertime and the Heartland?

Heartland Theatre's New Plays from the Heartland contest is accepting entries through May 1. This contest is for one-acts, 15 to 35 minutes in length, written by Midwest writers. Anyone who lives in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio or Wisconsin is eligible. Subject matter and setting of the play are up to the playwright, as long as there is some relation to this year's theme, which is "Summer in the Heartland." Since the three winning plays will be produced at Heartland Theatre in Normal in July, "Summer in the Heartland" ought to be a natural fit.

In conjunction with the production of the plays, Heartland will also offer a playwriting workshop with a nationally known playwright offering insights and guidance for the three winning playwrights. In the past, Wisconsin's Richard Kalinoski ("Beast on the Moon"), Minnesota's Phil Olson ("Don't Hug Me") and Ohio/Illinois hybrid Ben Viccellio ("House of Judgment") have conducted this master class.

Here's how Heartland Theatre describes what they're looking for:

"If you live in a Midwestern city, summertime may mean opening up a fire hydrant to beat the heat or a raucous street fair that lasts well into the night. If you live in the suburbs or a small town in the Midwest, summertime may mean the annual Miss Heart of the Heartland Pageant, cutthroat golf at the country club, or corn that’s as high as an elephant’s eye. Fireworks, parades, vacations, summer jobs, weddings, picnics, trying to find a patch of shade, competition for the best lawn, a cool Margarita on a hot patio, the most beautiful sunset in the history of the universe, air conditioners on the fritz, hot dogs, the siren’s song of the ice cream truck, a garden overflowing with zucchini, sunburn, fireflies, frying an egg on the sidewalk, sending the kids off to camp, struggling to get to a beach or a pool or to fit into your swimsuit…

All we need is a one-act play that speaks to that Midwest summertime experience, when the temperatures rise, things get lazy and crazy at the same time, and kids and adults alike yearn to enjoy every bit of summer before the first chill of fall."

Details, rules and guidelines are here. Plays can be entered directly from the website, through the form linked on the rules page. Do yourself a favor and read the rules, making sure your entry fits, before sending it in. This contest is funded by Paul and Sandra Harmon and the NPH Sponsors Circle.

And one last note: This contest offers an honorarium of $150 to each of the three winning playwrights to facilitate travel to Normal to participate in the workshop and see the staged reading of his or her play.

For more information, you can call Heartland's Box Office at 309-452-8709 or email newplays@heartlandtheatre.org

A Mix of Old and (Sort of) New in ISU's 2012-13 Season

Illinois State University's School of Theatre has announced the line-up for its 2012-13 season, with lots of classics, a few newer pieces, and a mix of styles and moods. Dates and details (like who's directing what) will be filled in later, but for now, this is what ISU actors and audiences have to look forward to in the next school year.

Naomi Iizuka

This fall, they'll start with the newest play, Naomi Iizuka's "Anon(ymous)" from 2006, in the Center for the Performing Arts. "Anon(ymous)" is a poetic, surreal exploration of Homer's "Odyssey" played across the scarred landscape of immigration in America. Iizuka's version of Odysseus is a rootless wanderer, a boy named Anon, who comes from somewhere "far away from here," searching for his mother, the Penelope of the story, who toils at a sweatshop somewhere in the US, fending off the advances of her creepy boss. Along his journey, Anon runs into characters who roughly correspond to the ones in the Odyssey, so, instead of a Cyclops, he has to fight to escape from a one-eyed psychopathic butcher wielding a big cleaver, and the nymph Calysto is now a snotty rich girl who tries to entice him with Skittles and Kit Kats. So far away from where he started, our immigrant Anon dreams of finding his mother and finally ending up someplace that feels like home.

After that, it's Rebecca Gilman's 1998 play, "The Glory of Living," which deals with the dark underbelly and the damaged, criminal children of America's Deep South. In the play, Lisa, the teenage daughter of a "drunk whore," is picked up and pulled along into a life of abuse and murder by Clint, her rapist boyfriend. She finally has a twinge of conscience -- maybe -- and leaves tips for the police about all what she and Clint have done, with the play then moving to how the criminal court system deals with each of them. The issues here are crime, punishment, morality, emotional instability, and what happens to unformed, abandoned children who never grow up, with plenty of blame to chew on. "The Glory of Living," set to play in Centennial West 207, received the ATCA Osborn Award for the Best New Play of 1998, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Then it will be Bertold Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children," widely considered to be among the best anti-war plays ever written, in Westhoff Theatre. Brecht wrote the play in Germany in 1939, as Hitler and the Nazi movement were creating a climate of violence and privation not unlike the wartime setting in the play. Mother Courage is a tough "canteen woman," a kind of peddlar who pulls a cart, trading and selling goods to soldiers. She continually tries and continually fails to balance turning a profit with keeping her children safe amidst the strife of war.

"The Cherry Orchard," Chekhov's bittersweet look at the fading fortunes of the aristocracy and the rise of a middle class composed of former serfs in turn-of-the-20th-century Russia, will follow in CW 207. As the play opens, Madame Ranevskaya returns to the country estate she can no longer afford, not understanding that her home, her orchards, and the entire way of life she's used to, must make way in changing times. Chekhov supposedly thought "The Cherry Orchard" was a comedy, but there is a lot of loss and sadness to deal with in this quiet, pensive play about the futility of standing still when the world keeps moving.

Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" is a completely different sort of piece, a backstage (and front-stage) farce about a hapless road company of washed-up or never-were players just trying to get the doors slammed and the sardines brought on and off at the right moments. "Noise Off" happens to be absolutely hilarious in the right hands (I've seen it sublime and I've seen it wretched, depending on the production) and it also give its scenic designer the chance to do a full, two-story house (or "posset mill") set that spins around at intermission. ISU has slated this one for the CPA, which is a step in the right direction.

Elmer Rice

In spring, ISU's sights will turn to "The Adding Machine." There is a recent musical version, but I'm assuming they'll be doing the 1923 play by Elmer Rice of "Street Scene" fame. Both versions deal with the same basic idea, about a man named Zero who is just a cog in a big company, an accountant, until he is replaced by an adding machine. This drama, headed for the CPA, is about man vs. machine, the worker vs. the nameless, faceless corporation, and the loss of humanity in an industrial vacuum.

That will be followed by "J.B.," the 1958 Archibald MacLeish drama that tells the story of Job, the man in the Bible visited upon by so many troubles. MacLeish put his play in free verse and set it in a circus tent, with a balloon seller and a popcorn guy standing in for God and Satan. And it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1959. "J.B." will pitch its tent inside Westhoff Theatre.

"Tales of the Lost Formicans," another surreal piece, comes next, with performances set for CW 207. Oddly enough, it was last performed at ISU in their 1994-95 season, along with "Noises Off" and one year after "The Adding Machine." Some plays never go out of style, I guess. In any event, Constance Congdon's "Tales of the Lost Formicans" was a 1989 Humana Festival play, with a clever, fresh and decidedly odd take on how aliens might try to fit together the pieces of 20th century life by looking at one "normal" family dealing with Alzheimers, a messy marital break, and a foul-mouthed, unhappy teenager. Congdon's voice is unlike anybody else's, and it's good to see one of her plays back in rotation.

That leaves just Rodgers' and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" and Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" to round out the year for ISU Theatre. "Oklahoma!" will go up in the CPA, naturally, with "Midsummer" in Westhoff, finishing up in time for ISU personnel to concentrate on the 2013 Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

ISU School of Theatre has listed its new season here, with promises of more details to come later. So far, it's looking like a pretty cool and quite eclectic season.

Looking for New Plays? Steinberg/ATCA New Play Nominations Announced

The American Theatre Critics Association has named the six finalists in this year's Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards, which celebrate new work that premiered outside New York.

The Steinberg Awards give out $40,000 in awards to playwrights, with a top award of $25,000 and two "runners-up" citations of $7,500 each, making it the most generous national new play award in the country. The winners will be handed their checks, as well as commemorative plaques, on March 31st at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. And I will be there, ready to tell you who gets the big prize.

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) began presenting its regional new play awards in 1977, with funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Foundation since 2000. Past honorees have included Lee Blessing, Nilo Cruz, Horton Foote, Craig Lucas, Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, August Wilson, and Lanford Wilson. Bill Cain took the award in 2011 for “9 Circles” and in 2010 for "Equivocation," becoming the first back-to-back winner.

Playwrights we've seen recently (or will soon see) in central Illinois, like Gina Gionfriddo, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Tracy Letts, Donald Margulies and Sarah Ruhl, have all received Steinberg/ATCA citations.

This year, the six nominees are:

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, by Yussef El Guindi (ACT Repertory in Seattle WA)

Water By The Spoonful, by Quiara Alegria Hudes (Hartford Stage in Hartford CT)

The Spectrum, by Ken LaZebnik (Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis MN)

Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them, by A. Rey Pamatmat (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville KY)

A Twist of Water, by Caitlin Montanye Parrish (Route 66 Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago IL)

Annapurna, by Sharr White (Magic Theatre, San Francisco CA)

Scroll down on this page to read more about each of the nominees. I loved "Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them" at last year's Humana Festival, reviewing the play here, and "A Twist of Water" was very well received in Chicago last year, including a famous visit from Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

Austin Pendleton, "Renaissance Man of the American Theater," Appears at ISU

Austin Pendleton at Steppenwolf

Austin Pendleton is hard to miss. He's been in a bunch of movies you'd recognize -- "Catch-22," Billy Wilder's "The Front Page," "Starting Over," "My Cousin Vinny," "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," "Amistad," "A Beautiful Mind" -- as well as lots of compelling appearances on TV shows and on stage, with a Drama Desk and an Obie for his acting and a Tony nomination for his directing, as well as a special Drama Desk award for being a "Renaissance man of the American theatre." He's also written successful plays, including "Booth" and "Orson's Shadow." He's been an ensemble member at Steppenwolf since 1987, directing and acting in productions like "The Crucible," "Uncle Vanya," "The Sunset Limited," "Educating Rita," "Detroit," and the current "Time Stands Still." Oh, and he was the voice of Gurgle in "Finding Nemo."

Small in stature, usually wearing round wire-rimmed spectacles and either a bemused look or a slightly loopy grin, he has a stage and screen persona that isn't like anybody else's. As a result, he's played serial killers, doctors, judges and professors, Sigmund Freud, Joe Lieberman, Mark Antony, and the White Rabbit, but always with depth, intelligence and an amazing watchability. He pulls you in. He quietly bends you to his view of a character, always with that genial smile.

Although he is a graduate of Yale, Austin Pendleton will be offering a chat at ISU this evening, along with Stephen Cone, the writer and director of the film "Black Box," which is being shot on the ISU campus. Pendleton is slated to star in "Black Box," which revolves around "a Midwestern college theatre department," wherein "a graduate student and a group of undergraduates stage an adaptation of an 80s horror novel. Things take a turn when the novel's author pays a visit."

If I had to guess, I would say that Pendleton is playing the author of the horror novel. Or a professor. If you attend this informal chat at an ISU School of Theatre conference room from 5 to 6 pm this evening, you can ask him what role he's taking on this time. You can also ask about Orson Welles, Mike Nichols, Billy Wilder, Barbra Streisand, Robert Altman, Paul Newman, and all the other subjects on which he has fascinating stories to tell. His career is nothing short of extraordinary. He's done everything. If you're looking for a life in the theater, Austin Pendleton stands as a great example of how to be who you are, do what you want, and keep making it work.

For all the information I've got on this appearance by Austin Pendleton and Stephen Cone, click here.

Jennifer Haley and "The Nether" Win Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Playwriting

This year's Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, which carries with it a cash award of $20,000 and a specially commissioned Willem de Kooning lithograph, has been awarded to American playwright Jennifer Haley for her play, "The Nether," which involves a "vast, virtual world" where everyone is anonymous and that anonymity affords them the opportunity to "live out any fantasy they desire." Haley's main character, a cyberdetective, encounters danger, a clash of wills, and an examination of the very nature of existence as she enters the secretive circles within that cyberworld.

Jennifer Haley

Haley is originally from Texas, although based in Los Angeles now. "The Nether" was given a reading at the Playwrights Union Reading Festival in 2010, with workshops at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference and New York's Lark Play Development Center in 2011. It will get another reading this month at the Philadelphia Theatre Company as part of their PTC@Play series.

Haley is also known for "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom," a Humana Festival play in 2008. It, too, involves the internet and dangerous games, as a subdivision of teenagers get mixed up with a battle against a virtual army of zombies that makes them lose sight of the line between reality and fantasy.

To see the other finalists for this year's Blackburn Prize, click here or here.

Entertainment Marches On!

I don't know about going out like a lamb, but March is definitely coming in like a lion in terms of local entertainment. It's unusual to have so much happening on the very first day of the month, but that's the way it is for March, 2012.

If you want to go out tonight, you have a choice of great holdovers, promising new stuff, Oscar-winning movies, or a touch of legit* March Madness. First up, what's opening tonight...

Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit" begins its run at Community Players tonight with a 7:30 Pay-What-You-Can preview. "Blithe Spirit" is, to my mind, Coward's best play, brimming with the wit and droll humor Coward is known for. Its plot involves British novelist Charles Condomine, who is married to a sensible woman named Ruth. But when Charles and Ruth host an unfortunate seance with eccentric Madame Arcati, they accidentally conjure up the spirit of Charles' blithe, beautiful, infuriating first wife, Elvira, who isn't too keen on leaving now that she's back. Uh oh. Now Charles is caught between two wives, one ghostly and the other very much alive and not very happy to be supplanted by an invisible rival.

"Blithe Spirit" is directed by Tom Smith for Community Players, with a cast that includes Thom Rakestraw as Charles, Hannah Kerns and Gayle Hess as his wife, past and present, and Judy Stroh as Madame Arcati. Performances continue through March 17.

Also opening tonight is the Station Theatre's production of Gina Gionfriddo's "Becky Shaw," a tart little comedy of its own. "Becky Shaw," whose title references Becky Sharp, the amoral antiheroine and best part of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair,"was a hit at the 2008 Humana Festival and enjoyed subsequent New York and regional productions. It begins with a terrible, terrible, terrible first date, a fix-up, played off against the pair of dewy-eyed newlyweds who fixed them up, commenting on love, romance, sex and sexual ethics in the modern world.

The acerbic humor of "Becky Shaw" is its strength, and it should do very well at the Station under the able direction of Kay Bohannon Holley, with Lindsey Gates Markel, Mathew Green, Mike Prosise, Martha Mills and Joi Hoffsommer in the cast. "Becky Shaw" opens tonight at 8, playing till the 17th.

Meanwhile, you have two other do-not-miss theatrical choices that are finishing up this weekend. People continue to discuss the problem of female playwrights not getting enough productions, but here in Bloomington-Normal, we have four more performances of Theresa Rebeck's snappy, dark and jaded "Mauritius," about sisters and shady wheeler-dealers battling over a valuable stamp collection, at Heartland Theatre, and three more performances of Caryl Churchill's sprightly but provocative gender-bent comedy "Cloud 9" at ISU's Westhoff theatre..

ISU also has two smaller productions opening tonight, with Vanessa Stalling and Matt Campbell directing Young Jean Lee's "Pullman, WA" and Heather Raffo's "9 Parts of Desire," respectively. Those two shows, more chances to support the work of female playwrights, play this weekend only, both closing on Sunday, March 4.

The women playwrights celebration continues at Illinois Wesleyan University, with April de Angelis's "Playhouse Creatures" taking a bow on March 6 in the E. Melba Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre. Christopher Connelly directs this bawdy look at English theater in the 17th century, when women were first allowed to trod the boards (instead of men playing all the roles) and Nell Gwynn went from Orange Girl to theatrical star. IWU's box office page says there are only three performances March 6-8, which means you'll need to be quick on your feet if you want to see this one.

The Normal Theater offers a mini Woody Allen Film Fest with two of his best, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Annie Hall" playing on the big, beautiful screen March 15-16 and 17-18, respectively. 'The Purple Rose of Cairo" stars Mia Farrow as an unhappy wife who loves to lose herself in movies, and Jeff Daniels as the pith-helmeted leading man who leaps off the screen into her life, while "Annie Hall" is the quintessential Allen romantic comedy, about a man very much like Woody who falls for a woman very much like Diane Keaton, and all the sweet, bittersweet and humorous quirks in their relationship.

On screen, the movie that just swept the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Oscars, "The Artist" is available right now in Champaign at The Art Theater, where they promise us that they have the only "beautiful 35mm print" in town. If you miss it there but want the vintage movie theater experience, you can try to catch it at the Normal Theater March 29-31. That was unconfirmed as of today, but the Normal Theater invites you to keep an eye on their Facebook page for details as the time gets closer.

New Route Theatre gears up for 2012 with its first "One Shot Deal," a reprise of "The Mystical Willie Lynch," Gregory Hicks' poetic exploration of the lasting repercussions of slavery on African-American history, on March 21 at the Eaton Gallery.

Over in Champaign, Parkland College's production of "Pinkalicious, the Musical," directed by J.W. Morrissette, continues through March 10, the University of Illinois opera program opens Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" tonight in Krannert Center's Tryon Festival Theatre, and the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company (CUTC) will offer the rollicking musical comedy, "The Producers," directed by Mikel Matthews, beginning March 15.

Late in the month, Shozo Sato returns to U of I with his production of "Lady Macbeth: A Kabuki Play," conceived by Sato and written by Karen Sunde. The U of I Department of Theatre says that this take on Shakespeare "retells the Scottish Play from the power-driven perspective of the would-be queen." Further, "[w]ith this evocative production, the Department of Theatre joins the National Theatre Conference’s Initiative to Celebrate American Women Playwrights."

Good for you, U of I. And thank you, ISU, IWU, Heartland, and the Celebration Company at the Station Theatre, for doing your part, as well. I doubt that most of them are focusing on female playwrights on purpose, but even a happy coincidence is to be celebrated.

*Legit March Madness refers to high school basketball in Illinois, where the term "March Madness" was coined. I will tell you all about how that happened someday. For right now, suffice it to say that if I say "March Madness," I mean Illinois and I mean high school. This one's for you, H.V. Porter!