Stage notes
NEW PLAYS: Victory Gardens Theater, that longtime champion of new plays, is trying something new this summer in the form of a project dubbed “Ignition.” The summer festival, funded by the Ford Foundation, has been devised as a showcase for “emerging writers of color under age 40,” and will present staged readings of six plays selected from 120 entries nationwide and internationally. It is hoped that the readings, running Aug. 7-10 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln, will be the source of future Victory Gardens workshops and mainstage productions, and that they also will attract the attention of theater organizations around the country.
The six winning plays include: “The Imagine Man,” by Christopher DePaola of Chicago; “A Better Babylon,” by Michael Lew of New York; “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” by Kristoffer Diaz of New York; “Bathing Van Gogh,” by Brian Tucker of New York; “Year Zero,” by Michael Galamco of Los Angeles; and “Fati’s Last Dance,” by France-Luce Benson of Pittsburgh.
(Courtesy)
A Festival Pass for admission to all readings and related events is $20. For further information phone: (773) 871-3000 or go to: www.VictoryGardens.org.
HATCH TO BROADWAY: Joel Hatch, so memorable as the dyspeptic husband in the new musical, “Adding Machine,” which began at Evanston’s Next Theatre and is now an Off Broadway hit, is headed to Broadway. The veteran Chicago actor is to play the featured role of George in “Billy Elliot,” which opens this fall at the Imperial Theatre.
CHELONIA DANCE: Dimitri Peskov is a Russian-born dancer-choreographer with a distinctive style. His three-part work “Stray Dog” — set in pre-Revolutionary Russia and named after the fabled St. Petersburg cafe that still attracts artists and intellectuals — will be among the works on the program to be presented by Chelonia Dance this weekend at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn. Peskov shares the program with fellow Beloit College faculty members Kate Corby and Chris Johnson, and several student dancers will be participating. Performances are tonight [Fri.] and tomorrow at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15-20. Phone: (312) 337-6543.
MACARTHUR INTERNATIONAL: The Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP) has received one of the first International Connections grants from the MacArthur Foundation designed to foster cultural exchanges. The $50,000 grant will to help underwrite the organization’s three-year exchange with China — a project that was set in motion this winter when CHRP performed in Beijing. The grant, the only one given to a dance company, also will support the participation of a Chinese company (the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute’s Dance Program directed by Yan Ling) when CHRP presents its upcoming admission-free program in Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion at 7:30 p.m. on July 28.
Also upcoming is "JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance," the culminating performances of this year’s Chicago Human Rhythm Project Rhythm World festival, which will take place at Loyola University's Kathleen Mullady Theater and feature master artist-teachers and participants in the Youth Tap Ensemble Conference. Performances are as follows:
• Tribute to tap legend Leon Collins, with Dianne Walker, Barbara Duffy, CHRP Director Lane Alexander and CHRP’s ensemble BAM!, Derick K. Grant, Emmy Award winner Jason Samuels Smith, Yukiko Misumi and Spain's Guillem Alonso. (Aug. 1 at 8 p.m.)
• Tribute to tap legend Sammy Dyer, with Ted Levy, Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards, Julie Cartier and the Cartier Collective, Sam Weber, John Kloss and Emmy Award winner Billy Siegenfeld (Aug. 2 at 8 p.m.)
• Tribute to Tommy Sutton, with CHRP Associate Director Martin “Tre” Dumas and Jus’LisTeN, Jimmy Payne Jr., Mark Yonally, Reggio “the Hoofer” McLaughlin and CHRP Artistic Associates Kristi Burris and Lisa La Touche (Aug. 3 at 3 p.m.)
Tickets: (773) 508-3847.
NOTE: Other Chicago arts organizations who received the MacArthur Connections grants include: Next Theatre, Pegasus Players, the Chicago Art Institute, the Chicago children’s Choir and Facets Multimedia.
BLACK THEATER AWARDS: Arthur Mitchell, the veteran New York City Ballet dancer and founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Black Theater Alliance/Ira Aldridge Awards to be held Sept. 29 at the Fairmont Chicago Hotel, 200 North Columbus Dr. Dinner is at 7 p.m., to be followed by the awards ceremony. Tickets: $75.00 (or $65.00 per person for groups of 5 or more). Phone: (773) 624-5729.
Nominations for the Black Theater Alliance/Ira Aldridge Awards will be announced on Aug. 4.