Victory Gardens Theater
   HOME





Victory Gardens Theater
Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Gordon, Cordis Heard, Roberta Maguire, Mac McGuinnes, June Pyskaček, and David Rasche each fronted $1,000 to start a company outside the Chicago Loop and Gordon donated the light board of his Organic Theater Company. The theater's first production, ''The Velvet Rose'', by Stacy Myatt, premiered on October 9, 1974. Clark Street, 1974 The company's initial home was the Northside Auditorium Building, 3730 N. Clark Street in Chicago, originally a Swedish social club. Its second production—a country-western musical co-produced with commercial producers called ''The Magnolia Club'' by Jeff Berkson, John Karraker and David Karraker — was the company's first hit. Marcelle McVay was the first managing director. In 1975, director Dennis Začek s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Chicago, Illinois
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the county seat, seat of Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a Chicago Portage, portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the landmark Harris and Selwyn Theaters property. History The Goodman was founded in 1925 as a tribute to the Chicago playwright Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, who died in the Great Influenza Pandemic in 1918. The theater was funded by Goodman's parents, Mr. and Mrs. William O. Goodman, who donated $250,000 to the Art Institute of Chicago to establish a professional repertory company and a school of drama at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The first theater was designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (in the location now occupied by the museum's Modern Wing), although its design was severely hampered by location restrictions resulting in poor acoustics and lack of space for scenery and effects. The opening ceremony on October ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Actors' Equity Association
The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American trade union, labor union representing those who work in Theatre, live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a Musical theatre#Definitions, book or through-storyline (vaudeville, cabarets, circuses) may be represented by the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). The AEA works to negotiate quality living conditions, livable wages, and benefits for performers and stage managers. A theater or production that is not produced and performed by AEA members may be called "non-Equity". Background Leading up to the Actors' and Producers' strike of 1929, Cinema of the United States, Hollywood and California in general had a series of workers' equality battles that directly influenced the film industry. The films ''The Passaic Textile Strike'' (1926), ''The Miners' Strike'' (1928) and ''The Gastonia Textile Strike'' (1929) gave audience and produc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


Erika Dickerson-Despenza
Erika Dickerson-Despenza is an American playwright. She won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2021 for her play, ''cullud wattah''. Early life and education Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Dickerson-Despenza graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in English education from the School of Education. While at UW –Madison, she started a theater company, The For Colored Girls Project. Career After graduating, Dickerson-Despenza took on teaching jobs. She moved to New York and took a position with People's Theatre Project. In 2019, Dickerson-Despenza quit her non-theatre job to pursue playwriting full time. She was The Public Theater's 2019-2020 Tow Foundation playwright-in-residence. Dickerson-Despenza's play, ''cullud wattah,'' received its first staged reading at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago in 2018. The play follows three generations of Black women living through the Flint, Michigan water crisis. It was featured on the 2019 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

George Floyd Protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the murder of George Floyd, reactions to Murder of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man, by Minneapolis Police Department, city police during an arrest. They spread nationally and internationally. Veteran officer Derek Chauvin was recorded as kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; Floyd complained of not being able to breathe, but three other officers looked on and prevented passersby from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were fired and later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of Murder in Minnesota law#Second-degree murder, second-degree murder, Murder in Minnesota law#Third-degree murder, third-degree murder, and Manslaughter (United States ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


Chay Yew
Chay Yew () is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020. Career Chay Yew's breakthrough work came from his early plays ''Porcelain'' and ''A Language of Their Own'', which, along with ''Wonderland'', make up what Yew calls the Whitelands Trilogy. Other plays include ''As if He Hears''; ''Red''; ''A Beautiful Country''; ''Question 27, Question 28''; ''A Distant Shore''; ''Vivien and the Shadows';'' and ''Visible Cities''. His adaptations include ''A Winter People'' (based on Anton Chekhov's ''The Cherry Orchard''); Federico García Lorca's ''The House of Bernarda Alba''.; Ibsen's ''Dollhouse;'' and ''The House of Baluyot,'' after Aeschylus' ''Oresteia.'' In 1989, the government in Singapore banned his first play ''As If He Hears'' because the gay character acted "too sympathetic and too straight-looking". Yew's plays appear in numerous anthologies, and two collections of his ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]




Richard Christiansen (critic)
Richard Christiansen (August 1, 1931 – January 28, 2022) was an American theatre and film critic, who was "the chief theatre reviewer of the ''Chicago Tribune''" from 1978 to 2002 and the "leading critical voice in Chicago theatre for more than three decades". He was born on August 1, 1931, in Berwyn, Illinois, to William Edward, an electrical engineer and Louise Christine (Dethlefs) Christiansen. He became the chief critic and senior writer of the newspaper. He previously worked for the ''Chicago Daily News'' from 1957 to 1978. He joined the staff of ''The Chicago Tribune'' immediately following the demise of the ''Chicago Daily News'' in 1978. The second-floor studio theatre at the Victory Gardens Theater Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go ... was named after him in 20 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and WGN-TV, WGN television received their call letters. It is the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region, and the List of newspapers in the United States, sixth-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the then new Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century, under Medill's grandson 'Colonel' Robert R. McCormick, its reputation was that of a crusading newspaper with an outlook that promoted Conservatism in the United States, American conservatism and opposed the New Deal. Its reporting and commenta ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Greenhouse Theater Center
The Greenhouse Theater Center is a professional, non-profit theater located in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park. The Greenhouse Theater Center hosts multiple Off-Loop theater companies, including Eclipse Theatre Company, Hubris Productions, MPAACT, Organic Theatre Company, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, The Magic Cabaret, and Theater Seven Of Chicago. History Founded in 2008, the Greenhouse Theater Center was the original home for the Body Politic Theater and Victory Gardens Theater Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go .... The Wendy and William Spatz Charitable Foundation purchased the theater building from Victory Gardens Theater with a promise to maintain the current function of the building as a multi-stage theater space. The Greenhouse Theater Center is as an "inc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company is a theater in Chicago known for productions from playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw and Tom Stoppard. Marti Lyons serves as the company's Artistic Director. History Remy Bumppo was founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Emeritus James Bohnen, Carol Loewenstern, and John Stoddard as Remy Bumppo LLC. The company was named after two of the founders' pets – Bohnen's dog Natty Bumppo (named after the James Fenimore Cooper character, Natty Bumppo) and Loewenstern's cat Remy (named after Rémy Martin cognac). In their first year, the company produced two plays, ''Night and Day'' by Tom Stoppard and ''The Seagull'' by Anton Chekhov. On June 20, 2001, Remy Bumppo incorporated as a not-for-profit company under the name Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. At that time, they added five artistic associates: Annabel Armour, David Darlow, Shawn Douglass, Linda Gillum, and Nick Sandys. Artistic associates added since that time include Joe Van Slyke (added in 2005) a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger (; June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster during the Great Depression. He commanded the Dillinger Gang, which was accused of robbing twenty-four banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times and escaped twice. He was charged with but not convicted of the murder of East Chicago, Indiana, police officer William O'Malley, who shot Dillinger in his bulletproof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide. Dillinger courted publicity. The media printed exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, and described him as a Robin Hood–type figure. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger as justification to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.Elliott J. Gorn, ''Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Mad ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Lincoln Avenue (Chicago)
Lincoln Avenue is a street of the north side of city of Chicago. It runs from Clark Street (itself a diagonal) on the western border of Lincoln Park largely to the northwest, ending in Morton Grove, Illinois. It leaves the city limits of Chicago at Devon Avenue, through the village of Lincolnwood, curves through the village of Skokie and ends at Dempster Street in Morton Grove. In total distance it is about long, although it is not completely continuous. Between Foster Avenue and Skokie Boulevard U.S. Route 41 runs on Lincoln Avenue. Most of Lincoln Avenue is zoned commercial, and is lined by shops, restaurants and other establishments. It is the site of the yearly Taste of Lincoln Avenue, held between Fullerton Avenue and Wrightwood Avenue. It is also the site of the Maifest and German American Fest in Lincoln Square. History Originally it was a Native American trail running along a slight ridge in the usually soggy ground of pre-settlement Chicago. Prior to the assassi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]