Displaying items by tag: The Artistic Home

The Artistic Home will present the Chicago premiere of Mark O'Rowe's adaptation of Ibsen's HEDDA GABLER. This pioneering work of a woman trapped by societal expectations has sparked debate and intrigue for over a hundred years. Ibsen's classic gets a refreshing update in O'Rowe's translation. The Irish Times said "O'Rowe's superb and subtle new version is similarly contained, finessing Ibsenite naturalism into meticulously wrought, unfussy exchanges."
 
HEDDA GABLER will be directed by Monica Payne, longtime Artistic Home collaborator, and Associate Professor of Acting and Directing at Tulane University in New Orleans. Payne says, "this play feels as prescient now as it did when it was first performed in 1891. A woman in a loveless marriage, wanting to break free from society's rigid, brutal expectations. Hedda is bold, strong-willed, and unable to bear the small life that she is required to live."
 
A debate over Hedda Gabler has spanned generations.  Katy Hayes of the Irish Independent, in her review of O'Rowe's translation, called Hedda "the most intriguing female character ever created for the stage."
 
Press opening is Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 pm in The Den Theatre at 1331 N. Milwaukee Avenue.
 
The cast, announced today, includes Jeff Award winner Brookelyn Hébert* in the title role of Hedda. Jeff Award winner Todd Wojcik* will perform as Hedda's husband Jorge Tesman. Judge Brack will be played by John Mossman*, Jeff Award winner for his direction of The Artistic Home's REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. The cast also includes Laura Coleman* as Berte, Ariana Lopez* as Thea, Dan Evashevski as Lovborg, and Jeff Award nominee Lynne Baker as Aunt Julle. Understudies will include Elizabeth Stam (u/s Thea), Delia Ford (u/s Berte, Aunt Julle), Martin Tebo (u/s Tessman), and others to be named.

The production team will be helmed by Kathy Scambiatterra* (Producing Artistic Director), Kristin Collins*(Casting Director), Kevin Hagan* (Scenic Design, Production Manager, Graphic Design), Petter Wahlbäck* (Sound Design and Original Music), Rachel Lambert* (Costume Design), Rachel Levy (Lighting Design), Randy Rozler* (Properties Design), Ted James* (Assistant Director), Tom McNelis* (Technical Director), and Ellie Fey (Master Electrician), Arlene Urquhart and Salvatore Scambiatterra (Co-Producers).
 
The Artistic Home performs at The Den Theatre, and also maintains an acting studio and rehearsal space at 3054 N. Milwaukee Avenue in the Avondale/Logan neighborhood. Tickets are $35 general, $20 student, and  $20 for previews. Tickets will be on sale soon at www.theartistichome.org.
 
* Artistic Home ensemble member
 
LISTING INFORMATION
 
HEDDA GABLER
By Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Mark O'Rowe
Directed by Monica Payne
February 15 – March 23, 2025
Previews Saturday, February 15 at 7:30 pm, Sunday, February 16 at 3:00 pm and Wednesday, February 19 at 7:30 pm
Press Opening Thursday. February 20 at 7:30 pm
Regular run performance times Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 pm.
The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
Ticket prices  Regular performances: $35 general, $20 students/seniors; previews $20 all seats
Tickets available at www.thedentheatre.com, or by phone at 773-697-3830
More information at www.theartistichome.org
Hedda Tesman returns from her honeymoon to the brutal banality of domestic life: an agonizingly bland husband; a living room full of dying flowers; and a house that is too large, too cluttered, too bourgeois for the once unstoppable Hedda Gabler. Both tormented and merciless, she is caught between her appetite for sensation and acute awareness of  public perception. Mark O'Rowe's stunning contemporary adaptation is a mesmerizing study of power, control, and self-deception and a nuanced portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in modern drama.

BIOS

Monica Payne (Director) is a theatre and film director, whose work intersects bold physicality, deep emotion, and collective ritual. She is the founder of Theatre Lumina, an ensemble devoted to cross-cultural collaboration and international exchange.
 
Her projects include devised work, literary adaptations, new plays, music videos, and short films. Her most recent piece, RITUAL, premiered in New Orleans in May of 2023. Payne has directed throughout the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh and her devised work, SONG OF HOME, toured to Eastern Europe. She was a Resident Director at Trap Door Theatre (Chicago) for several years and is a member of SDC, The Lincoln Center Director's Lab, and Director's Lab West. Previously an actress, she has worked with many prestigious ensembles, including Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
 
Payne holds an MFA in Directing from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television, and has been a Meisner-based acting teacher for many years. She has taught for The School at Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf Classes West, The Latino Theatre Company, The Robert Mello Studio, The Artistic Home, and her own studios in L.A. and Chicago. At the college level, she has taught at UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, and Point Park University, where she also served as the Head of Graduate Acting.  She is an Associate Professor at Tulane University (New Orleans), where she also serves as Head of Directing. She teaches classes for the Theatre and Dance Department, as well as Digital Media Practices.
 
Her short film MIMI is currently in post-production. In the fall of 2024, she and Tulane colleague Casey Beck  co-produced VISION(ARY), a conference on gender equity in theatre, film, and literature.
 
Mark O'Rowe (Adapter) Mark O'Rowe is a playwright and film writer whose second play, HOWIE THE ROOKIE, won the George Devine Award when it premiered at London's Bush Theatre in 1999. In 2007 he wrote TERMINUS, a series of interlocking monologues, which received rave reviews when it opened at Dublin's Abbey Theatre and won a Fringe First when it transferred to the Edinburgh Festival in 2008. O'Rowe's adaptation of Daniel Clay's novel BROKEN was directed by Rufus Norris (LONDON ROAD) and stars Cillian Murphy and Tim Roth. In 2013 Mark directed a critically acclaimed new production of HOWIE THE ROOKIE re-imagined for one actor, starring Tom Vaughn-Lawlor and produced by Landmark Productions. Mark's new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic play, HEDDA GABLER, opened at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in April 2015.

Henrik Ibsen (Playwright) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered theatrical realism, but also wrote lyrical epic works. His major works include BRAND, PEER GYNT, EMPEROR AND GALILEAN, A DOLL'S HOUSE, GHOSTS, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, THE WILD DUCK, ROSMERSHOLM, HEDDA GABLER, THE MASTER BUILDER, and WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A DOLL'S HOUSE was the world's most performed play in 2006.
 
ABOUT THE ARTISTIC HOME
 
The Artistic Home is noted for their innovative and intimate presentations of rarely produced classics as well for developing new works. The company has been frequently honored in the Jeff Awards. For 2023, they received nine nominations for WITCH and DYING FOR IT, including a nomination for Production of a Play (DYING FOR IT) and win for Kevin Hagan's scenic design of DYING FOR IT. In 2022, they received nine nominations and two wins – one for New Work (MALAPERT LOVE, written by artistic associate Siah Berlatsky) and one for Supporting Actor in a play (Todd Wojcik – in THE PAVILION). The company's 2022 nominations also included two for Best Play production (MALAPERT LOVE and THE PAVILION). The Artistic Home was one of the big winners in the 2019 Jeff Awards, with four awards including Production of a Play, Director of a Play, Principal Performer in a Play, and Sound Design, all for REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. Brookelyn Hébert won a Jeff as Principal Performer in a Play for the company's 2020 production of ADA AND THE ENGINE. The company was nominated for Jeff Awards in 2019 for ROCK 'N' ROLL, and in 2018 for HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE.
 
Other memorable productions of recent years include 2017's WEDDING BAND, BY THE BOG OF CATS and THE SCHOOL FOR LIES; their Jeff-nominated productions of THE SEAGULL, WATCH ON THE RHINE, MACBETH and THE LATE HENRY MOSS; and their 2013 Jeff Award-winner THE GODDESS. Other Artistic Home productions include the Jeff-Award-winning production of JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK, which also received three After Dark Awards, the Jeff-Nominated SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, THE TALLEST MAN, LANDSCAPE OF THE BODY, NATURAL AFFECTION, FIVE WOMEN WEARING THE SAME DRESS, AFTER THE FALL and PEER GYNT (which also received an After Dark award for Direction).
 
For more than 26 years, The Artistic Home has consistently produced compelling theatre in Chicago. First formed in 1998 with the belief that the actor is at the heart of great theater, the company strives to give birth to unforgettable moments; to touch audiences who are increasingly distanced from human contact; to readdress the classics and explore new works with passion.

Before he was Twilight Zone’s scriptwriter and frontman, Rod Serling broke through with the 1956 teleplay of Requiem for a Heavyweight, a powerful noire telling of a boxer on his way down. This work was originally broadcast live in black and white, and starred Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, and Kim Hunter. In those days it was performed just once, and in this case the lone recording is of moderate quality. 

Putting such a teleplay onto the stage is transformative for the work. The audience is not limited to the camera’s viewpoint, but it tests the writing and of course, the performances. We can report that Artistic Theater’s production is absolutely first rate – first and foremost because it is very well cast, with a staggeringly good performance by Mark Pracht as Harlan “Mountain” McClintock. Pracht seems born for this role, as he is both a mountain of a man, and carefully expresses Serling's portrait of a Tennessee country boy who has taken way too many punches.

This is also a tragedy, in the Greek sense – Mountain had risen to become a contender for world heavyweight champion, but began to decline before he could get there. Like any tragic hero, he is thwarted by an antagonist: his manager, Maish Resnick (Patrick Thornton), who has skimmed profit from Mountain during his rise. Now as Mountain loses more than he wins, Maish plays a deceitful game – which creates the turning point in the play’s resolution.

Thornton is full throttle in this role, playing convincingly enough that you will come to loathe him. But even more forceful and compelling is the performance of Todd Wojcik as Army, as Mountain’s trainer and constant wingman. Wojcik’s performance is freighted with emotion and empathy, and will touch your heart.

There are a several other colorful characters in this cast, hustlers on the make that Serling drew from his own experience as a boxer. And we have a chorus of lower-level boxers and trainers, and thugs. These characters enact stylized boxer training interludes that are very powerful. And though each has a small part, it makes for a stunning effect overall. The set is a simple canvas platform – the ring – and the audience is seated around it, in a very intimate space.

There are just two female figures in Requiem, and both seem bound to be stereotypes of a 1950s male psyche: Golda (Laura Coleman), a “dame with a bad reputation” and Maish’s main squeeze. “What are you doing vertical; is there a recession on?” Maish asks her, in a reference it’s hard to imagine got through the censors.

The other female role is more substantial – Grace Carney (Annie Hogan), an employment agent who falls for Mountain as she tries to help him transition from boxing to something new. Hogan’s performance mines the role for all the meaning it can bear, and she is a strong heroine against the dastardly Maish. Her character in Requiem for a Heavyweight foreshadows another woman who supported Rocky years later.

The teleplay was influential enough to warrant a British TV version starring Sean Connery with a cameo by Michael Caine, and was turned into a 1962 film featuring Anthony Quinn in the lead. As a genre, teleplays are memories, but perhaps they foretold Netflix and Amazon movie productions. Teleplays have been tremendously influential – think of 12 Angry Men, Marty, The Days of Wine & Roses – all originated as live television productions.

Requiem for a Heavyweight is a great show, and a theatrical event. Running through March 31, there are just 50 seats per performance, so it is highly recommended you plan to attend at The Artistic Home on Grand Avenue in Chicago. 

Never has there been a more relevant time for Paula Vogel’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner ‘How I Learned to Drive’. By now, it’s considered a modern classic and has certainly made Vogel a hot playwright ever since. The fact that this play is now twenty years old and is arguably more topical now than when it premiered is unsettling. The Artistic Home Ensemble is reviving this play in hopes that we don’t have cultural amnesia regarding sexual abuse.

‘How I Learned to Drive’ is simply staged. There’s a few seats on a platform to be the car, and then a few other small set pieces here and there. What’s not so simple is Vogel’s narrative structure. This is almost like a personal essay come to life. Non-linear, or non-traditional structure is a hallmark of Vogel’s work. In this play, Li’l Bit (Elizabeth Birnkrant) relates how her uncle taught her how to drive and also taught her about adult love.

Using driving and cars as a structure, Vogel spins Li’l Bit’s story about growing up in 1960s conservative Maryland. Intermittently, she includes cleverly constructed nuggets of sexual wisdom learned from her mother and grandmother. As Li’l Bit matures into a woman, she notices how the world around her changes. Her Uncle Peck (John Mossman) takes advantage of her isolated feeling. What adds layers to a familiar story are the moments when Li’l Bit initiates or at the very least plays into a pedophile’s hand. There are such moments of tender depth that you nearly forget how illegal their affair is.

With an almost absence of scenery to hide behind, Elizabeth Birnkrant plays to the comedy in the script. She’s often more engaging to watch when she’s portraying Li’l Bit in her teenage years. Adults are quick to forget the agony of being so unavoidably vulnerable. Mossman delivers sex appeal without seeming like a predator, which is what makes his performance all the more slick.

It’s tough to bring much character to the “Greek chorus” as their purpose in the play is mostly to pipe in with mortifying one-liners. Though, Jenna Steege distinguishes herself as Li’l Bit’s heavy smoking mother. She provides some pretty sound advice on how a lady (or anyone) should drink on a date.

Artistic Home Ensemble is a storefront theater that specializes in the Meisner (or method acting) approach. Therefore, their productions tend to rely more on character than set pieces. ‘How I Learned to Drive’ perfectly lends itself to director Kayla Adams’ black box vision. This story is so compelling that you don’t need scenery. The images conjured in Vogel’s script are as familiar to us as a Coca Cola ad. It’s a trip through Americana, which fittingly includes an older man taking advantage of a young woman. It’s an odd thing to comment on the chemistry between a pedophile and his victim but since the actors are both around the same age, it seems okay to say. These two seem very comfortable with each other and that makes the seduction all the more tragic. ‘How I Learned to Drive’ tells us what’s old is new again, but a 2018 audience may ask itself, does it have to be?

Through May 6 at The Artistic Home. 1376 W Grand Ave. 866-811-4111