Watch your back, David Mamet. Victory Gardens Theater is proud to announce that Chicago's own "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" Ted Allen, Chicago philanthropist and community leader Susan Pritzker, and Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka will soon join the ranks of Chicago-bred playwrights, as this year's celebrity authors at Victory Gardens Theater's 14th Annual Chicago Stories major benefit, Friday, May 7, starting at 6 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 E. Delaware Place.
Allen, the Chicago journalist who has skyrocketed to national fame as the food and wine connoisseur on the hit TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," Topinka, the Illinois Republican in charge of Illinois' finances, and Pritzker, one of Chicago's most active philanthropists and arts advocates, are drawing from their own life experience to write an original play for Victory Gardens.
The trio of celebrity-authored works will be staged one-night-only as the main attraction at Chicago Stories. All three authors are expected to be on hand to see their words brought to life. Each play, approximately 15 minutes in length, will star professional actors from the stages of Victory Gardens, under the direction of Victory Gardens Artistic Director Dennis Zacek.
Cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and a Grande Bazaar of one-of-a-kind silent auction items will be followed by a sit-down gourmet meal and the presentation of plays in the elegant Four Seasons Grand Ballroom. Single tickets to Victory Gardens Theater's 2004 Chicago Stories benefit are $250-$350. Tables of 10 are $10,000 Producer's Circle; $5,000 Playwright's Circle; $3,500 Director's Circle; and $2,500 Designer's Circle. To request an invitation or make reservations, call Victory Gardens Theater, (773) 549-5788, ext. 105.
Now in its 14th year, Chicago Stories is always one of the city's most unique and anticipated spring galas, not to mention an ingenious reflection of the not-for-profit theater's 30-year mission: the development of new plays. By lending their talents to help raise funds for Victory Gardens, Allen, Pritzker and Topinka join an elite list of famous Chicagoans who have already served as celebrity playwrights for Victory Gardens. Last year's Chicago Stories, featuring plays written by University of Chicago scholar Martha Nussbaum, NPR's Scott Simon and sports columnist Rick Telander, was a box office smash, attracting an audience of more than 500, and raising more than $170,000 for Victory Gardens.
"Victory Gardens Chicago Stories Celebrity Playwright" also appears on the resumes of these famous Chicagoans, from all walks of life: U.S. Attorney James R. Burns, actor Gary Cole, film critic Roger Ebert, actor/ comedian Aaron Freeman, Judge Susan Getzendanner, sports marketing consultant Stedman Graham, columnist Bob Green, auctioneer Leslie S. Hindman, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson, sports broadcaster Dan Jiggetts, businessman James S. Kemper, Jr., actor Richard Kind, U.S. Attorney Scott R. Lassar, physicist Leon Lederman, news anchors Jay Levine and Mary Ann Childers, former WGN radio host Roy Leonard, journalist Bill Kurtis, politician Carol Moseley-Braun, radio personality Kathy O'Malley, orchestra leader Stanley Paul, actor John Mahoney, author Sara Paretsky, actor William L. Petersen, news anchor Harry Porterfield, actor Aidan Quinn, author/ socialite Sugar Rautbord, columnist Mike Royko, news anchor Warner Saunders, architect Stanley Tigerman, editor Nigel Wade, sports anchor Tim Weigel, actor George Wendt, Secretary of State Jesse White, and real estate magnate Samuel Zell.
Since 1974, Victory Gardens Theater, home to more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, has remained true to a challenging mission—developing and producing new plays, most of them world premieres, with an emphasis on Chicago writers and its own 12-member Playwrights Ensemble. It is this ongoing relationship with 12 living playwrights which helped Victory Gardens receive the 2001 Tony Award for Regional Theatre, for "displaying a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theater nationally." Each year, monies raised at Chicago Stories help fund the theater's mission of producing primarily world premiere plays. |
