For me, as a regular Chicago theatergoer, the one thing that makes the recent Chicago Shakespeare Theater Tony Award for Best Regional Theater so well-deserved, and so important for the city, is that they’re the one Chicago theater company, bar none, which has consistently and visibly brought to Chicago audiences the great work being created in other artistically vibrant countries. Over the years, their World’s Stage series has brought in Peter Brook multiple times, France’s James Thieree and La Comedie Francaise, the UK’s Complicite and Cheek by Jowl, South Africa’s Foundry Theater, and Ireland’s Abbey Theatre; this year the program includes the British director Tim Supple’s acclaimed Midsummer Nights Dream, spoken in eight languages, and set in the Indian subcontinent. I am passionate in my belief that we are a great theater town, in terms of the variety of work on view, the brilliant creativity of our homegrown talents, and the sophistication of our audiences, but if there is one thing we lack, in my view, which our sister North American theater capital New York City has, it is access to theater coming from different countries. In addition to Midsummer and the other World Stage production, Sweet William, this coming theatrical season will also see Ivo von Hove (whose astounding New York work I’ve been privileged to attend) and his Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s version of Mourning Becomes Electra, and Brazil’s Compania Triphal as part of the Goodman’s Eugene O’Neill festival, as well as Japanese performer-director-writer Toshiki Okada’s chelfitsch at the MCA’s performance series. As far as I know, that’s it.
The Tony Awards, the big Kahuna of theater awards in the US, has announced their nominations and special awardees this morning. And all of us in the Chicago theater community - artists and audiences alike - have so many reasons to celebrate. Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s much-raved about production of August: Osage County received 7 nominations: Best Play for Tracy Letts and the theatre (as one of the co-producers); Best Direction of a Play for Anna Shapiro; Best Leading Actress in a Play for the legendary performances of Deanna Dunagan and Amy Morton; Best Featured Actress in a Play for Rondi Reed; Best Scenic Design of a Play for Todd Rosenthal who created that masterful, memorable, three story house; and Best Lighting Design of a Play for Ann G. Wrightson. Amazing! Additionally, the Special Tony Award for Excellence in Regional Theater, previously won by Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, and Victory Gardens, is going this year to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, making Chicago the only city in the US to have 4 Regional Tonys! (yes! and all the Chicago theater divas are now swooning and doing the wave!). I sometimes have mixed feelings about Chicago Shakes’ productions, as my blog readers know, but I definitely, strongly feel that this Regional Tony is well-deserved if only for their sophisticated, exceptionally-selected World’s Stage series, which this year brought James Thieree, Peter Brook, and the Shaw Festival to the windy city. Today’s Tony Awards announcement is significant, in my mind, because it demonstrates validation from the national theater establishment (which we all have to admit, regardless of how we feel about it, is New York-based and New York-centric) what we, Chicago theater creators and supporters already proudly know and believe in: that there’s no better city for original, creative, brave, exciting, formidable, provocative, INSERT YOUR SUPERLATIVE HERE, theater in North America than Chi-town! Go Chicago!
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