The Jeff Awards, the most prestigious theatrical honor in Chicago, were given out to Equity productions last night. As expected, Steppenwolf’s jaw-dropping, rip-roaring, gutsy, monumental world premiere of “August: Osage County” led the pack with six awards, including those for Best Play, Best Director, Best New Work, and Best Lead Actress for Deanna Dunagan, who gave one of those towering, mythical dramatic performances that people will continue to talk and write about for years to come! This is great news, especially as the Chicago production (with most of the cast and all of the creative staff intact) begins its Broadway transfer with previews today. Chris Jones is already handicapping next year’s Tony Awards, in his continuing bid for theatrical world dominance. Also, check out “August’s” Broadway website to hear Charles Isherwood, the Lady Macbeth-like theatre critic of the New York Times, continue to salivate over the play (his over-the-top rave review, where he compares Dunagan’s character to O’Neil’s Mary Tyrone and Edward Albee’s Martha, helped spur the fast-track transfer of the Chicago production to New York, according to insiders). I will be travelling to New York in late November to catch the Broadway production and will of course blog about it. Watching “August” last summer was one of those hypnotic, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that theatre geeks like me recall with paroxyms of ecstacy. Plus it’s a Chicago production for crying out loud!
Chicago is without a doubt the center of the American theatrical universe of the moment. Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal arts critic and one of the most-read theatre and culture bloggers out there, recently wrote about “Passion” at Chicago Shakespeare (see my blog entry on this) and the Rick Snyder-directed “The Aristocrats” at Strawdog Theatre Company. Interestingly, Rick is one of two members of the original Chicago “August” cast who is not going to Broadway. Check out Terry’s unabashed gushing in his blog here.
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