Stage Left Theatre

Lisa Herceg

vsmith — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:39:45 +0000

Lisa is thrilled to be joining Stage Left Theatre in 2012. She most recently appeared here as Blitzen in The Eight: Reindeer Monologues and was seen as Dr. Fitch in Make Sure It’s Me in Leapfest 8. Other recent work has been at Redtwist Theatre playing multiple roles in The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later and as Rosalind Rollins in The Double with Babes With Blades Theatre Company, where she is also an ensemble member. An Artistic Associate with GayCo, she has also worked with companies such as Curious Theatre Branch, the side project, Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, and Premiere Theater and Performance.

Megan Shuchman

vsmith — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:07:09 +0000

Megan serves as Education Manager for Steppenwolf Theatre Company. As a freelance director and dramaturg, she has worked for Northlight Theatre, TimeLine Theatre, American Theatre Company, 16th Street Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, Lifeline Theatre, XIII Pocket, 2nd Story, and the side project. Her most recent projects include Dental Society Midwinter Meeting by Laura Jacqmin (Chicago Dramatists, 16th Street Theatre and Theatre on the Lake; Honorable Mention, Best Theatre of 2010, TimeOut Chicago; Top 5 Plays of 2010, NewCity); Dead Pile by Laura Jacqmin (XIII Pocket); Una Mae’s Freak Boutique by Brooke Berman (Theatre Seven of Chicago). Megan will be directing Julie Ganey’s Love Thy Neighbor at 16th Street Theatre this summer. www.meganshuchman.com

Meghan Beals McCarthy

vsmith — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:26:53 +0000

Meghan Beals McCarthy is the Associate Artistic Director for Chicago Dramatists, and the 2012 co-curator for Theater on the Lake (with Michael Patrick Thornton). Previously, she served as Literary Manager and Resident Dramaturg at Northlight Theatre, as Project Assistant for the First Look Repertory of New Work at Steppenwolf, and as Interim Artistic Director for Caffeine Theatre. Before Chicago, Meghan was the Artistic Associate at the Pearl Theatre Company, a classical theatre company in New York City. As a director, she has had the pleasure of working with companies such as Goodman, Steppenwolf, Northlight, Chicago Dramatists, Stage Left, Collaboraction, Pavement Group, Caffeine Theatre and Theatre Seven (Chicago) and the Women’s Project, Abingdon Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Pearl (New York), among others. Meghan earned her B.A. in Theatre at the University of Southern California and her M.F.A. in Directing at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, IL.

Krisitin Toerpe

vsmith — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:45:00 +0000

Kristin’s Stage Left credits include production managing Kingsville, Leapfest 8, and The Fisherman, and stage managing The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Her management experience also includes working with theaters such as LiveBait, Lincoln Square Theater, Dragoncello Theater Co., Grippo Productions, Simple Theater, Mortar Theatre, Provision, and Oil Lamp Theater. She received a B.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in Technical Theater and Design from Coe College in 2009. Kristin is originally from Naperville and currently lives near UIC with her fiance, Tim, and their three crazy cats.

Alex Lewin

vsmith — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:53:55 +0000

Alex’s plays have been developed and presented at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Geva Theatre Center, MCC, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, the New Harmony Project, and New York Theatre Workshop, where he is an Artistic Associate. He is the recipient of the Ted & Adele Shank Professional Playwriting Fellowship, and commissions from Ensemble Studio Theatre and the La Jolla Playhouse. Alex has been a finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, the Heideman Award, and the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, among others. Alex holds an MFA in Playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. He was 2009–10 Playwrights Realm writing fellow and a member of the 09–10 P73 writers group. He is also a member of the MCC Playwrights’ Coalition and the Dramatists Guild. Alex co-authors the film-review blog They’ll Love It in Pomona. He lives in Manhattan with his cat, Charlie Chaplin.

Shayne Kennedy

vsmith — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:52:31 +0000

Shayne is the mother of three and the wife of one. She is a graduate of Creighton University (BA) and Governor’s State University (MA) and has had readings and productions of her work in Nebraska, New York and Illinois. She lives on the south side of Chicago and works as an audio describer for the blind at venues such as Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater and The Hinsdale Center for the Arts and is a member of the Dramatist’s Guild. Shayne would like to thank her parents, her husband and her children for being excited about what she does.

Penny Penniston

vsmith — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:48:10 +0000

Penny is the author of the stage play now then again, which won a Joseph Jefferson Citation for “Best New Work” and is published by Broadway Play Publishing. Her screenplay adaptation, titled Love is Brilliant, won the Sloan Award at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival. Additional stage plays include The Roaring Girl, which received a Joseph Jefferson Nomination for “Best Adaptation;” 7 Years at the Mayfair Mall, a one-act commissioned and premiered by Milwaukee Repertory Theater; and Spin. Coming this February, Penny’s commissioned adaptation of Miss Julie will have its world premiere in New York with Gorilla Rep.

Jayme McGhan

vsmith — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:26:03 +0000

Jayme is the author of fourteen full-length plays including Mother Bear, The Methuselah Tree, Damn the River Deep, The Sweet Stuff, Hellfire and Autonomy. His work has been produced and developed across the country at theatres like Irish Repertory Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Washington Shakespeare Co., Cleveland Public Theatre, Stage Left Theatre, Mortar Theatre, Hot City Theatre, Yellow Tree Theatre, Cockroach Theatre, Forestburgh Playhouse, Chased by an Elephant Theatre and many more. Four of his plays are published. Jayme is the former Regional Representative of The Dramatists Guild to the Twin Cities and is currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Concordia University, Chicago where he also serves as Resident Designer and Technical Director. He holds an M.F.A in playwriting from UNLV. Jayme is blessed to be married to his beautiful wife Julie. For more information visit www.jaymemcghan.com

Notes from the Downstage Left residency

vsmith — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:14:07 +0000

In early September, when Zev Valancy called to offer me the Stage Left fall residency, I’d written only two scenes of Witches Vanish. I had serious intentions of writing the rest, but I had no idea what the rest would be.

The next thing I knew, I had a director, Scott Bishop. A director of an as-yet unwritten play. And he was auditioning actors. For an as-yet unwritten play. And we were planning a weekend of rehearsals. So I started writing like crazy.

I live in Tennessee, so being resident playwright at a theater in Chicago may sound tricky, but so far it’s been perfect. My first trip to Stage Left was October 13, a rainy night when I met the three men whose voices I’d known from the phone—Zev, Scott, and Vance Smith—as well as my super-talented cast—Cat Dean, Ashlee Edgemon, Kimberly Logan, and Julie Starbird. We started with a table reading of the forty-something pages I had written. One of the scenes was brand new, and it sounded surprisingly awful. I rewrote it. Another scene didn’t quite work. I revised it. And I figured out how to reshape another. All in the course of three days. Three days of readings, discussions, and experiments. Three days of watching my characters become people, of trying to explain (i.e., figure out) my intentions, and of taking notes like crazy.

The best day was the third—a Saturday morning that seemed to start just hours after we’d last met, so how much could change? We had two extra actors that morning, Ronan and Amanda, and it was fun to watch them pick up random pieces of the script and dive right in, and even more fun to listen to the original witches answer their questions. Then we started staging scenes, and what I’d feared might be impossible somehow suddenly looked easy. Witches Vanish had seemed technically daunting on the page, but it became surprisingly simple on the stage: Four L-shaped blocks became the witches’ cauldron; two L-shaped blocks became a puppet stage; and Julie became an entire crowd—a creepy human puppet with Cat’s head bouncing on her shoulder like a bobble-head doll.

Since then I’ve written another scene and have another hatching. The first was inspired by something Scott said, and the second by Ashlee. I’m grateful for the ideas of the entire team, but I’ve noticed something even more important: There’s a kind of freedom in working with this group. They’re so supportive that I feel like I can try anything—that, in fact, I have to try new things.

And so … last weekend I wrote something horrible—horrible in terms of subject matter and style and language. It may work, or it may not. I haven’t heard it yet, and I have mixed feelings about it. What I know for sure is that prior to meeting Scott and company, I would never have written this scene. So I’m already becoming a different playwright. Which is kind of exciting.

-Claudia Barnett, playwright of the Witches Vanish, which is currently being developed in residency at Stage Left.

Ensemble Efforts

vsmith — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:53:01 +0000

The process of choosing and rehearsing Farragut North has crystallized for me the importance of the ensemble in the world of theatre. Without the Stage Left ensemble this amazing play and mind-blowing character would have slipped right by me. The process of selecting this script for our season was truly a group effort and result of many hours of discussion, disagreement, conjecture, and compromise. From the very first reading, I knew this was a role I needed to play. Stephen is a role that young actors dream of playing. In hours of discussion over the messages and themes in the play, the core of each of the characters, and the story that we would want to tell with a full production, we all realized there were deeper challenges in telling this story than the slick language of the piece could solve on it’s own. We discovered that Stephen and Molly have to be likable, both as individuals and as a new found pseudo couple. It was that discovery that launched this process for me as an actor, and ultimately guided me through what was important in Stephen’s journey.

As we went forward in pre-production and crew and cast found their places, I was incredibly excited to find myself charged with this beast of a role, but more so to be working with so many faces from my Stage Left family. Having worked with Vance on the Leapfest version of Mother Bear, I felt comfortable that we spoke a similar theatrical language, and that I could interpret his Vance-isms. Top notch ensemble designers Adam Smith and Elizabeth Flauto added to the sense of confidence that I was feeling heading into rehearsals. I have never heard or seen work from them that didn’t impress me. Then rehearsals started and it hit me. The Actor’s enemy- FEAR – PANIC – DOUBT! How was I going to get through this and try to tell this story (well). As I started to fall into an unproductive loop of self -reproach, the day came when we were going to get the Molly/Stephen scenes on their feet, and after a few plodding stops and starts in the rehearsal room we were given the green light to run the scenes. A strange thing happened. Melanie Derleth and I started to have fun. We had developed a working chemistry during our stints as ensemble members, and in Season 29′s An Enemy of the People, so strong that moving from giddy flirtation to twisted admonishment was effortless… and fun. Actor’s just meeting each other a few days before hand may have been slightly more uncomfortable and self conscious in changing gears as quickly as we had to in this process. We had to trust in each other completely as we navigated from half naked bedroom scenes to violent emotional outbursts. Our scenes always feel effortless because of the rapport we have developed as company members.

In the final stages of dress rehearsals and previews the rest of the ensemble became invaluable offering their insight and counterpoint as well as reassurance and emotional support to those of us immersed in the process. It was a group effort at the beginning, and as we opened it was once again a collective group effort, everyone working towards the same goal, telling this story and making it crackle. The chemistry of the ensemble combined with the talents and teamwork of our guest artists have made this show something unique. Farragut North will no doubt hold a special place in my heart and mind for years to come, not just because of the acting challenge it presents, but more importantly because of the sense of solidarity and passion present in the entire cast, crew and Stage Left as a whole. The amazing feeling, of a team of people converging on a common goal, using a common vocabulary, and having faith that someone has your back and everything will some how balance out, is what it means to me to be a member of an artistic ensemble.

-Brian Plocharczyk, Stage Left ensemble actor