Caffeine Theatre Announces Producing Artistic Director Jason Beck

Caffeine Theatre has announced that founding company member Jason Beck has been named Producing Artistic Director, after having served as Managing Director for the last two seasons. Beck replaces Jennifer Shook, who left Caffeine last fall to pursue a PhD at the University of Iowa; and who remains in a consulting role as Founding Artistic Director for the company. Meghan Beals McCarthy, newly named Associate Artistic Director of Chicago Dramatists, served as Interim Artistic Director for the past season, and will now return to Caffeine's Board of Trustees.

Caffeine Theatre will launch its eighth season this fall, following a critically-acclaimed season in 2010-2011, which garnered 7 non-equity Jeff Award nominations for its productions of Boojum! Truth, Nonsense & Lewis Carroll and rotating repertory of Brutal Imagination and Wreckage. "The past few years have been an especially exciting time for Caffeine" says Beck, "I look forward to building upon this success. With our team of artistic leadership and our pool of very talented artistic associates, we are very eager to continue bringing our unique and innovative poetry-inspired theatre to Chicago's theatre audiences."

Company member Dan Smith will continue as Associate Artistic Director/Resident Dramaturg. Kristin Idaszak, who previously served as Literary Manager, will now serve as Associate Artistic Director/Literary Manager. In addition, for the upcoming season, scenic designer Stephen Carmody, sound designer Thomas Dixon, and technical director Eric Sisco have each joined Caffeine as Artistic Associates.

Jason Beck most recently directed Brutal Imagination, one-half of Caffeine's spring 2011 repertory. He has also previously appeared in Caffeine's productions of Translations, The Cocktail Party, and the remount of Under Milk Wood at Theater on the Lake. Jason has also produced Caffeine's productions of Wreckage, Brutal Imagination, Boojum! Nonsense, Truth, and Lewis Carroll, Many Loves and Under Milk Wood. Prior to his position of Producing Artistic Director, he has served Caffeine as Managing Director and as President of the Board of Trustees. Jason also serves as the Director of Admissions for The Theatre School at DePaul University, where he has directed Coronado, The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Distance From Here, Shake Your Groove Thing, and The Lights. Jason spent three years as an Artistic Associate at Young Actors Ensemble, where he directed The Fantasticks, Merely Playing and Into the Woods.

Daniel Smith has served as Dramaturg for eight of Caffeine's productions, most recently Wreckage, as part of the 2011 spring repertory. In the upcoming season, Dan will serve as dramaturg for The Oxford Roof Climber's Rebellion. Other Chicago credits include work with Steep Theatre Company, Infamous Commonwealth, Remy Bumppo, and The Hypocrites. After studying French Literature at the University of Notre Dame, Dan earned degrees in Theatre from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (MFA) and Northwestern University (PhD). He has chaired the Theatre History Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and has taught Theatre Studies courses at UMass, Northwestern, UIC, and The Theatre School at DePaul University. Dan is also a three-time Jeopardy! champion.

Kristin Idaszak is a multidisciplinary theatre artist. For Caffeine she has served as dramaturg for Cornelios Eady's Brutal Imagination and H.D.'s Ion, producer/co-curator for the Antigone and Lewis Carroll Coffeehouses, and assistant director for The Changeling, directed by Rachel Walshe. She will serve as assistant director to Catherine Weidner for the upcoming production of Or, by Liz Duffy Adams. At Collaboraction, where she serves as Associate Artistic Director, her short plays Astronomy for Beginners and Only Paradise appeared in Sketchbooks 10 and 11. Also at Collaboraction, she produces Workbook, a quarterly series of experimental short works. In addition to her work as a freelance dramaturg, she has worked in the literary departments at Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and Trinity Repertory Company. As a playwright, Perishable Theatre in Providence staged her play The Golden Lasso as part of the 15th International Women's' Playwriting Festival; and she was a finalist for the 2011 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Around Chicago her work has been seen at Chicago Dramatists, Rasaka, Vintage Theatre Collective, the Iraq History Project Arts Festival, and Theatre Seven. She was a contributing playwright with American Theatre Company's outreach program Chicago Chronicle, Volume IV.

Caffeine Theatre mines the poetic tradition to explore social questions. With language-intense, idea-driven performances, Caffeine explores the role of the artist in society, and the potential of art for social change - to reclaim theatre's roots as a public forum to unite community, to hone citizenry (as Anna Deavere Smith suggests, the continuation of the national dialogue). The poetic tradition has laid the groundwork for us to become better through conversation, and we believe poetry and performance go hang in hang. As Robert Pinsky writes in Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry: "The social world in poetry...is neither told about nor presented: it is, precisely, invoked: brought into being by the voice."

Caffeine Theatre Artistic Associates: Christine Adaire, Dana Black, Carey Lee Burton, Stephen Carmody, Casey Diers, Thomas Dixon, Donald Gecewicz, Shane Kelly, Ian Randall, Erik Schnitger, and Eric Sisco

Caffeine Theatre Board of Trustees: Meghan Beals McCarthy, President; Colleen Coyne, David Dastmalchian Stacy Gonzalez, Cameron Henneke, Jeff Holland, Michael Lawrence, William McCracken, Scott Olson, Stefanie Rivera, Rebecca Roth, and Jennifer Shook

For more info visit: http://www.caffeinetheatre.com/home/default

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