Eurydice Opens 35th season at Victory Gardens

VICTORY GARDENS THEATER OPENS 35TH SEASON WITH MAJOR REVIVAL OF Sarah Ruhl'S EURYDICE

Eurydice, a bold, slyly comic, visually fascinating take on the classic Orpheus myth by Sarah Ruhl, is enjoying an ambitious revival by Victory Gardens Theater, to open the 35th season at Chicago's #1 presenter of new plays.

Penned by Evanston native, Pulitzer Prize nominee, and MacArthur Genius
award winner Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice had one of its earliest readings at
Victory Gardens, before Ruhl became the hottest playwright working in
American theater today.  Ruhl's plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, The
Clean House, and Passion Play, all widely produced throughout the U.S.,
including recently in Chicago by both Steppenwolf and Goodman theaters.

Too constrained by its former location for a play that calls for a
rain-drenched elevator, today, Victory Gardens Theater finally has a venue
capable of showcasing Ruhl's boundless imagination, thanks to the company's
improved production capabilities at its new home - the Victory Gardens
Biograph Theater.

Victory Gardens' Eurydice, directed by Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus,
stars a who's who of off-Loop theater veterans:  Lee Stark (Eurydice), Jamie
Abelson (Orpheus), Joe D. Lauck (Father), Cheryl Lynn Bruce (Loud Stone),
Caitlin Hart (Little Stone), William J. Norris (Big Stone), and Beau
O'Reilly (Nasty Interesting Man).  Designers are Dan Ostling, who is
creating his first set for Victory Gardens; Judith Lundberg, costumes; Andre
Pluess, sound; and JR Lederle, lights, also a Victory Gardens first-timer.
Tina M. Jach is production stage manager.

Eurydice begins previews October 3, 2008 at the Victory Gardens Biograph
Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago.  Press opening is Monday, October
13 at 7:30 pm.  Regular performances run through November 9. Single tickets
are $20-$48.  Five-play subscriptions including Eurydice start at only $80.
For ticket and subscription information, call the Victory Gardens box office
- 773.871.3000 - or visit http://www.victorygardens.org

The plot:

Eurydice's wedding to her true love Orpheus is cut short when she wanders
after a man bearing a letter from her dead father.  Her disappearance turns
out to be from life itself, when she plummets to the underworld in a
rain-drenched elevator.

Memories are forbidden in the world of the dead, but an unexpected reunion
with her father vividly awakens Eurydice's mind with the love she felt in
life.  When Orpheus sings at the gates of hell to win her back, Eurydice
must painfully decide whether to remain with her father or return to her
earthly love.

This modern tale of love and loss, cleverly told from the heroine's point of
view, has been hailed as "weird and wonderful, devastatingly lovely" by The
New York Times, which added "Eurydice movingly suggests that commemorating
life, its pleasure and problems, its transience and pain, is the only way to
triumph over death and loss."

The playwright:

"If Virginia Woolf became a playwright, she'd be someone like Sarah Ruhl"
said Paula Vogel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, about her former
student at Brown University.  Ruhl's plays include The Clean House, which
had its world premiere at Yale Rep in 2004 (Susan Smith Blackburn Award,
Pulitzer Prize finalist, PEN/Pels Foundation Award), Melancholy Play,
Eurydice (world premiere, Madison Rep, 2003; Chicago premiere, 2004, Piven
Theater Workshop, also at Yale Rep, 2006, and New York's), Late: a cowboy
song, Orlando, Demeter in the City (NAACP Image Award nomination); Passion
Play (Fourth Forum Freedom Award from The Kennedy Center); and Dead Man's
Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award).  Her plays have been performed at Lincoln
Center Theater, Second Stage Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Goodman Theatre,
Steppenwolf Theater, Woolly Mammoth, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma
Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, Madison Repertory Theatre, Clubbed
Thumb, and Piven Theatre Workshop, among other theaters across the country.
Her plays have been translated into German, Polish, Korean, Russian, and
Spanish, and have been produced internationally in London, Canada, Germany,
Latvia, and Poland.  Sarah is originally from Evanston, and received her MFA
from Brown University. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Award,
Whiting Writers' Award, PEN/Pels Foundation Award, and a MacArthur
Foundation Fellowship.  She is a proud member of New Dramatists and 13P.

The directors:

Sandy Shinner directed an early reading of Eurydice at Victory Gardens in
December 2000, a time Ruhl referred to as "reading hell, because she could
get a reading but not a production," Shinner said.
She added "one of the main reasons Victory Gardens didn't produce the play
was that Dennis (Zacek) and I didn't think we should try to do it in our old
space because of the scenic requirements. Yes, it could have been done
simply, but for her first production I thought that Sarah should have a
space that could give her a raining elevator!"

A 27-year veteran of Victory Gardens, Shinner has directed more than 50
productions at Victory Gardens, most recently Joel Drake Johnson's Four
Places, now nominated for Jeff Awards for New Play and Best Actress for Mary
Ann Thebus. Shinner has enjoyed long associations with Victory Gardens
Ensemble Playwrights Joel Drake Johnson, directing Before My Eyes, The End
of the Tour, and Tranquillity Woods as part of Steppenwolf's First Look
series; and Claudia Allen, including her acclaimed adaptation of Stuart
Dybek's I Sailed With Magellan; Winter, starring Julie Harris and Mike
Nussbaum; Fossils, its 2001 VGT premiere with Julie Harris and at the
Sacramento Theatre Company in 2002; Cahoots, starring Sharon Gless; and the
premieres of Allen's earlier plays Still Waters, The Long Awaited, Deed of
Trust, Ripe Conditions, Hannah Free, and Hanging Fire.  Shinner won national
acclaim for directing Victory Gardens' world premiere and subsequent Off
Broadway production of Joanna McClelland Glass' Jeff Award-winning new play
Trying.  She also directed the world premiere of Kathleen Tolan's Memory
House at the 2004 Humana Festival for New Plays and at Victory Gardens. Her
other VGT credits include Melanie Marnich's Cradle of Man, Stuart Flack's
Homeland Security and Sidney Bechet Killed a Man, Ann Noble's Ariadne's
Thread, Dean Corrin's Battle of the Bands, Lydia Stryk's The Glamour House,
Jeffrey Sweet's Bluff, With and Without and The Value of Names, Theresa
Rebeck's View of the Dome, and Gloria Bond Clunie's North Star.

"I met Sarah Ruhl when she was in college," explained fellow director
Jessica Thebus. "We were both at the Piven Workshop and had been students of
Joyce and Byrne Piven.  After she graduated, we taught in Piven's Young
People's company together."  Later, when Thebus was working at Steppenwolf
as director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults, Ruhl sent her Melancholy Play,
which Thebus subsequently directed at Piven Theater Workshop in 2002, in
2002.

In addition to directing Eurydice with Sandy Shinner, Thebus is currently
directing an almost concurrent production, Jeckyl and Hyde, at Northlight
Theatre.  She is an Associate Artist with Steppenwolf and an Artistic
Associate at About Face Theatre and The Corn Exchange in Dublin, Ireland.
Recent projects include Hatcher's adaptation of The Turn of the Screw at
Writers' Theatre; Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter at the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival; Laura Eason's adaptation When the Messenger is Hot at Steppenwolf
and 59E59 in New York City; The Clean House at The Goodman (After Dark
Award-Best Director); Lady Madeline and Intimate Apparel at Steppenwolf;
Inherit the Wind at Northlight; Aren't We All with Remy Bumppo; About Face
Theatre's Pulp (Jeff nomination-Best Director, After Dark Award-Best
Production) and Winesburg, Ohio (Jeff nomination-Best Director, After Dark
Award-Best Director); Salao: The Worst Kind of Unlucky with Redmoon Theatre
(where she is a long time collaborator); Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play and
Abingdon Square by Maria Irene Fornes at Piven, where she is a long time
member of the teaching staff. She has also directed at Center Theater,
Lifeline Theater, Collaboraction, The University of Notre Dame, Drury Lane
and Caravan Productions, as well as touring internationally with the Bread
and Puppet Theater. Thebus holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from
Northwestern University and has designed courses and taught at The
University of Chicago, DePaul, Columbia and Roosevelt. She is currently a
faculty member in the Directing Program at Northwestern.

The cast:

Lee Stark (Eurydice), a 2007 graduate of Northwestern University, was most
recently seen in Seanachai Theatre Company's Scenes from the Big Picture at
The Storefront Theater, The Crucible at Steppenwolf, Talking Pictures at the
Goodman, and Juliet in the Short Shakespeare! tour of Romeo and Juliet with
Chicago Shakespeare.

Jamie Abelson's (Orpheus) most recent projects include Scenes from the Big
Picture with the Seanachai Theatre Company, As Told by the Vivian Girls with
Dog & Pony and Raven Theatre's award winning production of columbinus.

Eurydice marks a return to the Chicago stage for Joe D. Lauck (Father). For
the last 12 years, Lauck has served as an executive at Live Marketing, Inc.
Before joining Live Marketing, Lauck delivered memorable performances at
Victory Gardens, most notably in Butler County, Spinning into Butter, Wild
Indian and Stick Wife, and Dillinger.

One of Chicago's leading fringe theater artists, Beau O'Reilly (Nasty
Interesting Man) is a founding member of the Curious Theatre Branch, where
most of his over 60 plays have been produced.  He is associate chair of the
writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and curator
of The Rhino Theater Festival, now in its 20th year.

Cheryl Lynn Bruce (Loud Stone) has performed on virtually every major stage
in Chicago, and at regional theaters across the U.S.  Immediately following
Eurydice, she'll step back into her third year as The Storyteller in Victory
Gardens' The Snow Queen.  She also appeared at Victory Gardens in Hortensia
and the Museum of Dreams, and Voice of Good Hope.

William J. Norris (Big Stone) has been a Chicago theater professional for 37
years.  His local credits include multiple performances at Victory Gardens,
Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, Marriott Lincolnshire, among
others.

Caitlin Hart (Little Stone) Victory Gardens' credits include George's File,
Value of Names and Woman in Mind.  She also performed in Goodman's Finding
the Sun, Chicago Shakespeare's Richard II, and Three Tall Women at the
Apollo Theatre.  However, her claim to fame is Sadie on ABC Daytime's All My
Children.

Full performance schedule:

Previews are October 3 through October 12:  Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30
pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 pm; and Sunday at 3 pm.   Previews are $20 -
$37.   Press opening is Monday, October 13 at 7:30 pm.   Regular
performances are October 15 through November 9:  Tuesday through Thursday at
7:30 pm; Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 5 and 8:30 pm; Sunday at 3 pm.
Performances are $20 - $48.   Additional matinees are Wednesday, October 29
and November 5 at 2 pm.  Exceptions:  No evening shows Tuesday, October 28
or Wednesday, October 29.

The Victory Gardens Biograph Theater is located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue,
in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood.  Single tickets are
$20-$48. For ticket and information, call the Victory Gardens box office -
773.871.3000 - or visit http://www.victorygardens.org

20 @ $20

Remember, Victory Gardens always puts 20 seats on sale for every performance
for only $20 - in advance, not just day-of.  Ask the box office about "20 @
$20".  Limit 4 per customer. Subject to availability. Not valid with other
discount offers.

Group discounts:

Gather a group of 15 or more to take advantage of discounted group rates -
perfect for book clubs, corporate nights out, universities, residence
groups, fundraisers and family gatherings. Call Shannon O'Neill, (773)
549-5788 ext. 2131, for group sales information.

Parking:

$11 valet parking is available for all performances at the Biograph.
Discounted parking is available one block south at Children's Memorial
Hospital for all shows except weekday matinees, and Lincoln Park Hospital
two blocks south on Webster, at all times (no overnights). Metered and
street parking available, but mind the Neighborhood parking restrictions.

Public transit:

By CTA train, take the Red, Purple and Brown lines to the Fullerton stop.
Walk east on Fullerton to Lincoln, then north 1/2 block to the theater.
The #8 Halsted, #11 Lincoln,  #37 Sedgwick/Ogden, and #74 Fullerton CTA
buses all stop at the corner of Fullerton and Halsted, 1/2 block south of
the theater.  See http://www.transitchicago.com for times and routes.

About Victory Gardens Theater

One of Chicago's most respected Off-Loop theaters, Victory Gardens is
primarily devoted to new work, and has presented more world premiere
mainstage productions than any other Chicago theater.  Currently celebrating
its 35th season, Victory Gardens emphasizes the work of Chicago writers and
its own 12-member Playwrights Ensemble, a relationship that helped the
company receive the 2001 Tony Award for Regional Theatre.

The Victory Gardens Biograph Theater was designed by Daniel P. Coffey of
Daniel P. Coffey and Associates.   The $11.8 million renovation has expanded
Victory Gardens' flexibility to meet the desires of its resident
playwrights, and enhanced the theater's ability to welcome and honor patrons
old and new.   Originally built in 1914, the Biograph is best known as the
site where FBI agents killed gangster John Dillinger in 1934.   Today, the
Victory Gardens Biograph Theater façade and marquee have been faithfully
restored, a state-of-the-art semi-thrust stage with a modified proscenium
has been retrofitted inside, 299 comfortable new seats have been installed,
and an inviting, contemporary interior design welcomes patrons.  Now in its
third season, Victory Gardens' new mainstage has added wingspace, stage
height and traps which have hugely expanded the possibilities for the size
and scope of plays the company presents.

Victory Gardens is designated an Established Regional Arts Institution by
the Illinois Arts Council (IAC), and is partially supported by the National
Endowment for the Arts, a CityArts Program IV Grant from the City of Chicago
Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state
agency.
For more information, visit http://www.VictoryGardens.org

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