Pegasus Players Board Announces Christopher Schram As New Executive Director

Currently celebrating its 30th Anniversary Season, the Pegasus Players Board of Directors is excited to welcome Christopher Schram as its new Executive Director. Schram replaces Arlene Crewdson, who founded the company and served as its Executive Director for 30 years before stepping down last January to spend more time with her family. At the same time, Alex Levy, who has been associated with Pegasus Players for 11 years (serving as Artistic Director for the last five), has announced that he will be stepping down from his position, in order to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts degree at UCLA.

"I've been familiar with Pegasus Players for many years now and I'm looking forward to working with them in this new capacity," said Schram. "I'm happy for Alex in his decision to pursue his education to a higher level, and I believe I can safely say on behalf of everyone at Pegasus that his presence will be greatly missed. As a vibrant part of Chicago's theater culture, Alex, Arlene and Pegasus Players have been offering audiences unique productions that are compelling, timely and inspiring, as well as providing excellent community outreach, and I have a deep respect for their work. It's a wonderful opportunity for me to join this very talented group as we look forward to a new era of growth."

"It is difficult to move on from Pegasus after literally growing up with the company," said Levy. "My first introduction to theater was as a Young Playwrights Festival Winner at Pegasus when I was sixteen years old. Pegasus continued to nurture me as an artist, providing me with support throughout my college years and offering me my first professional directing opportunity. I am proud to have been a part of the company's enormous growth over the past five years and am happy to see it in a strong position to take on new leadership. The Board has made a very wise choice in hiring Chris Schram and I am certain that he and the new Artistic Director will take Pegasus into an exciting next chapter in the theater's life. I look forward to supporting Pegasus in anyway I can while I pursue new artistic challenges."

Schram, 48, first became associated with Pegasus Players six years ago when, as Vice President of the Miami, Florida-based National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA), he formed a partnership with the Young Playwrights Festival to offer additional recognition and scholarship opportunities to Chicago's young playwrights. He worked for NFAA for ten years and served as its Development Officer and Programs Officer prior to becoming its Vice President. He relocated to Chicago in 2007 to serve as Executive Director at Redmoon Theater. During his time with Redmoon Theater, Schram recruited new board members, successfully led Redmoon's annual fundraising event Lunatique to record attendance and income, and secured significant sponsorships and grants on Redmoon's behalf. Over the years, Schram has served as a board member, committee member or panelist with many different theater and arts organizations in Chicago, Miami, and beyond. He brings significant strategic planning experience to Pegasus Players and is poised to lead the Board through the theater's current transition.

Levy, 32, will officially step down on June 12, 2009. Until then, Levy will assist the Pegasus Players Board as it conducts a nationwide search for his replacement. Levy has already scheduled most of the Company's 2009-2010 season (to be announced shortly), though has purposely left space open on the schedule for his successor to program.

Levy originally joined Pegasus Players in 1994 as a participant in the annual Young Playwrights Festival, a year-long cycle of workshops, performances and special programs, all centered on teaching play writing to Chicago's young people and concluding with a citywide play writing competition. Levy interned with Pegasus while studying Political Science at The University of Rochester. After graduating, Levy returned to Pegasus Players as the Young Playwrights Festival Director and has since directed several productions for the Company, including the international tour of My Soul is a Witness, and the Chicago productions of Continental Divide, Golda's Balcony, Black Caesar, Still Life, The Upper Room (winner of the Joseph Jefferson Citation for "Best New Work"), Broadway Bound (Jeff nominated for four citations including "Best Production" and winner of the After Dark Award for "Best Ensemble"), and The One-Eyed Man is King. He has also directed more Young Playwrights Festival productions then anyone in the history of the Festival, including The Bench, Daydream Nation, Kid Kuisine, An Evening with the Living Dead, Waking Up, Portrait of an Exile, Insert Title Here, and Free Will. Since Levy joined Pegasus, the theater has won seventeen Joseph Jefferson Citations (33 nominations) and seven After Dark Awards, and Pegasus became the first arts organization to win The Chicago Community Trust's "James Brown IV" award (which includes a $50,000 cash prize) and the City of Chicago's "Human Relations Award." Levy has led Pegasus on tours through the Middle East in 2000 and 2002 sponsored by The United States State Department. He was chosen to serve on the Theatre Communications Group's Literary Managers advisory panel in New York and to serve as entertainment coordinator by Alderman Helen Shiller for the "Uptown Unity Festival." He has also worked with Redtwist Theatre, Serendipity Theatre Collective, Smoke and Mirrors, Chicago Dramatists, Theatre Building Chicago, Oakton College, Loyola University, The Studio Theatre in Washington D.C. and Geva Theatre in Rochester, N.Y. and The Jenna Company in New York City.

Pegasus is dedicated to a two-part mission: to produce dramatic and musical works of the highest artistic quality; and to bring exemplary theater and arts education at no charge to groups who have little or no access to the arts. For its mainstage productions, Pegasus has received 77 Joseph Jefferson Citations, more than any other Chicago theater in its category; the Jefferson Committee also awarded the theater the first-ever Jeff Citation for an outreach program, citing its "extraordinary success in serving Chicago's disenfranchised." The theater's outreach programs include the 24-year-old Young Playwrights Festival, which last year reached more than 5,000 students in Chicago's public schools, nearly 800 of whom submitted plays to the competition. The winning entries are presented as part of the theater's mainstage season. A more recent outreach effort is Global Voices, which links Chicago schools to partner schools abroad, using internet technology and artists-in-residence to write and perform one-act plays in the language the students are studying and connecting these students to their peers abroad.

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