Shattered Globe Announces 2008-2009 Season

Shattered Globe Theatre Artistic Director Kevin Hagan and the artistic ensemble announce their 18th anniversary, 2008-2009 season of presenting ensemble-driven theatre.  In keeping with its mission of "dissecting, challenging, and reveling in the American experiment; inspiring social discourse by raising questions rather than espousing philosophy; stimulating artistic growth for and broadening the perspectives of both artist and audience; and pushing the boundaries of excellence in ensemble theatre," SGT's 2008-2009 season will consist of productions which address some of the most complex themes at work in modern life, seen through the lens of realistic, carefully drawn characters by three influential American playwrights and plays that launched two of their careers.

Season:

"The Glass Menagerie" September 4–November 2, 2008 (opens 9/7/08, 3 p.m.)

"The Little Foxes" January 8–March 8, 2009 (opens 1/11/09, 3 p.m.)

"Buried Child" May 14-July 12, 2009 (opens 5/17/09, 3 p.m.)

 
The season, which will be performed at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater (2257 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago), will begin with the rarely-produced reading version of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie;" followed by the enduringly relevant story of greed and betrayal, "The Little Foxes" by Lillian Hellman; and conclude in the heart of the Midwest with Sam Shepard's "Buried Child," a commentary on the disintegrating American Dream.  Also, Shattered Globe's "Suddenly, Last Summer" will be remounted at Theatre on the Lake (July 30 – August 3, tickets at 312-742-7529).

 
To purchase subscriptions to Shattered Globe's 18th anniversary season (starting at $42), call the Victory Gardens Box Office at 773-871-3000, Shattered Globe at 773-770-0333, or visit www.shatteredglobe.org

 
Just appointed SGT's Artistic Director, Kevin Hagan said, "I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to accept the appointment of Artistic Director, and look forward to working with the ensemble and Board as we conclude our current season and move forward into the 2008-2009 season. I have done my best work as an artist at Shattered Globe Theatre - I am very proud of my past work with the ensemble, and I am pleased to help lead its future.  Our 2007-2008 season was a 'bridge' year, and I look for 2008-2009 to be a growth year, adding new ensemble and staff members to support our infrastructure.  We have a distinguished history in Chicago and continue to offer patrons something special and not found elsewhere in the community, mounting productions that folks can clearly say 'Only Shattered Globe Theater could have done that so well!.' I  often hear patrons ask (when talking with them about an upcoming show) is 'which ensemble members are going to be working on that?'   With SGT's resources, history, and value in mind, we have selected a season that focuses on well known works suited to our mission and artistic niche in the Chicago theater community, and most importantly plays that provide the best opportunities to feature ensemble members in roles as actor, designer, or director."

 
Kevin Hagan is a graduate of the College of Design at Louisiana State University, and received a MFA in scenic design from the Theatre School, DePaul University.  He has been an ensemble member and the resident scenic designer at Shattered Globe for the last ten seasons. He recently made his directing debut at SGT with the production of "Suddenly, Last Summer." Other recent Chicago credits include scenic designs for SGT's "Come Back, Little Sheba" and "The Price" (Dual After Dark Awards for Best Scenic Design); "Bach at Leipzig" for Writer's Theatre; "Candles to the Sun" for Eclipse; and "Fiorello!" for TimeLine.

Shattered Globe's 2008-2009 Productions:

 

"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams

Direction and Scenic Design by Kevin Hagan

Featuring ensemble members Allison Batty, Mike Falevits, and Linda Reiter, with lighting design by ensemble

member Shelley Strasser-Holland.

September 4 – November 2, 2008

Tickets $20-$35

Previews: September 4 to 6 at 8 p.m.

Press Opening: Sunday, September 7 at 3 p.m.

Regular Run: 9/11 – 11/2/08: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Sundays at 3 p.m.

 

"The Glass Menagerie" was Williams's first successful play, and is accounted by many to be a biographical work about his life, the characters and story mimicking his own more closely than any of his other works. Inspired by real events, Williams employs themes of illusion and escape to depict the delicacy of family life in this "memory play." "The Glass Menagerie" is a memory play—both its style and its content are shaped and inspired by memory. Most importantly. the story is told because of the inflexible grip it has on the narrator's memory. Among the most prominent and urgent themes of this play is the difficulty the characters have in accepting and relating to reality.  Each member of the Wingfield family is unable to overcome this difficulty, and each, as a result, withdraws into a private world of illusion where he or she finds the comfort and meaning that the real world does not seem to offer. "The Glass Menagerie" identifies the conquest of reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human condition in its time.

 

"The Little Foxes," by Lillian Hellman

Featuring ensemble members Eileen Niccolai and Linda Reiter

January 8– March 8, 2009

Tickets $20-$35

Previews: January 8 to 10

Press Opening: Sunday, January 11 at 3 p.m.

Regular Run: 1/15 – 3/8/09: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Sundays at 3 p.m.

 

Lillian Hellman's cynical play of family greed and revenge, "The Little Foxes," is her most popular piece of drama.  The title comes from chapter 2, verse 5, in the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes."  The play was acclaimed an instant hit after a hugely successful opening night in 1939 and even then, as now, drama and literary critics disagree over whether the story of the Hubbard family succeeds more as a morality play or as a satire. The Hubbard siblings steal and plot against each other in their efforts to invest in one of the first cotton mills to industrialize the New South, a plan that stands to win them millions of dollars. The Hubbards are a family prone to deceit, caught in a cycle of revenge not unlike Greek classical tragedies. The family forbearers harvested their merchant profits by overcharging newly freed slaves, and now the present Hubbards will create a larger dynasty on the toil of poor workers, who will flock to the cotton mill for paltry wages. The play voices Marxist disapproval of the Hubbard form of predatory capitalism that Hellman felt threatened the American ethic.

 

"Buried Child," by Sam Shepard

Directed by Steve Scott

Featuring ensemble members Allison Batty, Maury Cooper, and Linda Reiter

May 14 – July 12, 2009

Tickets $20-$35

Previews: May 14 to 16

Press Opening: Sunday, May 17 at 3 p.m.

Regular Run: 5/21 – 7/12: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Sundays at 3 p.m.

 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning "Buried Child" is a macabre look at an American Midwestern family with a dark, terrible secret; a secret which has all but destroyed the family. With its lower-class, sometimes humorous, recognizable characters and dialogue, "Buried Child" resembles the mid-century American realism and grotesquerie of Arthur Miller ("Death of a Salesman") or Tennessee Williams ("A Streetcar Named Desire"). However, its roots in ritual and its approach to monumental, timeless themes of human suffering—incest, murder, deceit, and rebirth—resemble the destruction wreaked by the heroes of Greek tragedy. The play contains many of Shepard's favorite motifs: a quirky, often frightening, family of antagonists contained in a claustrophobic farmhouse somewhere in the great American Midwest.  Harold Clurman, in his review of the play's New York premiere at the Theater for the New City on October 19, 1978, for In the Nation wrote 'What strikes the ear and eye is comic, occasionally hilarious behavior and speech at which one laughs while remaining slightly puzzled and dismayed (if not resentful), and perhaps indefinably saddened. Yet there is a swing to it all, a vagrant freedom, a tattered song. Something is coming to an end, yet on the other side of disaster there is hope. From the bottom there is nowhere to go but up."

 
Founded in 1991, Shattered Globe Theatre is an ensemble-driven organization whose primary objectives include dissecting, challenging, and reveling in the American experiment; inspiring social discourse by provoking questions rather than espousing philosophy; stimulating artistic growth for and broadening the perspectives of both artist and audience; and pushing the boundaries of excellence in ensemble theatre. To this end, SGT brings it's primarily Chicago and Illinois-based audiences fresh renditions of classic works and premiere productions that celebrate new voices and provocative viewpoints.

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