Big Things In Small Spaces
Production Artistic Director Phil Smith on the opening of the Chase Studio TheatreFrom The Clay Issue of ArtAntica It begins. The Lookingglass Magazine is ALIVE and on the web. I hope you will find this monthly presentation what we mean it to be - a contextual enhancement to your Lookingglass experience. Each month we will present several new segments - windows into the genesis of our productions, revealing portraits of our artists, media downloads of music and video, reflections of our path and history, and insights into ambitions now and in the future. It’s going to be great. If you are reading this you realize that Lookingglass is committed to producing daring and innovative new works, and that we challenge ourselves and our audience by blazing new paths of expression and presentation. That is a lot to take in in an evening and until now there has not been an easy outlet for theatregoers to celebrate/vent to us about what they have just seen. In response to this vacancy, Lookingglass is ushering in a new interactive capability - Lookingglass Unedited [read BLOG] - where we can get to know you better and where you can dialogue with us and others about your theatrical experience - positive and negative. That will be fun. Briefly, from a production angle, the season begins with the inauguration of the Chase Studio with our production of Clay, a one-man hip hop musical (see Q&A to meet the artist, Matt Sax). This is a co-production with the About Face Theatre with whom we produced the remarkable Eleven Rooms of Proust lo those many years ago. You can berate me in the BLOG if I am incorrect but I believe this will be a tour de force performance - all within the intimate confines of a 50 seat house! Due to the SMALL house size and the LARGE interest in this show seats are s c a r c e. Don’t wait to hear the words SOLD OUT. Clay will run all fall and half way through will be joined by Mary Zimmerman’s Argonautika on the main stage downstairs. This production is the first time Lookingglass and Zimmerman have teamed up for a new work in 10 years. Of course during that time we have both been to both coasts and Broadway with her Metamorphoses and Secret in the Wings, but this will be the first time in our new digs that we will be creating something BRAND NEW. Mary Z is the Queen of adapting the un-adaptable and of leaving everyone wondering “Now, why hasn’t anyone done that before?” Believe me; you will be wondering the same – especially with this 3000-year-old gem of bravery, cowardice, humor and the dangers of love. If you have never seen an MZ production (or a Lookingglass one for that matter) this will be a GREAT introduction. Your friends will thank you if you bring them too… This is an ambitious new season - even for us. I hope that you will chose to take the ride and SUBSCRIBE. It will be worth it. Lookingglass has this little tag line that you will see from time to time – “Theatre without a Net.” Our fans will understand the literal context for that moniker. But in many real ways there exists an INVISIBLE net and without worry of insincerity or sentimentality, that net is you. Our audience means everything to us. That is why we work so hard to bring you crazy-good theatre on Michigan Avenue. See you there, Philip R. Smith |
