When I first read Jeanette Winterson’s Lighthousekeeping, I knew I would read it again. And again. And again.

I read the book in waves and cycles. I reached for it with each major change in my life. I returned to the lighthouse when I needed to cope with isolation, loss, grief, and distance.

The Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Avenue was established as an artists’ haven in 1885. The building is ten stories tall, one of two buildings in Chicago that still employs elevator operators, and alive with the echoes of vocal and instrumental artists, working away in their separate studios.

Working in one of those studios during the Lighthousekeeping rehearsal has been a gift. Downtown, its location has prepared us for the neighborhood in which we’ll be performing, and the size and feel of the building itself has a lot to say to the scope of the story we’re telling. This physical space has certainly informed our work.

The final play in our Spring 2011 Treehouse Reading Series is How We Got On by Idris Goodwin. Click on the player below to hear the entire recording, or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. Synopsis A classic American coming-of-age tale with a unique hip-hop treatment: domestic suburban life remixed. The Selector, our DJ/Narrator, samples [...]

Next up in our Spring 2011 Treehouse Reading Series is Dandelion Momma by Greg Romero, an enigmatic play that explores memory and family through a fractured remembrance of the Great Depression.

What were you doing ten years ago? Take a minute to think about it.  April, 2001. Ten years ago, I was living in Maryland, working for the government (sort of), in the middle of post-graduate-school floundering, trying to work up the courage to move to Chicago. Ten years ago, most of the current Leafs were [...]