Wheels in Motion.
" The wheels are in motion. There's nothing you can do to turn it back. The only thing you can do is cooperate. To play ball. To become part of us." - Taylor Most of the New Leaf and Curse of the Starving Class team met up recently at one of our favorite haunts for a fantastic first read through together. We gathered ourselves around some good food and a few drinks and listened to these incredible actors breathe life into the dangerously beautiful words of Sam Shepard. Rehearsals start on March 2nd and we can't wait to roll up our sleeves and dig. Special thanks ...
Nick Keenan gets a nod
New City listed company member Nick Keenan as one of the 50 people who perform for Chicago Theatre. We couldn't agree more. "Nick Keenan’s the kind of guy you can’t wait to see a few years down the road. You know he is going to be doing something stellar because he is already one of the most exciting artists in town. The young designer’s resume has blown up to include many of Chicago’s major theaters, and he is is a thinker to boot. Follow his musings on web technology, theater infrastructure and community building on his blog theaterforthefuture.com." Check out ...
A New Funding Model for New Leaf
So, it's official: New Leaf has a track record of putting up some of the best productions in Chicago with one of the smallest operating budgets in the city. After closing the books on The Man Who Was Thursday, we find ourselves with more pleasant surprises - our ticket sales and two comparatively modest but vital grants have paid the entire production budget for our spring production of Curse of the Starving Class, and go a long way towards funding the first production of the 2010-2011 season. If you have followed the national conversation on theater funding in the last ...
Treehouse Podcast: Brutal Selfish Rattlesnake
Did you miss our second Treehouse reading of BRUTAL SELFISH RATTLESNAKE, Aaron Weissman's beautifully savage western musical? Well now you didn't. You can download the full length play on our podcast. Our next Treehouse is this Saturday at 1 pm at 2045 N. Lincoln Park West: Leocadia, directed by Jack Tamburri of the Plagiarists. As Leocadia is being licensed for this one-day performance, the only way to catch that reading will be in person... Unless you know a couple generous donors who can help us raise $150 to pay for podcasting rights for the performance (it's tax deductible!). ...
Digging in.
// Sep 7th, 2009
Kyra Lewandowski shares some of her image research for CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS
Rewriting Ourselves
// Aug 24th, 2009
One of the things that became clear at our Brunch Launch this week was that, while our friends and audience clearly love the approach of a season question (yay, score!), it wasn’t yet clear to them exactly how New Leaf chooses each question, each year.
The answer: For us, the season question is always the question of everything. Now.
How do the stories we tell rewrite what we become?
// Aug 22nd, 2009
That is the question guiding our 2009-2010 season, the one we’re launching at our home in the Lincoln Park Cultural Center right now!
Last season, as you know, we asked “How do we build a future from a present we didn’t expect?” Continuing our commitment to unify our seasons around a single question, this year we’ll [...]
keeping secrets – but only until Saturday…
// Aug 18th, 2009
If you’ve been following New Leaf, Nick Keenan, or me on Twitter (and if you’re not – how come?), you’ll have noticed the string of taunting little nuggets that have been leaking out over the past few weeks in regards to our season. As much fun as it is to build suspense – and it [...]
homesick
// Jul 29th, 2009
Summer is a rare time of dispersion for New Leaf. This summer, much of the company is out of town or technically in town and working on other great big projects, or – you know – in Japan for a considerable amount of time. Actually, I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten out of [...]
