from BJ Jones, Artistic Director
When I was 15, I was working with the Cleveland Play House at their summer location in Chautauqua NY. I would be in class with the acting company in the morning, in rehearsal all afternoon, and on stage at night. One day, I left rehearsal around 5 pm, running to grab some dinner before a 7pm call at Norton Hall. As I jogged between these hurried stops it hit me, THIS IS HOW I WANTED TO SPEND MY LIFE! Days and nights in the dark, sudden bursts of temporary sunlight and always, always on the stage.
Next week I begin rehearsals for Timeline Theatre‘s production of Pitmen Painters and The Second City‘s Sex & the Second City: Version 2.0. I’ll be at Second City in the morning and Timeline at night. For two weeks things will be a bit of a blur, culminating with an opening of The Second City show at Metropolis in Arlington Heights. The show (which is about Internet dating and includes video interludes starring Fred Willard) was first done at the Arizona Theatre Company last winter and we are remounting it here in Chicago. On the other hand, Pitmen is a piece that will be the Chicago premier of a play which originated in Scotland, then went to the National Theatre in London, then to Broadway last fall and finally back to the West End this fall.
For me it is a dream come true, simultaneously working on two completely different pieces for two entirely different types of audiences. It will be incredibly busy, and perhaps a bit challenging, but the note of commonality for both of these disparate works is the desire to connect with each audience in a way that resonates with their own experience and expand their own world views. In many ways both of these pieces reflect our mission here at Northlight, “to promote change of perspective and encourage compassion.” It is exciting for me to get my arms around both of these styles and approaches to our art form in the same month.
In the case of Sex & the Second City: Version 2.0, the audiences we experienced in Arizona, for instance, haven’t really been on the front line of searching for a mate through the Internet – though we hope the constituency who has will come to enjoy their own foibles. But it’s a bit of an eye opener for those who haven’t; it is a glimpse of modern alienation and the struggle to find a meaningful connection with a partner that matches our hopes and dreams, through the Wild West of the Internet, which can be a dark and disturbing place.
Pitmen Painters examines the Ashington Group, a collective of miners from Northern England who, in the 1930s, studied painting in a Workers Education class and became for 3 decades a wildly popular school of homely art born from their own lives. This “folk art” if you will, hung in the galleries of England’s finest museums, celebrated up and down, but revealed a strain of class discrimination that was not so subtly evident, and in a way exposes an inherent whiff of condescension on the part of the art world and the wealthy cognoscenti who flutter around it. Despite this, Pitmen Painters celebrates the strength of the artistic impulse, which knows no class, and which struggles to rise up through the social crust to find the sun and fresh air of free expression. That impulse is indomitable and unstoppable and is the thrilling triumph in Pitmen Painters.
I know most of our fans think that perhaps summer is a time to relax and refresh, but we really are very busy here at Northight. We are already working on the 2012-2013 season, talking with artists we are keen on, reading their work, looking for plays and musical pieces that we think you might enjoy. Snapshots, our first show of this season, is moving along nicely. The set is designed by Jack Magaw (it looks great), and our Production Manager Chris Fitzgerald tells me we are a week away from starting our build. Slides are being designed to wash over the set and bring the past and present together to theatrically tell the story of our protagonists’ lives, movingly and through music, glorious music by Stephen Schwartz. We are continuing to cast this season’s shows, some of which still need roles filled; designs are being developed for the first 2 shows, and by October we will have the rest of the season’s plays underway. It is a truly busy time.
I’m off to my rehearsals, days and nights in the dark, with temporary bursts of sunlight. Now my dream has come true. How many can say that?
I am truly blessed. Am I lucky or what?
More Anon,
Beej
