3/19/10 – 3/20/10 – The Land of Lincoln and Tyler Dean…Skokie, IL

From the warm weather in Wisconsin, we journeyed back to Cook County, Illinois, to the village of Skokie. With a population of around 67,000, this Chicago suburb is located 16 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. Its name is derived from variant Algonquin words for “fire” as the Skokie marshlands were burned over by the Native Americans to flush out game. In 2003, Skokie was named by Money magazine as being one of the 80 fastest growing suburbs in the US. It is the home of Rand McNally, and several films have been photographed in Skokie including: Risky Business, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and The Blues Brothers.



Our performance venue in Skokie was located at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. Established in 1996, this center has three resident companies and houses two state-of-the-art theatres: the 867-seat Centre East (our theatre) and the 342-seat Northlight Theatre. During our Skokie stay, several of us were fortunate enough to get industry tickets to see the play that was showing in our neighboring Northlight Theatre, A Life by Hugh Leonard. Featuring John Mahoney, a Steppenwolf ensemble member who is best known for his role as the father on the sitcom Frasier, A Life is an evocative and bittersweet memory play about the evolution of friendships in a small Irish town. The production was wonderful and endearing, and it was exciting to see two generations of actors play each of the show’s four characters. As the show had just commenced previews, there was an audience talkback following the performance to determine what the audience liked and didn’t like so that the production could be refined. It was refreshing to hear the actors discuss how they approached the play and their characters – what a fun evening!



Our performance day in Skokie - the first day of Spring - was a very snowy and wet day. We wondered if anyone would come out to see our show, given the weather conditions. Yet, despite the bad weather, we had two fairly full audiences with filled orchestra sections, and we performed two solid shows. The staff at the North Shore Center is one of the nicest crews that we have encountered. They treated us like royalty and were exceptionally vocal in their praise of our production. It is always such a pleasure to perform at a venue where they go out of their way to make us feel appreciated.

In the audience of our first Skokie performance were two friends from my University of Nevada, Reno days – my dear friend, Tyler Dean, who I had visited earlier on our Chicago break, and another Chicago transplant from Nevada Rep, Lucinda Alipio. It was so nice to have two familiar, supportive faces in the audience! Tyler is one of my dearest, best friends - in addition to performing together in Reno, Tyler and I also lived in the same apartment complex and worked for the same company. He now resides with his husband Mike in Chicago, where he acts, performs sketch improv at Second City and writes plays. Check out this picture from when Tyler and I performed in Return to the Forbidden Planet with Nevada Repertory Company:



Next stop – Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI. Until the next adventure…

Ciao!
XOXO-
Janine