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Check out pictures from this year!
Production Photos from our 2004 Season
Click here for 1999-2003 pictures, etc.
2005 marks 7 years for Stockyards Theatre Project. The 2005 Salon Series, hosted by Stockyards in February,
April and September, included staged readings of several new works by women. We participated in this year’s Theater
Fever at the Cultural Center and celebrated International Women’s Day with the women
of HotHouse and Chicago Indymedia at Sing, Shout, Shimmy, Dance! After participating in the Y-ME Race
(and raising over $1,000 as part of the Women Theatre Artists Unite Team) on May 8th, Stockyards hosted the Mother’s
Day Teaparty Benefit at Soliloquy Bookstore. Our off-night production of Busting Out!
a voluptuous evening of comedy was a sold-out hit! After that was our original adaptation of Shakespeare’s
Henry 4 (part one), which placed women in the central roles. The September Salon
featured Ensemble and Board member Sara Keely McGuire's poetic play Hotel California. In December,
Stockyards continued with ...Destination...Excavation...: 6th Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival,
which was another huge success!
Congrats to Duet for One and Michele DiMaso, Winner of a 2005 Jeff Citation for Best Actress
in a Play!
"Exquisite...DiMaso is brilliant in a demanding, highly physical role...There's not a false note in Lynn
Ann Bernatowicz' superb direction and inspired casting....nothing more is needed than the confrontation between two excellent
actors--and that's what we get in this fine Stockyards production." (Beverly Friend, Lerner News)
"...it's Michele DiMaso's blazing, fearless incarnation of Stephanie, who rages at the dying of her talent,
that makes the show worth seeing." (Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader)
"HIGHLY RECOMMENDED...a blazing revival...[Michele DiMaso gives] a powerhouse performance...John Rodriguez's
inspired set, in which the central architectural element of the doctor's office suggests the neck of a cello..." (Hedy Weiss,
Chicago Sun-Times)
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In 1999, Stockyards Theatre Project produced Windy Big-headed City
at Breadline Theatre and A Chicca Looks at 25: A Memoir for the Stage at The Playground, both written
by Stockyards’ Founder and Artistic Director Jill Elaine Hughes.
In 2000, Stockyards created a festival of short plays by women playwrights titled Femme
Fatalities: Four One Act Plays By Women, mounted at The Performance Loft. That summer, Stockyards Theatre Project
presented the world premiere of Don’t Promise by award-winning Latina playwright Silvia Gonzalez
S. Produced at Breadline Theatre, Don’t Promise addressed a number of women’s issues—most notably
the position of women and religion in patriarchal society. “Stockyards Theatre Project [sic] newest show, Don’t
Promise is a glowing example of Stockyards commitment to bringing more interesting productions to the city of Chicago.”
(ChicagoActors.com) Stockyards also produced its First Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival at Links
Hall.
2001 was a fruitful year, yielding the world premiere of Jill Elaine Hughes’ Damn
the Torpedoes!!, an absurdist satire of capitalist media culture, mounted at the Heartland Studio Theatre. On
May 6 at Katerina’s coffeehouse, Stockyards presented a staged reading of British playwright Alex Court's Anarkali
at Jallozai, a work-in-progress which focused on the plight of women under the Afghan Taliban. Stockyards Theatre
Project then produced Histrionics: Four Plays by Women on Psychology, Sex and General Madness at
the Heartland Studio theatre. This production boldly examined the world of therapy, HMO's, mental institutions and holistic
healing. “This production. . .is well-crafted and enjoyable.” (Kim Wilson, Chicago Reader) That
fall, Stockyards also presented the 2nd Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival.
In 2002, Stockyards Theatre Project began it’s trend of telling the stories of historical
women by producing The Rape of Nanking…According to Minnie by Margaret G. Waterstreet and
was fortunate enough to use the Chicago Cultural Center Studio Theatre. Chicago Tribune writer Lucia Mauro wrote: “What
emerged was a great tale of courage and crushing futility.” Also that spring, Running From The
Red Girl by Linda Eisenstein (one of our pieces from Histrionics,) was a part of the Bailiwick’s
All Girl Revue 3 and Katie Carey Govier and Jill Elaine Hughes represented Stockyards at the 2003 Theatre
Fever at the Chicago Cultural Center. Stockyards had a Summer Solstice Benefit at Four Moon Tavern
in June to raise money for its upcoming productions. The past two Festivals having been very successful, Stockyards continued
with its 3rd Women’s Performance Art Festival. Stockyards then opened Lunacy,
by Patricia Weaver-Francisco at the Athenaeum First Floor Studio. Lunacy tells the story of thirteen
American women pilots who successfully completed the preliminary physical and psychological testing given the Mercury astronauts
and how their program was abruptly cancelled and they faded from public view.
In 2003, Stockyards Theatre Project participated in The Lysistrata Project on
March 3 with a performance at Stage Left Theater. The success of this reading led to the Pro-Peace Series,
a series of staged readings focused on pro-peace writing. Representatives from Not In Our Name facilitated a discussion at
the end of each evening. Later that summer, new Artistic Director Katie Carey Govier arranged a collaboration with the Women’s
Theatre Alliance of Chicago for the Salon Series, a bi-monthly event which promotes women’s leadership
in the Chicago theatre community and provides a unique network for theatre artists to share in their artistic diversity. The
2003 Salons were a reading of Vanessa Brooks’ Love Me Slender (September) and a workshop of
Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One (November). In October, Stockyards presented breaking
the cycle: 4th Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival. Stockyards Theatre Project then joined with Velocity
(a youth-centered arts organization) for the On-Camera Audition Workshop in November.
In January 2004, we began The New Play Development Workshop, in collaboration
with the Women’s Theatre Alliance of Chicago. Our 2004 Salons included a staged reading Karen Zacarias’ The
Sins of Sor Juana, a reading of No Sense Saying Goodnight by Jenniffer J. Thusing
and an evening featuring four original short plays by women. A Blue Moon Benefit at the
end of July helped finance our productions of Bald Grace, Pirate Queen ("...both viscous
and visceral,…it's surprisingly fun to watch....a solid ensemble...As warm as a hearth and as stout as a pint of Guinness,
[Govier is] game for the material she's given...." --Christopher Piatt, Chicago Sun-Times), Tom Kepinski’s
Duet for One (for which Michele DiMaso won a Jeff Citation for Best Actress--Play),
Anne Ludlum’s Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble ("... a smart, vivid
and often surprising one-woman show.... a work of impressive sweep, as was the life of its subject...." --Hedy Weiss,
Chicago Sun-Times) and Rebel Princesses: 5th Annual Women’s Performance Art Festival at Links
Hall.
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