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BEAUTIFUL CITY: Post Your Review

March 4 - April 3
Storefront Theater

“This is the future” begins this darkly comic fable about urban developers, criminals, law enforcement, and even a witch, all fighting for the soul and vision of a city.  Set in an urban landscape ripe for redevelopment, the parable blends off-kilter characters, fast-paced storytelling, and stinging social satire in a tale of greed, corruption, and civic responsibility. Theatre Mir’s production marks the Chicago professional premiere of this work by George F. Walker, one of Canada’s most prolific and celebrated playwrights.

View photos by John W. Sisson, Jr.

What did you think about the show? Share your comments here.

H. Peter Steeves brings Mourning to Light

Danielle Meijer as “Death”. Photo by John W. Sisson, Jr.

On Tuesday, February 9, Dr. H. Peter Steeves presented the “The Mourning Show” in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. Despite that harsh winter conditions, over 150 people turned out to explore the relationship between art and mourning with Prof. Steeves.

“The Mourning Show” incorporated a multi-media slide presentation/lecture with live music, dance and theater to focus on the relationships among language, representation, beauty, memory, and grief. Mourning’s work is confronting the death of the Other, and as such it places us in relation to our mortal world and our finite community. Prof. Steeves investigated what this means from a philosophic, scientific, and artistic standpoint, moving from the work of Edward Hopper to Francis Bacon, from William Shakespeare to Donald Hall, from Aristotle to Jacques Derrida—from painting to poetry to physics to philosophy and beyond.

Click here to view photos by John W. Sisson, Jr.

WIGGERLOVER [white boy + black dad = grey areas]: Post Your Review

February 5-22
Studio Theater

Part memoir, part editorial, all comedy, this is the totally too-good-to-be-true story of an interracial family in Chicago, 1979. Actor/writer James Anthony Zoccoli gives a retrospective account of his life as little Jimmy: a half-Italian, half-Polish kid who thinks he’s all Black when his White mother remarries an African-American man.

What did you think about the show? Share your comments here.

The Point

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

The phrase “Black is Beautiful” was coined by the Abolitionists in America & a century later evolved into a full scale Cultural Movement.

The Last Poets wrote a song called “The White Man’s got a God Complex”

From all the empirical evidence that I had seen in all of my history classes & in the world at large, I couldn’t argue.

But my grandparents went from being borderline racists to downright civil rights activists as our family changed color.

So, when people ask the point of show, I’d have to say that the moral of the story is: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

But that is not very interesting.

I guess I could have called the show: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

& I guess I could have opened & closed the show with the statement: “People are all the same on the inside, right?”

But that sort of treatment is not convincing; it is certainly not compelling; and, it is difficult to make that sentiment comical.

It just so happens that one of the objectives of The NAACP is “to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic process”.

Theatre might be the most democratic processes in existence.

An Artist produces a show.  The Public sees the poster, or hears word of mouth, or reads reviews & either goes or does not go.

Unlike television or the radio, you cannot accidentally tune into a play.  Which is why I didn’t just write these stories into a blog or put a video up on Youtube.

I could have even written a screenplay or pitched a situation comedy for television, but I opted to stand on stage & tell my stories the way they are meant to be told: personally.

So, I don’t expect to be able to go out & yell my story on the street corner any more than anybody should shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.

I just hope the seats are nice & full; I hope to see you there in the crowd.

Thursday

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

CAUCASIAN?  EVANSTONIAN??  AFROPOLSKITALIANO???

By the time I was 8 years old I had lived in Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Matteson, Rogers Park & Hyde Park – with my Polish family & my Italian family – BOTH.

We finally ended up in Evanston, but my head was still spinning.

So, when people asked me, “What are you?” I didn’t know what to say. 

This was partially due to this internal conflict of mine & partially due to my apparent amibuity.  I could identify with anybody, I related to everybody & nobody could tell what I was.  My hair was sorta’ wavy.  My nose was sorta’ big.  My complexion was sorta’ olive.  So, almost everyone I befriended assumed that I was whatever they were – or at least their parents did.

“You are Greek, no?” No, but I love mythology.

“Are you Jewish, yes?” No, but I love Jackie Mason.

“Eh…what you are – Armenian, eh?” No, but I love me some shish kabobs.

In Evanston, there were people from countries I had never even heard of before - & some that sounded downright fictitious.

“Estonia?” You made that up.

“Belize?” Puh-leeze.

“Latvia?” That’s an imaginary comic book place, right?

Plus, there were combinations that I would never have imagined.

Afro-slovakian, for example.

One my best friends in grade school was half-Japanese & half-Irish.

My parents best friends were a Black Man with a Jewish Wife whose children were Blewish.

There was even a kid in who had a father from Israel & a mother from Palestine who was Hebrewstinian.

So, I could have been anything in the world, from anywhere in the world & it wouldn’t have mattered, but all I wanted to be was anything but me.

Identity crisis.