Welcome to the Strauss at Midnight blog page

Written by Jeff Dorchen

Allow me to introduce you to the blog about the play, Strauss at Midnight, which has its world premiere on June 11 at the Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph Street in downtown Chicago. The play is presented by Theater Oobleck in association with the Chicago DCA Theater. I wrote it specifically for Theater Oobleck to produce and stage.

The DCA has encouraged me to blog here, and I thank them for the opportunity.

Theater Oobleck produces original plays, plays generally, though not always, written specifically for the company. I have written several one-act plays for Oobleck, and this will be the fourth full-length play I’ve written specifically for them.

I would like to use this blog to discuss some of my research and thoughts regarding historical and quasi-historical aspects of the play. I also intend to report on how we are preparing the play for production, the work that’s being done to bring the world of Strauss at Midnight to the stage. I’m sure company members and production crew members will post here as well, either in the comments or in the blog proper. At least I hope so. Designers and production help, and the supportive atmosphere created by both the members of Theater Oobleck and the fine people at the DCA, are what is making this project possible.

The play is going to look great, sound great, be lit great, and be performed by excellent actors on a nifty stage in a superbly appointed and virtually asteroid-proof space, so if I do my writing job well enough, and I have every intention of so doing, the result ought to be a glorious theatrical event to delight and enrage.

Engage. Theater is a visual art, a time art, but most importantly a social art. One can speak of the theater community in the knowledge that there really is a community there, a mutually supportive community for the most part. The fringe world is not disconnected from the Big Fancy world of Chicago “theatre,” we’re all connected despite differences in resources. And as various members of the community have moved to other geographical locations, connections have spread a fair distance beyond the city.

I can’t thank Theater Oobleck enough for having given me so many opportunities to see my work realized on stage. The social aspect of art is not the least of those its members are skilled in. Many of them have contributed immeasurably to what power I have to express myself in written language, not just in their capacities as theater colleagues but as friends. The institution they’ve kept going for the last 20 years has become, without exaggeration, a touchstone for a network of great people around the world. And in the last two decades it’s been for me a real artistic oasis, reenergizing me as an artist and an art appreciator whenever, for one reason or another, I’m in need of revival.