February 9, 2009

On to 2009 . . .

February 8, 2009

After 20 performances, The Sand Castle becomes the highest grossing show of our 2008 season on its closing day. The 2008 season ends with 62 performances, 2300 tickets sold and 1 lasting impression made, both on us and Chicago. Thanks for the memories.

January 4, 2009

Artistic Director Brian Golden celebrates his 27th birthday by hauling 550 lbs. of sand in to the Chopin Studio at Sand Castle tech. This is apparently a little known Iowan tradition.

September - December, 2008

After the Season Two grind subsides, we go about putting some much needed infrastructure in place. Theatre Seven creates its first board, made up of Barbara Agdern, Andrew Chao & Carol White, its first part-time staff, made up of Rebecca Silverman, Sara Kerastas and Tony Santiago, and adds two FABULOUS company members: Brenda Winstead & Cassy Sanders. Welcome, everyone!

August 30, 2008

The most livable stage apartment in recorded history comes down. We're not sure Technical Director Justin Wardell wasn't living on the set he built for four weeks. It was that nice.

August 15, 2008

After a performance of Election Day, we continue our Insight Series with a discussion called "What is Political Theatre?", with playwrights Lisa Rosenthal, Aaron Carter, our own Marisa, and E-Day writer, Josh Tobiessen, in town from New York for the occasion. Artistic Director Brian Golden moderates and tries to sound half as intelligent as the panel.

August 4-6, 2008

Set for Election Day goes up.

August 3, 2008

Set for Yes . . . goes down.

(Yeah, that part actually happened to us)

July 25 - August 3, 2008

The all too short, almost impossibly fantastic run of Yes, This Really Happened to Me. The show is already selling like hotcakes when Chicago Reader's Albert Williams calls Theatre Seven "the future of Off-Loop theatre." We're pretty sure this is really cool. Company members can't even get tickets, and the show is seen by 600 people in only seven performances.

June 29, 2008

Clean up. Rest. Breathe.

June 28, 2008

Our first annual benefit, Overflow '08, at the Slaymaker Gallery in Wrigleyville. A stroke of divine luck: two days before Overflow, Michael Mann and his film Public Enemies (is it the Johnny Depp movie or the Christian Bale movie? You make the call!) use the Gallery to shoot a 1930's casino scene. Slaymaker leaves the set up, and we party on it until late, late, late. 125 people and a few hours later, we've raised $3,500 for our 2008 season!

June 1, 2008

Theatre Seven invites at-risk youth to a free performance of The Shallow End, followed by a discussion about the play and friendship with members of the Young Women's Action Team of Rogers Park, led by Mariame Kaba. Doing good feels good.

May 8, 2008

Boys & Girls opens with a bang! Our opening night party at Tavern at the Park is the perfect release after the work it took to make this show. Margot Bordelon makes poetry out of violence in Never Swim Alone, and Meg McCarthy makes violence out of girlhood in The Shallow End. Time Out Chicago calls Boys & Girls the #1 Don't Miss Show in Chicago.

April 7 - May 7, 2008

For a solid month, thanks to T7, somewhere in Chicago, someone, somewhere is talking about guns or first periods.

April 6, 2008

Our second season officially kicks off with a pizza party at Robey Pizza in Roscoe Village. Robey donates the pizza (thanks, Robey) and we bring the fun. As our first serious venture with actors outside the company, we've cast 8 lovely teenage girls from the Chicagoland area for Wendy MacLeod's The Shallow End. T7 goes intergenerational!

February 1, 2008

We’ve got a season, and it’s a winner. Our 2008 season includes:

Never Swim Alone, by Daniel MacIvor
The Shallow End, by Wendy MacLeod
Yes, This Really Happened To Me
Election Day, by Josh Tobiessen
The Sand Castle, by Lanford Wilson

This one's a keeper, my friends.

December, 2007

Both Kerry Reid (Performink) and Nina Metz (New City) list our Diversey Harbor among their favorite 10 Chicago plays of the year. That’s top 10 plays. In all of Chicago. Oh yeah.

September 4, 2007 – January 15, 2008

The rubber meets the road as Theatre Seven fights, gnashes, slugs and hammers out its second season. Kids – do not try this at home.

September 3, 2007

Everyone is granted the day off.

August 17 – September 2, 2007

Killing Women, by our Ms. Wegrzyn, plays at Chicago Dramatists to sell out crowds and good notices (mostly :-) ). After all the sweat, we’re relieved to learn we still love making theatre.

July - August, 2007

Rehearsal, publicity, preproduction, design of our second big production. Things make a lot more sense the second time around. (But this part was still really hard.)

June, 2007

The company loses founding member Annie Erickson but picks up Robin Kacyn and Justin Wardell. Theatre Seven now has 8. How’s that for fuzzy math?

March 23 – April 22, 2007

Is Chicago plays at Rogue Theatre in Andersonville. We sell over 600 tickets, our first show ever earns a two week extension and the Chicago Tribune calls our very own Marisa Wegrzyn the next great Chicago playwright. Grrrrreat success!

March, 2007

Rehearsal, publicity, preproduction, design of our first big production. (This part was really hard.)

October – December, 2006

The calm before the storm. We muster up the energy for our first mainstage production, Is Chicago.

September 16, 2006

Our first play development series as an official company: a fantastically regal workshop and reading of Carolyn Kras’ play, Highness.

August – November, 2006

Looooooooooooooots mooooooooore paperwork.

June 28, 2006

A company is born! THEATRE SEVEN OF CHICAGO is officially recognized by the State of Illinois as a 501c3, not-for-profit institution!

May 16, 2006

In between the paper trial, we squeeze in our first play development series, a workshop of Artistic Director Brian Golden’s Burying Miss America.

May, 2006

Looooooooooooooots of paperwork.

November, 2005 – April 2006

Much discussion, deliberation, consternation and debate over the next step: who are we? What do we do? What’s the mission? Can we get company t-shirts?

October, 2005

Over beers at Konak’s on Clark, someone proposes:

.

August, 2005

Several of us Washington University alums produce a late-night, guerrilla mounting of Sexual Perversity in Chicago for the Abbie Hoffman Festival. We rehearse for three weeks, actors learn lines overnight, the show goes up at 4:30 am, and everyone has a blast. We remember what we already knew: working with a trusted group of artists dramatically increases our ability to take artistic risks. We think: