Photo Flash: Chicago Dramatists' Special Benefit Performance of A STEADY RAIN, 11/14 2009/11/18

The benefit performance of A STEADY RAIN for Chicago Dramatists, the creative force behind the successful production, was held on Saturday, November 14th at 8:00 p.m. at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, New York, NY.

Tickets for this exclusive performance of A STEADY RAIN were $200 each, with a portion of the proceeds directly benefiting Chicago Dramatists, the only theatre in the country that is both a playwrights' development center and a full producing theatre. Tickets, including a pre-show cocktail party, were also available for $250.

Winner of three 2008 Jeff Awards, including Best Production for Chicago Dramatists and Best New Work for Huff, the searing drama follows several harrowing days in the lives of two Chicago cops. While A STEADY RAIN is just one of many scripts that planted its roots at Chicago Dramatists, no other Chicago Dramatists production has garnered this kind of critical acclaim and commercial accomplishment. Through passionate dedication, personal nurture and careful exposure, Chicago Dramatists carries on its thirty-year-old mission of developing new plays and playwrights for the next generation of theatre. Developed in part through readings and workshops at Chicago Dramatists, Keith Huff's script for A STEADY RAIN was chosen from hundreds of plays-in-progress to be a part of the 2007-2008 season. The theatre played a significant role as the driving force behind the production; from the risks involved with bringing an edgier script to the stage to its unrelenting dedication to helping playwrights succeed in the community.

In the fall of 1979, four playwrights came together to hear their work read aloud and to hone their craft. Today, Chicago Dramatists' amazing record of achievement has undoubtedly landed them an invaluable place in the artistic community as a vital source of inspiration to 40 resident playwrights, 160 network playwrights, 60 associate artists, and thousands of audience members.

Also developed at New York Stage and Film and The Barrow Group in New York, Huff's A STEADY RAIN played to critical acclaim and received Jeff Awards for New Work and Best Production in its 2007 Chicago Dramatists premiere. The gripping production explores love and rage on the streets of Chicago, as a routine domestic disturbance call sends two Chicago cops on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives forever.

As the only theatre in the country that is both a playwrights' development center and a full producing theatre, Chicago Dramatists continues to be the venue that pushes the envelope with the newest plays and most promising playwrights.

Some notable alumni of Chicago Dramatists include Tina Fey (30 Rock, Saturday Night Live), Rick Cleveland (writer & producer of The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie), and Rebecca Gilman (Pulitzer nominee and Dramatists Guild Council member). Current resident playwrights include Roger Rueff (screenwriter, The Big Kahuna), Lydia R. Diamond (playwright, The Bluest Eye, Stick Fly), and Mary RutH Clarke (screenwriter, Meet the Parents), among 36 others. Its unique enrichment programs work with artists at every step of the writing process and provide an environment in which to grow, network and advance in the theatre community.

Every year, Chicago Dramatists' playwrights earn literally hundreds of professional accomplishments. These include productions, awards, commissions, readings, and other honors at large and small theatres in Chicago and around the world; enriching the lives of hundreds of thousands of theatre patrons, exporting Chicago voices across the globe, and significantly boosting Chicago Dramatists' reputation as one of the nation's foremost new play development theatres.
In the past few years, Chicago Dramatists' playwrights were honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Genius Grant, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, the Osborn Award, an Olivier Award nomination, and numerous Joseph Jefferson Awards for New Work and Illinois Arts Council Playwriting Fellowships, to mention only a few. In 2002, resident playwright alumnus Rebecca Gilman's play The Glory of Living (developed in part at Chicago Dramatists) was one of two runners up for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Chicago Dramatists' playwrights received countless full productions in Chicago at the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Northlight, Victory Gardens, Stage Left, Bailiwick, Raven, A Red Orchid, Circle, Curious Theatre Branch, Factory, American Theatre Company, Pegasus Players, Teatro Luna, eta Creative Arts Foundation, Live Bait, Collaboraction, the side project, and many other theatres. Chicago Dramatists' playwrights received hundreds of productions around the nation-at Seattle Repertory, Magic Theatre (San Francisco), Geffen Playhouse (L.A.), Interact Theatre (Philadelphia), Arena Stage (DC), The Kennedy Center (DC), Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), Mixed Blood Theatre (Minneapolis), Barter Theatre (Abingdon, VA), The Road Theatre (L.A.); and MCC Theatre, 29th Street Rep, Lincoln Center, The Public Theatre, Harlem Theatre Company, and Ensemble Studio Theatre (all in New York City).

Devoted key players responsible for launching the careers of some of this country's most prolific theatrical voices and turning out triumphant productions time and again include Chicago Dramatists' leaders Artistic Director Russ Tutterow and Managing Director Brian Loevner.
Russ Tutterow has been the Artistic Director of Chicago Dramatists since 1986. In 2005, he received the Artistic Leadership Award from the League of Chicago Theatres for his "outstanding achievement in developing new plays and his long time contribution to Chicago theatre." At Chicago Dramatists, he has directed countless new play readings, and nurtured the art and careers of hundreds of playwrights, including Rebecca Gilman, Tina Fey, Sarah Ruhl, Keith Huff, Rick Cleveland, Brett Neveu, Roger Rueff, David Barr, Lydia R. Diamond, Joel Drake Johnson, and Mia McCullough, to name just a few.

Most recently, he directed Chicago Dramatists' productions of A STEADY RAIN, Water by Alice Austen (Jeff Award nomination for New Work), Voyeurs de Venus by Lydia R. Diamond (Jeff Award for New Work), Heat by Marsha Estell (Jeff Award nomination for New Work), and Drawing War by Brett Neveu. He also directed Prop Thtr's acclaimed production of Rosemary by Jim O'Connor, which won a 2002 Jeff Citation for New Work. Tutterow has been involved in not-for-profit, commercial and educational theatre for over twenty-five years.

He has directed, managed or taught for such Chicago theatres as Goodman, Victory Gardens, Royal George, Mercury, Briar Street, Prop, Zebra Crossing, Igloo, and Cullen, Henaghan & Platt Productions, as well as Café LaMama Hollywood. Recently, he served on the 2005 First Look Council at Steppenwolf Theatre and was the casting director for The Last Night of Ballyhoo at the Mercury Theater.

Tutterow has held positions as Adjunct Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Wisconsin and Director of Theatre (for six years) at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois. He holds an M.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Theatre from Ball State University.

Loevner is a theatre manager, producer, production manager, and arts educator. He was a founder and the Managing Director of Theatre Conspiracy in Washington D.C. for four seasons. In 1998, he co-founded TriArts, Inc., where he created programming partnerships with the Chicago Park District, Gallery 37, and the Department of Aging. Over five years, Loevner grew TriArts into a Jeff nominated theatre with strong support from the theatre community.

Loevner has also produced and production managed over 80 shows with companies such as Famous Door Theatre, Timeline Theatre, Collaboraction, and The Actor's Gymnasium. Further, he has worked as a business consultant, assisting sole proprietors and small companies in setting up accounting and office systems. He attended Virginia Tech University and George Mason University where he majored in Theatre Arts with a focus on Arts Management. As an arts educator, he taught circus arts, clowning, and general theatre for three years at Louisa Mae Alcott School in Lincoln Park.

Keith Huff, the playwright of A STEADY RAIN, is the recipient of a Drama-Logue Award, the Cunningham Prize, the John Gassner Award, the Berrilla Kerr Award, and three Illinois Arts Council Playwriting Fellowships. Huff's play, Pursued By Happiness, was produced last summer at Steppenwolf Theater as part of the First Look Repertory of New Plays. His play Mud People is premiering in Chicago this summer with the Mary-Arrchie Theater Company. Other recent plays include The Detective's Wife, which is slated to be workshopped at Writer's Theater and Tell Us of the Night, which will have its first public staged reading at Chicago Dramatists this fall. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway, internationally, and nationally.

While more widely known as accomplished screen actors, both Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman also bring considerable theatrical experience to the Broadway stagE. Craig has worked in London with the Royal National Theatre (Angels In America), the Peter Hall Company at the Old Vic (Hurlyburly), and was nominated for a 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Number co-starring with Michael Gambon at The Royal Court Theatre. Craig is making his Broadway debut in A STEADY RAIN. Jackman won a 2004 Tony Award, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Award for his portrayal of the 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz. Previous theater credits include Carousel at Carnegie Hall and Oklahoma! at the National Theater in London, where he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. In his native Australia he won a MO Award (Australia's Tony Award) for his performance as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard, and he was nominated for a MO Award for Disney's Beauty and the Beast. . For publicity photos of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman please visit www.thehartmangrouppr.com.

A STEADY RAIN began previews on Thursday, September 10, 2009 and opened Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, New York, NY, for a strictly limited 12-week engagement through Sunday, December 6, 2009.

Photo credit: Noreen Heron & Associates, Inc.

Russ Tutterow and Carson Grace Becker