Artistic Director’s note
Welcome to our 26th Season ! We’re pleased to share an esteemed classic from the American dramatic canon. Like most theaters, we select our season more than a year in advance. In Spring 2010, our Ensemble read Waiting for Lefty and debated the relevancy of unions today. We exchanged heated, passionate words—some idealistic, some realistic, and many defeatist. Our multi-generational Ensemble, whose life experiences range from remembering Truman’s presidency to voting for the first time in 2008, share no consensus of political ideology. However, there is agreement in art.
This play fits our mission like a left hand to a glove…or right hand if you prefer. America’s labor history is filled with incredible changes since unions were created to ensure workplace safety, age & wage restrictions, and simple, ethical statutes we frequently take for granted. Since choosing to produce this play in 2010, we watched the economic debate from a World perspective (Greece, E.U., Middle East), National (debt ceiling), Statewide (Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio), and to our City government.
We invite you to watch a slice of the American union debate as it occurred in living-rooms and small offices over seventy years ago. These characters’ hearts beat as loud today as first penned in 1935. Their spirits radiate under our amber lights rather than appear as immovable fossils stuck in amber. Clifford Odets’ son personally gave us professional rights to produce this play—we honor and respect this privilege.
As with every production, we raise awareness of social and service organizations that match our productions’ themes. Please join us for our Sunday “Town Hall” lectures and discussions on Odets & WPA, Artists & Unions, Labor History in Chicago, and Union Relevancy moderated by lauded journalist Dick Kay.
Thank you for joining the Blues family—our home is yours.
–Gwendolyn Whiteside