Write NowWhy do we go to the theater? A personal essay for the New Year by Lookingglass Executive Director Rachel Kraft
For me, it was always about theater. I would memorize and recite Shakespeare and make my mother listen to the balcony scene of ROMEO AND JULIET that I recited earnestly in my pajamas. It was telling my folks, the doctor and nurse, that I was going to pursue “oral interpretation” instead of “pre-med” during my sophomore year in college. It was finally graduating with a degree in Psychology and 1000 hours of supervised field work and quitting my job on a mental health unit after six months to create my own grad school for a year by interning for a summer at Steppenwolf and a season at the Goodman (who knew, I certainly didn’t, that I would return to the latter for 12 glorious seasons).
When I interviewed for my current position at Lookingglass, Andy White’s adaptation of 1984 was on stage. This chilling story, so politically charged, left me rushing from the theater to track down George Orwell’s novel of the same name. When I was offered the job, I took my family to see David Catlin’s adaptation of LOOKINGGLASS ALICE to help them understand why I wanted, felt I needed, to take this position with this particular company. After that performance, again I hurried home and searched my shelves until I found a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
 Chicago’s winter holiday wonderland is the scene when on December 23rd, I walk against the wind to cross Michigan Avenue for the final performance of Mary Zimmerman’s ARGONAUTIKA. In my 16 months at Lookingglass, I often feel like the proverbial “kid in the candy store.” I enter the little castle at Pearson that we call home and find myself surrounded by other “kids” just like me. There is a sense of anticipation before the production begins, wonder at intermission, and joy and sadness when the company takes its final curtain call. In the lobby afterwards, friends and new faces pull me aside to tell me how much the story moves them and how grateful they are to be at the theater before the show closes.
After the audience trickles out, we toast the cast and crew with pizza and beer to mark the close of this gem (a future life seems certain based on the number of theater representatives who have seen the show multiple times, considering it for a future season). - Read more |
