Chicago Children's Theatre - | Time Out Chicago, March 30, 2006

Time Out Chicago, March 30, 2006

Here's looking at two!

We celebrate our first birthday with a look at the people and stories we'll be watching in our second year

A strong start

It's already been a big year for Chicago Children's Theatre. Its inaugural production, A Year With Frog and Toad, has been selling out matinee performances and is playing an extended run that closes Sunday 5. After a year spent focused on getting the company off the ground, cofounder and artistic director Jacqueline Russell is finally able to set her sights on some longer-term goals. CCT will take a break until the start of its second season this fall, she says, when the group will likely put on shows at both Steppenwolf Theatre and the outdoor Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park part of its three-play roster.

“We're still nailing down the details, but we have the rights to [the P.D. Eastman classic] Go, Dog. Go! And we're hoping to take Frog and Toad on the road to Madison (Wisconsin) Repertory Theatre,” she says. Also in the works are original productions from Chicago's king of kiddie pop, Ralph Covert; 500 Clown's Leslie Buxbaum and Andrian Danzig; Redmoon Theater puppeteer Blair Thomas; and a collaboration with Anna D. Shapiro, who most recently directed The Pain and the Itch at Steppenwolf.

While a home of its own is an eventual goal, the company's focus—for the time being, at least—is on its productions. “A venue is one of our five-to-ten-year goals,” Russell says. “Right now, it's really important to put all of our resources into what we put onstage—building our product and our audience.”