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Remy Bumppo Theatre Company officially begins its 2006-2007 season with its annual Season Salon on Wednesday, Sept. 6. The Salon will be held at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N Lincoln Avenue. The event will last from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:00 p.m.
The celebration includes coffee, desserts and sparkling conversation. Chicago Public Radio’s Sylvia M. Ewing will moderate a panel discussion on this year’s theme of “Lost Innocence.” Speakers include Remy Bumppo Artistic Director James Bohnen, along with three prominent Chicagoans whose areas of expertise will enlighten the themes of each of this season’s Mainstage plays – Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. This year’s panelists are David Axelrod, a prominent Chicago- based political consultant; Amy Dickinson, author of the “Ask Amy” advice column in the Chicago Tribune; and Rachel Shteir, author of Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show.
The Salon panel includes:
Sylvia M. Ewing (moderator) is a producer for "Eight Forty-Eight," Chicago Public Radio’s award-winning weekday morning news magazine. Ewing began her tenure at Chicago Public Radio in 1991 as a freelance producer/reporter for the “Chicago Matters” series. Ewing also hosted a show on WVON radio, “On Target with Sylvia Ewing.” Ewing has long-time experience reporting and producing for various local programs on WTTW11, including “Chicago Tonight,” “Artbeat” and “Wild Chicago.” Her national work includes coordinating producer for the Chicago segment of a live, four city PBS/NPR town hall partnership covering the 2000 presidential election and Jim Lehrer’s “NewsHour” on PBS. She also has international experience as a producer for Globalvision’s program “South Africa Now.”
An award-winning veteran broadcaster, Ewing has been honored by the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and WFK Institute of Krefeld, Germany. She has been nominated for three local Emmys, and has received three outstanding awards from the Chicago Association of Black Journalists, a Peter Lisagor Award and various other awards for her work on “Eight Forty-Eight” and the “Chicago Matters” series. She has written for numerous publications, including N’Digo, Chicago Parent and the Chicago Sun-Times.
James Bohnen is artistic director of Remy Bumppo and has directed many productions for the company, including last season's American premiere of Ranjit Bolt’s translation of Moliere's Tartuffe and the American premiere of Nick Dear’s Power. For 10 years he has worked at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI, where he recently directed Arms and the Man.
David Axelrod has produced winning media campaigns for over 150 candidates at the local, state and national levels. A former political writer and City Hall bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, Axelrod established his firm in 1985. Since then, his clients have included John Edwards for President; US Senators Barack Obama (IL) and Hillary Clinton (NY); Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa; Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (NY) and many of America’s leading mayors, including Richard M. Daley of Chicago and Dennis Archer of Detroit. In his book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, Republican consultant Ed Rollins listed Axelrod under the category of "Guys I Never Want to See Lobbing Grenades at Me Again." In addition to serving as President of Axelrod Kupper Plouffe Message & Media, Axelrod is also President and founder of ASK Public Strategies, for which he has developed media and communication strategy for a series of successful initiatives and public affairs campaigns. Axelrod has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University.
Amy Dickinson is a syndicated advice columnist, penning the “Ask Amy” column, which appears in over 200 newspapers, including the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, and the Washington Post. She has worked as a receptionist for The New Yorker Magazine, as a producer for NBC News in Washington and New York, as a lounge singer, and as a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, Allure, O Magazine and other publications. From 1999-2002, she wrote a column for Time Magazine focusing on family life and parenting. For the past ten years, Dickinson’s commentaries and radio stories have been featured on the National Public Radio program “All Things Considered.”
Rachel Shteir is Associate Professor and Director of the Criticism Program at the Theatre School at DePaul University. Before going to Chicago to found that program five years ago, she taught at universities including Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University, and the National Theatre Institute. Rachel is the author of Striptease: the Untold History of the Girlie Show (OUP, 2004) and the forthcoming Gypsy Rose Lee: the Art of the Tease (YUP 2007) and Nation of Thieves (Penguin Press, 2008). She has been published in magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, Slate, the Guardian, Playboy, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Bookforum, New York Newsday, the late Lingua Franca, American Theatre, the Nation, and the Village Voice.
Salon admission is free, but reservations are required and must be made by Friday, Sept. 1. For tickets and more information, call 773-244-8119 or visit the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company website at www.remybumppo.org.