A Big Blue Nail

Victory Gardens Theater's ongoing exploration of crucial moments in African-American history continues with A Big Blue Nail, the company's first world premiere of 2008.  Written by acclaimed playwright and adventurer Carlyle Brown, with direction and scenic design by award-winning theater artist Loy Arcenas, A Big Blue Nail is a phantasmagorical tale examining explorer Robert Peary's fame as the first man to reach the North Pole, which obscured the contributions of Matthew Henson, his African-American guide and companion, who could rightfully claim the title. 

A Big Blue Nail unfolds through a series of scenes shifting between the past, the present, the chaotic world of ice and snow on the Polar Sea, and the surreal landscape of Peary's guilt-ridden mind.  Unacknowledged in the 1909 expedition's documentation because of his ethnicity, Henson returns ten years later to Peary's island home in Maine in search of validation.  A chorus of Inuit men ritualistically take the story back in time to the day that Peary first met Tupi, the Inuit child trickster who promised to help Peary take his place among the world's great explorers. Peary's hallucinations, including strange encounters with a beautiful naked woman representing the Future, intermingle with riveting vignettes chronicling the difficulties, hopes, and ambitions of their dangerous, now-famous Polar assault.

A Big Blue Nail marks the Victory Gardens debut for playwright Carlyle Brown, a major talent whose work has been seen at theaters throughout the country (Humana Festival's Pure Confidence), and locally at Congo Square Theater Company (The African Company Presents Richard III in 2006.)  In addition to his work in theater, Brown boasts an extensive history as a world explorer, having served as chief mate of the Gloucester fishing schooner Effie M. Morrissey, built in 1894, in the late seventies to early nineties, as well as serving as an Outward Bound instructor and captain of tall ships.  In fact, his research for A Big Blue Nail included a trip to the arctic island of Igoolik in Baffin Bay, where he traveled by sea ice with an Inuit family and sled dogs.  Today, Brown is a writer/performer and artistic director of Carlyle Brown & Company based in Minneapolis.  His other plays include The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show and Buffalo Hair. He has been a teacher of expository writing at New York University; African-American literature at the University of Minnesota; playwriting at Ohio State University and Antioch College.  He is the 2006 recipient of The Black Theatre Network's Winona Lee Fletcher Award for outstanding achievement and artistic excellence.

Low-priced previews of A Big Blue Nail begin January 25, 2008. Regular performances continue through March 2 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago.  For tickets and information, call the Victory Gardens box office, (773) 871-3000, or purchase tickets online at www.VictoryGardens.org.