Victory Gardens Theater

More than 50 Chicagoans from all walks of life will enjoy two nights of fame starring in Victory Gardens Theater's all-amateur, benefit production of Hello, Dolly!, Friday, February 17 at 8pm, and Saturday, February 18 at 7 pm, at the Athenaeum Theater.
 
A diverse cast of doctors, lawyers, business owners, housewives and school kids all paid to perform in this beloved Broadway musical about Dolly Levi, a professional meddler and matchmaker who merrily arranges things...like furniture and daffodils and lives.  Ticket sales support the theater's new play mission, and outreach programs including arts education initiatives with Chicago Public Schools, the Access Project for persons with disabilities, and the Victory Gardens Training Center.
 
Victory Gardens' all amateur cast for Hello, Dolly! "auditioned" for their roles by competing with their checkbooks at the theater's 24th annual Casting Auction on October 28.   That evening saw particularly enthusiastic bidding on all leading, supporting and backstage roles, and raised a record $62,000 for the venerable Lincoln Park theater.
 
Since the Auction, the cast and crew have rehearsed under the accomplished eye of Victory Gardens Artistic Director Dennis Zacek, music director Gregg Opelka, and choreographers Suzanne Avery Thompson and Stacey Flaster. Currently, rehearsals are intensifying and the backstage camaraderie is growing as the cast prepares for their 15 minutes of fame, a fabulous time, and the thrill of a lifetime - starring in one-of-a-kind production of their all-time favorite show.
 
Lead actors include Deborah Darr, a physical therapist and resident of Chicago's Gold Coast, as Dolly; Dr. Fred A. Zar, MD, FACP Professor of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chief of In-Patient Medical Services, University of Illinois Hospital, and resident of Lincoln Park, as Horace VanGelder; Andy Lambros, Human Resources Director for PETSMART and a resident of Chicago's South Loop, as Cornelius Hackl; Harvey Kaluna, a financial consultant from Buffalo Grove, as Barnaby Tucker; and Anita Rowe Kallen, an attorney from Old Town, as Irene Malloy.
 
Visions of Carol Channing and/or Barbara Streisand descending a staircase spring to mind when one thinks of Hello, Dolly!, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Michael Stewart, based on The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. The story centers on Dolly Levi, a New York widow who has found herself in love with Yonkers merchant Horace Vandergelder.  So, she weaves a web of romantic complications involving him, his two clerks, a pretty milliner and her assistant.  Eventually, all is sorted out, and everyone ends up with the right person, but not before audiences enjoy favorite musical numbers like It Takes A Woman, Motherhood March, Before the Parade Passes By, and of course, Hello, Dolly!
 
Co-Chairs (and co-stars) of Victory Gardens' 24th Annual Casting Auction are Victory Gardens board members Stuart Burstein (Lincoln Park), President, Burstein Associates; Lew Karp (Streeterville), a community leader; and Dr. Fred A. Zar.
 
Unique to Victory Gardens and strongly related to its mission, the Casting Auction celebrates live theater and the development of theater artists and theater lovers alike.  Last year's Casting Auction and subsequent public performances of My Fair Lady raised more than $60,000 for the theater, celebrating its 32nd season as home to more world premiere mainstage productions than any other Chicago theater.  Other memorable Casting Auction productions have included Grease, Guys and Dolls, Kiss Me Kate, Damn Yankees, Once Upon a Mattress, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, The Music Man and Annie.
 
Victory Gardens Theater holds true to a challenging mission - developing and producing new plays, most of them world premieres, with an emphasis on Chicago writers and its own 12-member Playwrights Ensemble.  It is this ongoing relationship with twelve living playwrights that helped Victory Gardens receive the 2001 Tony Award for Regional Theatre, for "displaying a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theater nationally."
 
Currently, Victory Gardens is renovating Chicago's historic Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, transforming it into a new, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the enjoyment of live theater. Victory Gardens will open a beautiful new 299-seat mainstage at the Biograph in September 2006, while retaining its long-time home at 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue to create a two-facility creative campus along Chicago's Lincoln Avenue.