Mount Carroll, IL-- Timber Lake Playhouse (TLP) follows up its hit season opener, A Chorus Line, with the stage adaptation of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie opening Thursday, June 20. Acclaimed Chicago director Chuck Smith returns to direct the show that stars longtime TLP favorites Robert Maher and Courtney Crouse in the story of an accomplished journalist who visits an old college professor and gets one final lesson on the meaning of life.
Mitch Albom's book has sold over 15 million copies worldwide since its release in 1997 and became a cultural touchstone. A TV movie starring Jack Lemmon was filmed in 1999. The stage adaptation was praised as "Unforgettable! No matter how well you tell the story, the play makes it more vivid, more humorous, more shattering."
To celebrate the life-affirming themes of the play, Timber Lake Playhouse is looking for people to share their own stories of their mentors. Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.
For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, but most people have heroes in their lives they never thank. TLP will give away two tickets to each performance of Tuesdays With Morrie to people who have served as mentors to others. To nominate your mentor, email info@timberlakeplayhouse.org with your name, your mentor's name and contact information and a short explanation of how this person inspired you. TLP will pick 11 mentors to receive free tickets to the production.
Tuesdays With Morrie runs June 20-29 for 11 performances only. TLP is located at 8215 Black Oak Rd. in rural Mount Carroll, IL. Tickets are $15-23 and are available at the box office, by calling 815-244-2035 or visiting www.timberlakeplayhouse.org. Following Tuesdays With Morrie, TLP will present The Music Man July 5-14, Unnecessary Farce July 18-27, Monty Python's Spamalot August 1-11. Seussical, based on the books of Dr. Seuss, will be presented for children and families July 9, 11, 12 and 13 and August 6, 8, 9 and 10. All tickets to Seussical are only $6.
Full Production Credits:
TIMBER LAKE PLAYHOUSE presents
Mitch Albom's
Tuesdays With Morrie
by JEFFREY HATCHER AND MITCH ALBOM
BASED ON THE BOOK BY MITCH ALBOM
Directed by
CHUCK SMITH
Original New York production produced by
David S. Singer, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Joey Parnes,
Amy & Scott Nederlander, Harold Thau,
Moira Wilson, Shadowcatcher Entertainment
Originally presented by New York Stage and Film Company and the Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar College, 2002.
Tuesdays With Morrie was supported by a playwright's residency and public staged readings at the 2001 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Waterford, CT.
Tuesdays With Morrie is presented through special arrangement with
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
TLP Production Partner Sponsors:
Compliance Signs Kunes Country Auto Group
Suit Supply Chicago Timber Lake Resort Anonymous
This program is partially sponsored by a grant from the
Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Chuck Smith (Director) has served twelve consecutive seasons at TLP. A twenty-one year Goodman Theatre artistic staff member and an associate producer of Legacy Productions, a Chicago-based touring company, he recently received the 2012 Goodman Theatre August Wilson Award and the 2011 Lloyd Richards Directing Award with his production of Knock Me a Kiss at the National Black Theater Festival (winner of 11 New York Audelco awards, including Director of a Dramatic production and Dramatic Production of the Year). Smith's Goodman credits include the Chicago premieres of By the way Meet Vera Stark, Race, The Good Negro, Proof and The Story; the world premieres of By the Music of the Spheres andThe Gift Horse; James Baldwin's The Amen Corner, which transferred to Boston's Huntington Theatre Company where it won the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award for Best Direction; Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun; Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky; August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; the Fats Waller musical Ain't Misbehavin'; the 1993 to 1995 productions of A Christmas Carol; Crumbs From the Table of Joy; Vivisections from a Blown Mind; and The Meeting. He served as dramaturg for the world-premiere production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean at the Goodman. At Columbia College Chicago he was facilitator of the Theodore Ward Prize playwriting contest for 20 years and editor of the contest anthologies Seven Black Plays and Best Black Plays. He won a Chicago Emmy Award as associate producer/theatrical director for the NBC teleplay Crime of Innocence, and was theatrical director for the Emmy Award-winning Fast Break to Glory and the Emmy Award-nominated The Martin Luther King Suite. Mr. Smith is a 2003 inductee into the Chicago State University Gwendolyn Brooks Center's Literary Hall of Fame and a 2001 Chicago Tribune Chicagoan of the Year. He is the proud recipient of the 1982 Paul Robeson Award and the 1997 Award of Merit presented by the Black Theater Alliance of Chicago. He is currently a board member of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago.
PRODUCTION STAFF
Production Stage Manager ...................................................................... Rena Waits
Stage Manager.............................................................. Mary-Catherine Mikalayunas
Scenic Designer........................................................................................... Loren Borja
Lighting Designer............................................................................ Tony Luetkenhaus
Costume Designer ............................................................................. Kelcey Matheny
Costume Shop Manager ...................................................................... Emma Crafton
Technical Director............................................................................... Roger Chapman
Properties Master ............................................................................... Tasha Sandage
Sound Designer/ Engineer........................................................................ Patrick Bley
Master Electrician.......................................................................... James Kolditz
Assistant Technical Director ................................................................. Carrie Peiffer
Scenic Artist ................................................................................. Catie DelleMonache
Carpenter ...................................................................................... Matthew Birchmeier
Costuming Assistant ...................................................................... Hollyann Lillie
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