Theatrical Projects
And Then Again…
Written by Johnny Lombard and Huck Walton, set against a modern American urban landscape, And Then Again explores timeless themes through the use of extended metaphors that convey a sense of the universal truths which always lay beneath the surface of daily life. This musical was presented in a chamber performance
on
Monday April 2nd, 2007
at
7.30 p.m.
The Theatre Building Chicago 1225 W Belmont Chicago IL
Written by Johnny Lombard and Huck Walton, set against a modern American urban landscape, And Then Again explores timeless themes through the use of extended metaphors that convey a sense of the universal truths which always lay beneath the surface of daily life. This musical was presented in a chamber performance
on
Monday April 2nd, 2007
at
7.30 p.m.
The Theatre Building Chicago 1225 W Belmont Chicago IL
Long Day’s Journey
Cast Biographies
Jeff helgeson - (James Tyrone)
appeared as Mr. Stanley in “The Man Who Came To Dinner” and has been seen in numerous plays within the Chicago area, including “Lunacy,” “Inheret The Wind,” “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” “84 Charing Cross Road,” and others. The author of a novel titled “Thresholds,” he has also written as many as fifteen stage plays that have been produced in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and New York. He has been the chairman for the drama commettee of The Society of Mid-Land Authors and a pannelist for arts grants for The City of Chicago, as well as a founding member of The Boxer Rebellion Ensemble, Backstage Theatre, and Collage Productions.
All his work, so far is
Barbara Button - (Mary Tyrone)
appeared as Mrs Stanley in “The Man Who Came to Dinner”. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago, she studied voice with legendary 30’s radio performer Everett Clark ( The Whistler and Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy), and she has also studied acting with Ron Sam from The American Academy of Performing Arts.
She has appeared in a number of Chicago theatres, including the regional Tony Award winning Victory Gardens Theatre in its production of “All Of the People”,”All of The Time”.
Paul Perroni - (Edmund Tyrone)
A Little Rock, Arkansas native, Paul settled in Chicago in the summer of 2004. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, with a degree in political science, Paul began planning a career in law; however, he realized very soon thereafter that only a career acting in theatre would be the profession he would be 100% passionate about, both fully and honestly.
“Thank you Clay Horath and Jeff Helgeson for trusting me with such a delicate role.”
Other credits Include: “Sabrina Fair” (David Carrabee), “Bet A Million” ( Robert Cassidy), “The Man Who Came To Dinner” (Dr. Bradley),”God” (Writer * u/s), “The Merry Wives Of Windsor”(Abraham Slender), “The Zoo Story” (Staged Reading – Jerry).
Jeff Mc.Vann
is excited to be returning to Collage Productions for “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” after portraying Banjo in Collage Productions’ presentation of “The Man Who Came To Dinner”last winter. In the interim, he portrayed Pistol in the St. Sebastian Players “Merry Wives of Windsor” and Peter in a staged reading of “The Zoo Story”.
Jeff has also appeared as Garry/Roger in “Noises Off”, Val Skolsky in “Laughter on the 23rd floor” and George in ” Same Time, Next Year”. Other shows included “Heart of A Dog” and “Raisin in the Sun”.
Esther Baum - Taylor
Esther is thrilled to be making her debute in Collage Productions, just after graduating in musical theater at Columbia College. Esther was most recently seen at Gallery 37 in the Operatics Ensemble.
She was also seen in Columbia College’s “South Loop: Soap Opera”.
“I would like to thank my family and friends for their wonderful support and for their faith in me, for dreams really do come true.
More Project Info
Production Images
Synopsis
Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical drama, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, depicts the events of a single day in the summer of 1912. Within that one morning, afternoon, evening, and late night, all of the specific issues affecting the author’s family are explored, and each of the universal themes confronting all American families are thoroughly examined.
Often cited for its authentic realism as a theatrical piece within the tradition of Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, and John Synge, O’Neill’s clinical analysis of the “ghosts” haunting all of our pasts, as realized in this dramatic family portrait, is also rendered in the form of a classical tragedy that is fully in accordance with the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides. Directly in line with the observations of Aristotle, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is constructed around the unities of time, place, character, and action. The resolution of the play is an emotional understanding of a modern form of fate, of the way in which “the past is the present . . . It is the future too. We all try to lie out of that, but life won’t let us.”
Ultimately, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a subjective excursion into transcendent objectivity that uses the author’s own life story to demonstrate, through sobering drama, the failure of The American Dream as it has affected all who have ever embraced it, experienced its shortcomings with respect to over coming the consequences of the past, and yet persisted in ascribing to its potential promise.
Critical Commentary
As a part of the development of this project, the cast for Collage Productions’ Long Day’s Journey Into Night performed a fully staged reading of the script in the home of Chicago psychologist and published poet Nina Corwin. Following the presentation, she wrote:
“In psychological terms, Collage Productions’ interpretation of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night might briefly be described as a case study in denial – denial of guilt, denial of addiction, and denial of responsibility for, to paraphrase Edward Gibbon, the inevitable consequence of inordinate compromise. Caught up in a web of conflicting loyalities and long standing resentments, a kaleidoscope of secrets, blame, and loss is powerfully presented in poetic language that elevates the play’s realistic action to a universal level extending beyond its individual characters to finally represent the family drama in which each of us has actively participated.”
Nina Corwin
Psychotherapist
Author of: Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints
Critical Commentary concerning the play:
“A Long Day’s Journey Into Night seems to me one of the most moving plays I have ever seen.”
T.S. Eliot
“More than biography and domestic tragedy; it is modern tragedy of alienation, universal tragedy of search for cause of our fates.”
Joseph Wood Krutch – Arts
“Nothing short of heart-breaking . . . wonderfully real to a point rarely to be found in contemporary theatre.”
Richard Watts – The New York Post
“The play is the testament of the most serious playwright our country has produced.”
– The Nation
Location
– The Gunder Mansion Of The North Lakeside Cultural
Center, 6219 n sheridan road
Chicago, Illinois.
Reservations: 773-764-0353
Parking available with
reservations
– The Monte Cristo Cottage
The Gunder Mansion