Of Notoriety: Dunes Summer Theatre's 74th anniversary Sunday celebrated with sold-out ‘Misery'

Chicago Tribune

a day ago

When Dunes Summer Theatre in Michigan City reopened after its 2020 season pandemic pause for relaunch in 2021, it was a slow return to attract cautious audiences.
Elise Kermani, managing director of the Dunes Arts Foundation and Steve Scott, a director emeritus from Chicago's Goodman Theater, later named Dunes Theatre artistic director in fall 2021, are sharing the same amazement this summer.
They opened their 2025 stage season with a sold-out run of a newly imagined telling of Stephen King's 'Misery,' which opened May 30 and concludes with a final performance 2 p.m. Sunday, and scattered seats still available at all three remaining shows.
Dunes Summer Theatre, 288 Shady Oak Drive in Michigan City, celebrated the marking of the 74th anniversary last Sunday, June 8, with standing audience ovations for this new and cleverly devised staging of 'Misery.'
The run stars Chicago TV news personality Janet Davies, completely transformed as the menacing recluse nurse Annie Wilkes, opposite brilliant Kevin Giese as tortured novelist Paul Sheldon who is held captive by 'his biggest fan.' The production is directed by John Hancock, our noted filmmaker and Oscar-nominated movie director local claim-to-fame who hails from LaPorte and did the filming for his 1989 holiday classic 'Prancer' at his family's farm in LaPorte.
Also in this 'Misery' cast are Jim Lampl as skeptical rural town Sheriff Buster and Emmie Reigel, the latter molded into a new character, not previously featured in the original stage work or readings of this adaptation from two decades ago in New York.
Reigel is cast as the ever-looming spirit of author Sheldon's novel heroine Misery Chastain and appears in nearly all the scenes. And many times, she 'earns her oats' helping with inventive transitions for scene needs. Creative wiz Michael Lasswell has built an entire rustic cabin farmhouse set design, complete with hidden secret reveals for the audience.
Davies was the TV entertainment reporter for Chicago's ABC 7 News for more than 30 years and the host of the award-winning '190 North' Chicago entertainment, dining and lifestyle TV series. A world-traveled, seasoned broadcast journalist and winner of 18 Emmy awards for producing, writing and reporting, Davies has covered the British Royal Family, reported live from the red carpets of the Oscars and the Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as the American Music Awards.
In February 2021, Davies left ABC-owned WLS Channel 7 after a 37-year history and now divides her time between her beloved Chicago, world travels and her home in Galien, Michigan. She is also the board chair of the tiny but mighty stage at The Acorn Theatre in quaint Three Oaks, Michigan.
'You have to remember, I started out as a theatre major in college, and communication was my secondary career study,' said Davies, who was born in Richmond, Virginia, and raised in Fairfield, Ohio, before she earned a BA from Miami University in Ohio majoring in communications and theater.
When chatting with Davies on Sunday, I told her of my amazement that she could remember all of the script lines and blocking sequences for the two-hour stage epic. (I still have my own nightmares about not remembering lines on stage, and that's without working full-time in the theater industry).
In her world of working in the television field, a teleprompter is nothing out of the ordinary for anchor desk reporting.
'I spent considerable time learning lines, and a great director and cast help the process,' she said.
Davies' 'Misery' co-star Giese is a graduate of Portage High School and trained at Second City in Chicago. He is familiar to audiences at both Dunes Summer Theatre and Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso.
I asked Davies if she already has another stage project in the works, and her only answer was a glint in her eye paired with a smile.
I'm casting my own vote to see her play the mother superior nun in 'Doubt' or 'Agnes of God.' Maybe the theater gods will hear my request.
Tickets for 'Misery' are $30 to $35 and available at www.dunesarts.org or call 219-879-7509.
Up next at Dunes Summer Theatre opening June 27 and playing until July 13 is 'Outside Mullingar,' a delicious dark company and one of my favorite stage stories by Irish playwright John Patrick Shanley and being directed by the Dunes' Michael Lasswell.