Victory Gardens Theater will reopen with a new David Mamet play and starry cast
Chicago's historic Biograph Theatre, the home of the long-dormant Victory Gardens Theater Company, will reopen next month with a new play by David Mamet titled 'Henry Johnson.' The show will be directed by Eddie Torres, a longtime Chicago actor and the former artistic director of Teatro Vista, and will star Thomas Gibson, best known for playing Greg on the TV show 'Dharma and Greg,' and for his work on the CBS show 'Criminal Minds.'
Performances of the play are scheduled to begin on April 9.
Keith Kupferer, the Chicago actor who received widespread acclaim for the 2024 movie 'Ghostlight,' is also in the cast, as are the Chicago actors Al'Jaleel McGhee and Daniil Krimer.
Krimer's Relentless Theatre Group, a new Chicago theater company that calls itself a 'theatrical home for public discourse, freedom of expression, and brilliant creation,' is a co-producer.
Dennis Začek, the former artistic director of Victory Gardens for 34 years who retired in 2010, is an executive producer. 'Eddie Torres is my protege,' Začek said in a telephone interview from Florida. 'And it's Mamet.'
In an interview, Krimer said he believed 'Henry Johnson' to be 'one of the best plays that Mamet has written.' The play was generally well-received following its 2023 premiere at the Electric Lodge in Venice, California, starring Shia LaBeouf, although it also flew under many radars, somewhat by design. It has not had any other U.S. productions.
Torres described the play, which has a running time of a little over an hour, as 'interrogating the grey area of morality.' The title character is a college student who is easily influenced by others.
Victory Gardens is calling the staging its '50th anniversary production.' The company has not announced further producing plans, should there be any, although the Biograph, located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, has attracted plenty of attention from potential future mainstage tenants and will likely see more shows in 2025.
Victory Gardens has not produced itself since 2022 following a rift between its board of directors, its resident artists and some of the members of its long-standing playwrights ensemble. The acrimonious dispute, driven by disagreement over the hiring of artistic and executive directors, led to the mainstage theater going dark for years, negatively impacting surrounding Lincoln Park blocks, and the historic building itself falling into some disrepair. The company does not currently have an artistic director or any permanent artistic staff.
Krimer said that the companies were 'rebuilding infrastructure' for this show, although it was not yet clear whether this would be a one-off or the return of Victory Gardens as a viable entity. The Victory Gardens board did not respond to a request for comment. Zacek said that the future remains to be seen.
Mamet, of course, has a singularly illustrious history in Chicago and New York and also is seeing a high-profile revival of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago drama 'Glengarry Glen Ross' on Broadway this spring, starring Kieran Culkin, a recent Oscar winner. However, Mamet's emergent conservative and libertarian politics are at odds with the many progressives in the theater community and certainly the majority of the Chicago artists who protested against the Victory Gardens board, although some of those artists no longer live and work in Chicago.
Mamet sent the following statement to the Tribune: 'Rudyard Kipling wrote, 'We've only one virginity to lose, and where we've lost it, there our heart will be.' I lost it at the Hull House Theater, and at Second City, in the early Sixties, and at St. Nicholas, and the Goodman, and when St. Nicholas left our car barn on Halsted, Steppenwolf took over the space. In short, I'm real real glad to have my work back in the 'hood.'
Tickets ($64-$69) will go on sale 10 a.m. Friday at victorygardens.stagey.net. The show is announced as running through May 4 although an extension is possible.
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