#anitadeely

65 Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh dir Anita Deely for Strawdog Theatre, In the summer of 2000, I was invited to join Strawdog theatre company and I said yes. Because I had a lot of friends in Strawdog. And after I said yes, I went to all of them and said “Hey! So excited to work with you!” and they all said “I just went on leave.” So Julie Stanton was the my other “class” mate and we brought the total roster up to 12 active ensemble members, most of whom I did not know. Luckily it would all turn out well. One of my first official ensemble tasks was being the Tech Director for Disco Pigs. Michelle Caplan was the set designer and we knew each other from my Steppenwolf carpentry days, and she really wanted a dance floor that lit up - and even though I was far from the best carpenter in the world, I said “I’ll make that happen.” Does Strawdog have a table saw? Yes. Cool. Go to Home Depot, buy the lumber, they ask you need any of that cut down? Nope, got a table saw. Got to the theatre loaded all the lumber up the stairs got to the table saw, and one of those ensemble members who just went on leave and moved back to Texas had taken it apart. So now I had to cut down 200 feet of 12x to 9x by hand. I was also under considerable time constraints because they had rented the space out until three days before tech began. So I lived at the theatre for three days, working 18 hour days and sleeping in the green room. But it got done. And it worked! I also built it as one giant piece so it was impossible to get out the door so it lived there for several years. #retrospective #discopigs #endawalsh #anitadeely #michellecaplan #Tablesaw #olemusty #dancefloor #letsgodisco (at Chicago-n Broadway) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6WJhBqp6xq/?igshid=o51gx85puy17

63 Gone Home by John Corwin dir Anita Deely for Wax Lips Theatre Company at Strawdog Theatre. Gone Home is the story of Jack, a writer who left home in a cloud of animosity when he was 18 and never returned home, until now, 12 years later. As the play begins, he’s sitting on a couch with his wife, who comes in and out, and the play is mainly one on one conversation between Jack, his father who was always on the road, his mother who was a dominating presence in his life and his sister, who has a hard time dealing with her emotions. The fact that his parents look his age and dress from a bygone time is the first indication of something wrong. I loved this show. I rarely get to a) play a good person or 2) play a normal person. I rarely get to do small or intimate. And that’s what this show was, people having conversations steps away from the audience. I never moved from the couch (for script reasons that become obvious as the play goes along.) One night we had a talker in the audience (naturally related to someone who worked on the show) who would say things like “Oh she doesn’t like that!” when Suzi, the sister got upset. But the best was, one of the running bits in the show, is when my father shows up, he either eats food or eats my food. When Kurt came out with a sandwich, from out of the audience, clear as a bell you just heard “Oh he’s got that sandwich! He’s not gonna give him ANY of that sandwich!” #retrospective #1999 #waxlipstheatrecompany #johncorwin #anitadeely #strawdogtheatre (at Chicago-n Broadway) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6QU8kJpQtW/?igshid=34rw9ckr7kxc