Productions & Events featuring James Daniels

Despite the dark subject matters in his plays, Chekhov was a writer of comedies, not dramas. His plays were meant to be satires of the Russian experience. In writing for the turn of the century Russian audience, THE SEAGULL remains peppered with what could be called inside jokes. Chekhov hoped to show his people that as much as they complained about their unhappiness they were just as much the cause of it.

This intriguing story is presented by two of the greatest minds the theatre has ever known, Anton Chekhov and Tom Stoppard. The collaboration spans generations and produces a gem of a play.

On July 10, 1886 Cap Streeter and his wife Maria were returning to Chicago from Milwaukee in their steamboat, The Reutan, when they crashed into a sandbar just off the shore at the end of East Superior Street. He eventually laid claim to the 186 acres of beach bounded by Erie Street to the south, Oak Street to the north, St. Clair Street to the west, and Lake Michigan to the east. Cap’s notable neighbors did not agree that the land Cap claimed was his for the taking. Although Cap lost the the land, he left present day Chicagoans a legacy – the name of the Streeterville neighborhood and a wildly colorful story.