Behind the ‘Line

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Shedding light underground

A few weeks ago when Wasteland was still in its rehearsal process, TimeLine Artistic Director PJ Powers (PJP) talked with Chicago playwright Susan Felder (SF) about her life as an actor, director and now playwright, the experience of working on her first fully produced play, and getting caught in that hole in the ground. Excerpts of this interview appear in TimeLine’s printed Backstory program book; this is the full version. (PJP) You’ve primarily been an ...
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Timing can be everything

Sometimes it helps to be just a little bit lucky. This notion obviously isn’t new to me—I am continually aware of my great fortune to have been around the right people at the right time to start TimeLine in 1997, and how that unlikely connection ...
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Putting it together

The process of putting up a show at TimeLine is always both exhilarating and exhausting. But that may never be more true than when we produce a show away from our home on Wellington Avenue. It’s so exciting to explore a new space and bring ...
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The beauty around us

TimeLine’s 16th season is underway! We are so excited to share this year’s collection of four plays with you—all brand new to Chicago—and to ignite new conversations about how these historical stories resonate with today’s social/political issues. Three weeks ago, for the second year in ...
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Learning from Living History

As my third season working for TimeLine’s Living History Education Program comes to a close, the school year for the Chicago Public School students we work with has also finished up. Our last student matinee and post-show discussion has come and gone, the final written ...
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Conroy. Kogan. Conversation.

John Conroy (right) and Rick Kogan in conversation at the Chicago Cultural Center, June 25, 2012. We were so thrilled to welcome a nearly full house — about 200 people —  to the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theatre last night for a wide-ranging conversation between journalist/playwright John Conroy and the Chicago Tribune and WGN Radio’s Rick Kogan, about John’s life, career and the genesis of his first play My Kind of Town. Rick led ...
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Extending the streak

The close of TimeLine’s 15th Anniversary season is fast approaching and the end of our fiscal year on June 30 is days away. This season seemed to fly by. It was our busiest yet with 107 additional performances, more than 800 new subscribers and 10,000 ...
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No easy answers

Today is the official Opening Night for TimeLine’s 51st production — the world premiere of John Conroy’s My Kind of Town. In July 2009 I got an email from John, introducing himself and inviting TimeLine’s Company Members to a reading of a play he was ...
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Past, present, future

This week we’re taking a trip down memory lane with an extensive interview with five of TimeLine’s founding Company Members, commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the meeting that started TimeLine on April 9, 1997.  You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 ...
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Auspicious craftsmanship

This week we’re taking a trip down memory lane with an extensive interview with five of TimeLine’s founding Company Members, commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the meeting that started TimeLine on April 9, 1997.  You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here and ...
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