Productions & Events featuring Mike Tutaj

My Kind of Town puts a human face on the police torture scandal that has plagued Chicago for more than three decades. Veteran investigative journalist John Conroy covered the story, challenging public indifference to become one of the leading voices drawing attention to the charges. My Kind of Town is his passionate, groundbreaking new drama revolving around one imprisoned man’s fight for justice, inspired by the stories of numerous victims, police officers, prosecutors and families whose lives have been poisoned by the allegations. With interlocking storylines that humanize the play’s issues of corruption and responsibility, My Kind of Town sets the stage for a new conversation about today’s culture of law and order.

Playwright Winter Miller’s experiences accompanying Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in Sudan inform this provocative account of the horrors of genocide. In a camp for internally displaced persons in Darfur, three lives intertwine — an aid worker trying to save lives, a Darfuri woman searching for safety and a journalist who believes that one front-page story can help stop the madness. Together they tell an intense, inspired-by-real-life story that demands international attention.

Three years after the Watergate scandal ended his presidency, Richard Nixon has agreed to break his silence in a series of interviews with up-and-coming British broadcaster David Frost. Behind-the-scenes it’s a battle of egos for the upper hand in controlling history, but as the cameras roll, the world is riveted by a remarkably honest exchange between one man who has lost everything and another with everything to gain.

From Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men comes this fascinating new play direct from Broadway. Two ambitious visionaries — Philo T. Farnsworth, an Idaho farmboy, and David Sarnoff, head of RCA — battle through corporate espionage, family tragedy, financial disaster and the thrill of discovery for the rights to one of the greatest inventions of all time: the television.

The recipient of more than 30 major awards, including Tony and Olivier awards for Best New Play, The History Boys follows a rambunctious group of clever young men as they pursue higher learning, games, sexual identity and a place at university under the guidance of three wildly different teachers and a headmaster obsessed with results. Set during the 1980s in northern England, it is a hilarious and provocative play about the anarchy of adolescence and the purpose of education — specifically, how history should be taught.

The History Boys premiered in London at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre in May 2004. It played to sell-out audiences for an extended run before touring to Hong Kong, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia in 2006. The play premiered on Broadway in April 2006 and received six Tony Awards. It has also been adapted into a feature film.

From the author of Bee-Luther-Hatchee and Permanent Collection comes this inspired-by-real-life drama. Philadelphia wants to build its new American Museum of Liberty on the grounds of George Washington’s Philadelphia home and slave quarters. Soon a conservative academic star and a liberal political activist are confronting each other with polarizing questions of African-American legacy and identity. Elegantly juxtaposed with this contemporary conflict is the true story of one of Washington’s slaves as she contemplates escape. The result is a thought-provoking drama that asks vital questions about race in America, both where we’ve been and where we go next.

Ideas about war and peace, the uses of science and the exercise of humanity reverberate in this witty, suspenseful, intellectual puzzle of a drama. An American student travels to the former Yugoslavia in 1997 to research the work of Nikola Tesla, the Croatian-born Serbian scientist who invented electricity as we use it today. But as she delves deeper into Tesla’s life and homeland, she is soon forced to make a decision about whether to get involved with the unexpected world of turmoil and suffering around her.

Based on the autobiographical writings of Lillian Hellman, Lillian premiered on Broadway in January 1986 starring Tony Award-winner Zoe Caldwell.

The play is set in the waiting room of a New York hospital where Hellman awaits the death of her longtime companion Dashiell Hammett. As she waits, she reflects on her memories — growing up in New Orleans and New York, her successes and failures as an artist, her testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the myriad people and incidents that shaped her life.

Described as “ribald, poignant entertainment” by Time and a “beautifully constructed union of intellect and emotion” by The Washington Post, Lillianis a compelling portrait of an artist and woman who made unforgettable contributions to the worlds of theatre, literature and politics in America.

Ahead of its time when it premiered in 1959 and now often called a neglected masterpiece, Fiorello! is a classic Broadway musical that features heartbreaking ballads (“When Did I Fall in Love”), rousing chorus numbers (“Politics and Poker”) and melodic showstoppers (“Little Tin Box”) to tell the story of one small, honest man’s struggle against corruption in big-city politics.

With guts and perseverance, Fiorello H. LaGuardia put a bright, new shine on “The Big Apple” and became one of the most enduring figures of the 20th century.

Originally produced to great acclaim in London in 2004 and a subsequent hit Off-Broadway, Guantanamo is based on interviews with the families of men detained in Guantanamo Bay. This stirring drama weaves together riveting personal stories, legal opinion and political debate, putting a human face on the world’s headlines and examining the divisive line between maintaining national security and protecting human rights.

Written by veteran Chicago actor Maureen Gallagher, MARTIN FUREY’S SHOT takes us into the life and work of a photojournalist as he moves between his home in Chicago and the violence of the war zones he covers. Martin tries to balance the horrors he has seen in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and pre-election South Africa with the normalcy he is expected to return to with his family and girlfriend. With his fellow photographers, Martin captures the struggles and dreams of a nation awaiting Nelson Mandela even as his own life falls apart.

A rarely produced gem, THIS HAPPY BREED exposes a different side of Noel Coward. This touching and emotional drama focuses on the conflict, frustration and love within a middle class British family during 20 years of peace between the two World Wars.