Lexis Praxis VI: Chicago Writers Taken to Stage
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In contrast most of our local writers are all but invisible to top-flight Chicago theater companies. When was the last time Steppenwolf produced an original work by a Chicago playwright who isn’t Frank Galati? Of course, a lot of our local playwrights aren’t very good. But the same holds for the sacred cows that keep lumbering over to our trough from NYC. And how long do you think it will be before a local writer gets a chance to lay a big money-losing stinker on the stage the way John Guare did earlier this year for Remains?
For the last six years the tiny Zebra Crossing Theatre has been matching up local writers with local directors to create works that are wholly Chicago creations. This year’s edition of “Lexis Praxis” lacks a unifying theme–the subtitle “Chicago Writers Taken to Stage” is really more of a mission statement for the whole series–but it does contain a few gems, most notably Lisa Buscani’s wonderful but still ragged Drag and Marc Smith’s touching one-man play Flea Market.
