“In contemporary theater we’re seeing a wonderful mix of disciplines,” explains David Petrarca, the remarkable young director currently in residence at the Goodman Theatre. “Interdisciplinary work, while it has always existed, has been historically relegated to the avant-garde. Now a theater audience comes to expect a dance-theater-music performance. All of that cross-fertilization of the arts is tremendously healthy.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Petrarca’s career has ranged widely, both geographically and stylistically, from forming his own experimental theater collective in New York, to serving as assistant artistic director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, to directing As Is in its first Washington, D.C., production. “The fact that I was asked to do the first production of an AIDS play in Washington attracted me to the work,” he says of As Is. “It was an incredible experience working on the play, knowing that the policymakers of the country were coming to see it.”
Now Petrarca’s fellowship allows him to spend a year at one of several major theaters in the country. He chose the Goodman because he wanted to explore its alternative style of artistic management; he’ll not only assist directors but also contribute to the theater’s artistic agenda.
Despite the variety of theatrical experiences in Petrarca’s past, he seems guided by one clear principle: to find “a balance between the word and the image.”
Cale will perform a collection of original stories, The Redthroats, centering on a working-class British family called the Weirds. Later performances are by Avner the Eccentric, a clown, acrobat, mime, and one-man circus, and Fred Curchack, whose piece Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a one-man version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
