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When We Were Alive
July 8-23, 2005
Friday, July 8 at 8 pm
Saturday, July 9 at 8 pm
Friday, July 15 at 8 pm
Saturday, July 16 at 8 pm
Sunday, July 17 at 2:30 pm
Thursday, July 21 at 8 pm
Friday, July 22 at 8 pm
Saturday, July 23 at 8 pm

Cast
Jim Henry as Michael
Dona Henry as Genevieve
Karl Berner as The Guy
Kerry Hall as The Girl

A WORLD PREMIERE

By Jim Henry
Directed by Traci Brant and Jonni Pera
Assistant Director Andy Urschel

Our revival season ends with a look ahead; the world premier of an evocative play by our own Jim Henry, author of The Angels of Lemnos and The Seventh Monarch. For better or worse, through sickness and health and back again, Michael and Gen dance their way through the Greatest Generation of war and peace, fame and fortune, loving, cherishing and despising each other as long as they both shall live.

Join us after the show for an Opening Night Gala, Friday, July 8, 2005, generously hosted at blue, 200 Billings St., Valparaiso

Local Playwright Jim Henry, and his Wife Dona
Star in When We Were Alive
CTG members, Jim and Dona Henry, have been leading a hectic life for last two years and it's about to get even more hectic. A “husband and wife team” for the past 26 ½ years, Jim and Dona are fulfilling a lifelong dream of appearing on stage together in CTG’s World Premiere of When We Were Alive opening on July 8, 2005 at Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso. Not only are the Henry’s co-starring in the production, Jim also wrote the play.

CTG has produced two of Jim’s previous works, The Angels of Lemnos that won a Jeff Award in Chicago for Best New Play and The Seventh Monarch, also the recipient of many playwriting awards. In January of 2003, CTG board members, Jonni Pera and Traci Brant, asked Jim to write a new play to complete the 50th anniversary season. Jim agreed and recently commented, “ I was very honored that they would ask me to write a show for such a milestone season. I also thought that it took a lot of courage for them to be willing to produce a show sight unseen without putting any restrictions on what I was to write. It’s such a privilege to be a part of a theatre group that trusts me so much as a writer.” When Jim made that promise, he had no way of knowing what was in store for his future.

In November of 2003, Jim took a promotion with his company and packed up and moved his family from Wheeler, Indiana to Los Angeles, California. The move also allowed Jim to be closer to the Hollywood scene since he is also an award winning screenwriter. Jim and Dona have stayed involved with Chicago Street Theatre while living in LA with Dona continuing her job as free press and newsletter writer. Jim made good on his promise and presented the completed script of When We Were Alive to directors Jonni Pera and Traci Brant last year. A staged reading of the play took place in July of 2004 at Chicago Street Theatre.

When We Were Alive is a love story spanning the almost 60 year marriage of Michael and Genevieve Keeler. They share their story with us, reliving events and incidents that shaped their lives and brought them to where they are right now. When We Were Alive, though not autobiographical, shares many similarities to Jim and Dona’s lives, especially their love for dancing. “When I first read this play, I felt like I was Gen, of course 40 years from now. I couldn’t think of a greater challenge or a bigger honor than getting to play her opposite my favorite actor and playwright and working with two of my favorite directors.” said Dona. Now Jim and Dona have been given the chance of a lifetime by two very dedicated, creative and risk-taking directors.

With Jim and Dona still living in Los Angeles, rehearsals will be a challenge. They will return for one weekend in May and another in early June, doing marathon rehearsals while they are home. Jim and Dona will finally make it home the week of June 20th giving them only three full weeks of rehearsal. “This will be a very interesting process and we are very excited about diving in,” says Brant and Pera. “But for now, we are counting on everyone to learn their lines and be ready for challenge.”

When We Were Alive opens on Friday July 8th at Chicago Street Theatre, 154 W. Chicago Street, Valparaiso.

Reservations can be made by calling the Chicago Street Theatre box office at 219-464-1636 or by email at boxoffice@ctgonline.org.

Letter from the Playwright Jim Henry
Last January (2004), I received a long distance phone call to our home in LA. It was a call from Chicago Street Theatre. The Board of Trustees was requesting that I write a brand new play for their 50th Anniversary Season. My first thought was that they were out of their minds. And it is basically still my thought. Before I even wrote the play, or had a title, Chicago Street had voted the play into their season. They even gave it the July ‘05 time slot before I’d even written the 15th page. Traci Brant kept me on a strict schedule of writing forty pages a month (slave driver!), and before I knew it, the first draft was complete about two weeks past deadline in mid-April ’04.

I’d finished a play that no one in the world had ever read, not even my wife. Not one person at Chicago Street knew what the play was about or whether it was any good. All they knew was that they were going to produce it, no matter what it was. They were going to embrace it, nurture it, and present it as yet another example of why Chicago Street is known for their risk taking, cutting edge approach towards theatre.

Chicago Street already took a couple of big risks by producing two previous premiers of my plays, but they certainly have done themselves one better by selecting a play before it was even put to paper. Another example of why I am so proud to be a member of one of the finest theatres in the country. During my travels as a playwright, from LA to NYC, from San Fran to Florida; I can honestly report that Chicago Street has some of the finest talent and technicians in the business.

My youngest daughter, Arlene, recently played Dorothy in a production of The Wizard of Oz in LA. As I watched the end of the play, I was tearing up as I always do when Dorothy realizes that everything she was looking for was always right in her own back yard. I’ve certainly found that to be true. There is no place like home, and my home is at Chicago Street Theatre.

Jim Henry is an award winning playwright and screenwriter whose works have been produced throughout the US and in Australia. He received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work in Chicago for his play The Angels of Lemnos. His other plays include The Seventh Monarch, Widower’s Poker, Busting the Fence, and A Worthy Choice.

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