About Spotlight

About Spotlight

Spotlight Theater is a performing arts company that was founded in 2005 by Jane Cox, Jeff Gamlin, Bryce Gardner and Britney Louise. Our goal is to provide a unique selection of quality theatrical productions, big and small, to the Chicagoland area. Most of our productions have been staged in the south suburbs, which we consider our home; we occasionally perform elsewhere, as was the case with our production of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of The House of Usher, which was performed at The Galaxie, an art gallery/performance space in the heart of the city. Most of our productions are staged at Governors State University; larger productions have been staged elsewhere. We have performed shows with casts as small as four—as in the case of our critically acclaimed production of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-nominated Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and our best-attended drama Veronica’s Room—and as large as a cast of 50 in our all-kids production Annie Jr.

We bring a wide selection of genres and interpretations to the stage in an attempt to provide an alternative to the usual fare of musicals and comedies. A few examples of our more unusual productions include 1) our 2006 debut of the first non-equity production in the State of Illinois of the seminal tale of alienated youth, The Graduate; 2) our modern interpretation of Shakespeare's Othello, featuring a twist in the casting of Othello as a woman in a homosexual relationship with Desdemona; 3) the aforementioned Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, rarely performed by non-equity theatres; and 4) the rare opportunity to see horror on stage in Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. Our 2008-2009 season saw us visiting the thriller genre, which gave us Patrick Hamilton's Angel Street (also known as Gaslight), the longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history. Having had such success with Angel Street, we decided to bring another of Hamilton's suspenseful shows to the stage with Rope, a thriller best known for its film adaptation by the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Traditionally, the roles of the two young killers are played by men. We added a twist in this production, too, by featuring a female in the role of the mastermind of the two killers, offering audiences a glimpse into the mind of a female sociopathic murderer.

As much as we enjoy bringing good drama to the stage, we also like to laugh and tap our toes. In an effort to see all genres represented—because for us, variety is truly "the spice of life"—we occasionally foray into the popular realm of comedies and musicals, as in our recent staging of Lionel Bart's ever-popular Oliver!; the immensely hummable Annie Jr.; and our 2009 spring production of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest.

Our successful 2009-2010 season focused on the Great American Writer with works by three of America’s most celebrated writers: Veronica’s Room by Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby, Deathtrap); Play it Again Sam by Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan and Don’t Drink the Water) and The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie).

Our 2010-2011 season opened with the existentialist classic No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. Our 2011 winter production offered audiences a double helping of drama with Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer and Gary Sunshine’s Al Takes a Bride. With gay marriage still opposed and, in fact, illegal in most states, this timely play made an important but controversial statement, and is an equally important part of Spotlight's agenda to educate and promote open-mindedness and tolerance in the community. Finally, Eric Bogosian's Pulitzer-Prize nominated Talk Radio was an entertaining and effective closer to the season. Spotlight's plans for the future include, among the usual selection of unique and rarely performed gems, the production of original plays by promising local playwrights.

Because Spotlight operates independently of a park district, school or other organization, we rely on ticket sales and donations from patrons to survive. We operate independently because we strive to bring courageous and provocative entertainment to the south suburban community and believe that creativity should never be censored or restricted. We strive to present theatre from alternative viewpoints and encourage free thinking and open-mindedness in our community. Beyond that, we strive to challenge all of our actors and artistic crew members with material that most community members of the Chicago Southland would never have an opportunity to tackle so close to home.

Spotlight is a registered charitable corporation, and we contribute to worthy causes. For example, in 2009, Spotlight donated half the proceeds from our show Love… American Style! to Redeemer Lutheran Church to benefit organizations such as PADS for the homeless and Alcoholics Anonymous.