My contribution to the 365 Plays/365 Days Festival

In November 2002, Pulitzer prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks sat down and committed to writing a play a day for the next 365 days. The world premiere of this play cycle, 365 Days/365 Plays, will be performed as a yearlong national festival simultaneously in major cities and communities around the country. From November 13, 2006 to November 12, 2007, over 600 theaters in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Washington D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, the Carolinas, Mississippi River towns, and university campuses will create the largest theater collaboration in U.S. History.

This is where I come in. As an ensemble member for American Theatre Company in Chicago, I was asked to be a part of the podcast version of the Dec 25-31 week of the festival. The plan is that there will be one night of live performances on Friday, December 29th, at 10PM, following a performance of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO SHOW at ATC. General admission to the 365 DAYS event is free.

But, in addition to that, there would be these alternate podcast performances that would be on American Theatre Company's website for that week. I chose to do Days 1 and 2, and basically I sorta took these over and became the actor/director/sound designer for the whole thing. I'm really happy with the way these came out. So I hope you like them too.

The first one is called "Photos With Santa", and stars me as Santa, Toy DeIorio as the Elf, and my wife, Jamie Pachino, as the angry mom, (who is, in fact, a wonderful mother, but nevertheless threw herself into the part with glee.)

Click here to listen.

The second one is called "Even In A House Like This" and features me doing the whole thing. I know that sounds like a sketchy proposition, but trust me on this.

Click here to listen.

Go here to subscribe to the ATC podcast for every day this week or go here to find out more about the festival.

My hats off to Heather Myers-Grum and Wendy Whiteside for putting this together for ATC, and more specifically, for putting up with me taking FOREVER to get this done.


Enjoy!