Carter and Cornelius Join Tony-Winning Victory Gardens
By Kenneth Jones
12 Sep 2007
Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater has announced the appointment of Chicago playwright Aaron Carter as the company's new literary manager and Robert Cornelius as arts education director.
Cornelius brings with him more than 20 years experience as an actor, singer and educator.
Carter, 32, will take over the position held for two years by Andrea J. Dymond, who has accepted a teaching position in the theatre department at
Columbia College in Chicago. Dymond, currently staging Victory Gardens'
2007-2008 season opener The Defiant Muse by ensemble playwright Nicholas A.
Patricca, will remain with Victory Gardens as resident director.
"I've known Aaron for years, and I have the highest respect for him as an
individual and as an artist," stated Dennis Zacek, artistic director of Victory
Gardens Theater. "We are very fortunate to have someone as well qualified
as Aaron in this position. He brings strong administrative skills as well as
a keen artistic insight since he is a playwright himself."
As literary manager, Carter will supervise the reading of scripts submitted to Victory Gardens, as well as establish and maintain relationships with
playwrights and agents. Carter will also oversee Victory Gardens' Readers
Theater program, which assists playwrights in the development of their work
by allowing them to hear their plays read aloud by actors in front of an
audience.
Plays are usually by Chicago writers and may be given full
productions at a later date. Readers Theater presentations are free and
open to the public.
"This is a great opportunity. I'm excited to implement literary management
practices that I've wanted when on the playwright's side of the submission
process," stated Carter. "It was an internship with Victory Gardens that first brought me to Chicago almost 10 years ago. I've been hoping for some
time to get a chance to join the team."
Carter, originally from Ohio, received his MFA in Playwriting from Ohio
University. His mentor was Charles Smith, head of the university's
Professional Playwriting Program, and a member Victory Gardens Playwrights
Ensemble. His paternal grandfather was a black Baptist preacher, and his
maternal grandparents were white vaudeville performers. The influence of his
ancestors is seen in Carter's Aaron's work which focuses on "race, faith, and obscure
performance skills," according to VGT.
His plays include Panther Burn, which was produced in
October 2006 by MPAACT at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, and was nominated
for the Black Theater Alliance's "Best Writing of a Play" Award. His short
play Kegger was part of Collaboraction's Sketchbook 2006, and First Words
was presented at Around the Coyote reading series. Swamp Baby was read in
the Side Project's Harvest Series in Chicago, as well as the Soho Think Tank
Sixth Floor Reading Series in New York. If Condition was produced as part
of Manhattan Rep's Winterfest, also in New York.
His latest play, Iowa
Akhbar, will be presented in a workshop as part of the KNF Series in New York. The play was originally read at Chicago Dramatists, and further
developed at Grinnell College.
He is also the creator of the blog New
Terminology For Dramaturgy, http://www.ntfd.blogspot.com.
One of Chicago's most respected Off-Loop theatres, Victory Gardens is
primarily devoted to new work, and since its founding in 1974, the company
has presented more world premiere mainstage productions than any other
Chicago theatre. Thirty-three years later, Victory Gardens still emphasizes
the work of Chicago writers and its own 12-member Playwrights Ensemble, a
relationship that helped Victory Gardens receive the 2001 Tony Award for
Regional Theatre.
In September 2006, Victory Gardens opened a new state-of-the-art
mainstage in Chicago's historic Biograph Theater, located at 2433 N. Lincoln
Avenue, in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood.
For complete information, visit
http://www.victorygardens.org.
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