Joseph Jefferson Award-winning director Gary Griffin has been appointed co-artistic director of the Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park, IL, a suburb just north of Chicago. He will share duties with current A.D. Eileen Boevers. Since 1993, Griffin has been artistic director of Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, where he directed several shows, including South Pacific, Gypsy, and The Most Happy Fella. He has been an artistic associate of Apple Tree for eight years. Griffin must have considered his relationship to the Apple Tree a lucky one, since both of his Jeff Awards for direction were won for work at that theatre: 1992's Stand-up Tragedy and Assassins in 1997.
Since the year began, Griffin has directed at Apple Tree twice, staging the play The Sum of Us and the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. Other 1998 credits for the busy director include Beautiful Thing at Famous Door and Putting It Together at the Court Theatre.
-- By Robert Simonson
