1. Playright Tim J. MacMillan is biking from New York City to Chicago to raise money for his play Soul mates don’t die. He’s doing it in ten days, with Soul mates don’t die to premiere at the Chicago Fringe Festival September 3rd. You can follow his travels (which he’s calling “801 miles: a pedaling playwrights’ plea”) on his blog, or just donate. MacMillion told Bob Bullen that the play is “about relationships and how we can be soul mates with anyone — boy or girl, boy or boy, girl or girl, a girl and a cat — you name it. How soul mates can transcend sex or mortal form. Much like most of my work, it’s really ‘out of the box.‘” Fascinating photos of people biking at the jump.

2. Share your thoughts about the Chicago Theatre (anti-) Conference that was this weekend, if you went, and read what others are saying. Also there are photos of people wearing nametags and being very disestablishment. 

3. Carey Perloff of American Conservatory Theater has written a nice essay about local theater and what it really means. “Because we have become such a global culture,” Perloff writes, “and because the American media tends to value theatrical work primarily if it is connected to New York or to London, the term ‘local’ has always been a derogatory one in the regional theater. Indeed, when Bill Ball founded his acclaimed company in 1968 and then brought it to San Francisco, he deliberately called it the ‘AMERICAN Conservatory Theater’ rather than the ‘SAN FRANCISCO Conservatory Theater’, and made sure that his Board of Directors was incorporated in Delaware, not in the Bay Area.” She argues that the company succeeded, ironically, because the work was so local to the Bay Area. 

4. Stephen Sondheim has won the the 2011 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement. His work rolls around Chicago far too often to make a list, but congrats Stevie! 

5. Lookingglass Theatre explains their name, which is from, as you may have guessed, Alice and Wonderland. “Reflected in Lewis Carroll’s achievement is the name and mission of the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Through theatre, which invites, even demands, interaction with its audience, our goal is to fire the imagination with love, to celebrate the human capacity to taste and smell, weep and laugh, create and destroy, and wake up where we first fell --- changed, charged and empowered.” Beau-ti-ful.

Questions? Tips? Email kdries@wbez.org.