Join us for TAKING THE LEAP: A Conversation on Bold Moves in Chicago Theater at Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 North Clark Street, 2nd Floor, Chicago. Thursday, October 2, 2025, 7:00 pm.
This panel discussion celebrates the release of The Very Last Production of King Lear by Richard Engling. A book signing will follow. Beverages and cocktails will be available. Admission is free and advance reservations are not necessary.
In the new comedic novel, struggling storefront theater director Dwayne Finnegan finally gets his crack at the big time—directing Lear at the Goodman Theatre. Author Engling will be joined for a conversation led by Mark Larson, author of Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater, with Chicago theater visionaries who’ve made a huge leap in real life. They include:
• Tyrone Phillips, who founded Definition Theatre and recently directed its acclaimed production of Fat Ham at the Goodman.
• Gwendolyn Whiteside, who took American Blues Theater’s budget from zero to a million and built its first permanent home.
• Elizabeth K. Auman, who boosted the fortunes of Victory Gardens and TimeLine and is now overseeing the building of TimeLine’s new home.
• Karissa Murrell Myers, who co-founded Bramble Theatre Company in its gorgeous new Bramble Arts Loft space.
About the Participants
Tyrone Phillips is the founding Artistic Director of Chicago’s Definition Theatre. Named one of Newcity’s Players—the 50 leaders of Chicago’s performance culture of 2022. He recently directed Fat Ham as a co-production with the Goodman Theatre on its Owen Stage. He serves on the Board of Directors for the League of Chicago Theaters and received the Arts Midwest Inaugural Peter Capell Award for Midwestern Creativity and Entrepreneurship.
Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside led American Blues Theater through its reorganization in 2009 and built its annual operational budget from zero to $1 million. She secured the company’s first-ever operating reserve, endowment, and permanent home. Whiteside served on the National Endowment for the Arts panels and a Board member for Network of Ensemble Theaters and League of Chicago Theatres.
Elizabeth K. Auman joined TimeLine Theatre as Managing Director in 2007. She oversaw a tripling of TimeLine’s budget; the expansion of TimeLine’s programming to venues such as the Goodman and the Broadway Playhouse; and multiple awards, including the 2016 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Since 2021, she has focused on managing TimeLine’s project to build its new home in Uptown as Director of New Home Development.
Karissa Murrell Myers is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Bramble Theatre Company. An award-winning Filipino American theatre artist, she was featured in American Theatre Magazine’s “Theatre Workers You Should Know” in 2020 for her advocacy work in casting. Her plays have been produced and/or developed at Goodman Theatre, Alleyway Theatre, Paramount Theatre, Strawdog Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, American Blues Theater, and many others.
Moderator Mark Larson is the author of Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater, for which he conducted over 300 interviews with Chicago theater artists. His new book, Working in the 21st Century: An Oral History of American Work in a Time of Social and Economic Transformation, was released in 2024 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Studs Terkel’s Working. Larson is currently working on a series of interviews with the iconic Broadway composer, John Kander (Cabaret, Chicago, New York, New York).
Richard Engling founded Polarity Ensemble Theatre in 2004 and served as its Artistic Director for twelve years, developing and producing new plays by local playwrights and creating innovative productions of classics. He is the author of six books. His Dwayne Finnegan novels represent the world’s first trilogy for fiction readers interested in the live-theatre world.
About The Very Last Production of King Lear
After brilliant but ill-fated productions of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet, struggling director Dwayne Finnegan finally gets his golden opportunity. He will direct his highly talented (but definitely dysfunctional) actors in King Lear at Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre. However, his lead actor succumbs to terminal confusion, his set designer plans a huge, illegal fire effect on stage, his actors fall in and out of love, his wife Angela consorts with a mysterious curandera, and Dwayne must set everyone straight before opening night.
Not all of us are attending and performing live theatre like we used to. The good news is that the second Dwayne Finnegan novel will soon take us back to the storefront theatre scene. Readers and critics have been loving the first book, 
The image and the title treatment both seemed exactly right. But black and white seemed all wrong. I asked her to bring color to it, suggesting the blue from the background of UNLIKELY ANIMALS and making the mime’s shirt the red of MRS. FLETCHER.
More blurbs and the first advance review came in, and what people wrote about the book was really exciting. Authors and critics were loving the book. Now came the job of editing those blurbs down to the few word phrases that would fit on the back cover. The final result was fantastic, and the book was ready for publication.
