A musical by the multi-talented Julia Cameron, who inspired millions with her books on unleashing the creativity within us, has its world premiere Oct. 19 at the Village Players Performing Art Center in Oak Park.
Chicago native Cameron wrote and composed “The Medium at Large” with Emma Lively, her collaborator for the past 10 years.
The author of 30 books, Cameron was in Chicago last January for a book signing, when playwright Karen Gerbig, a former Cameron student, urged her to submit her show to the Village Players.
“We sent it in on a wing and a prayer, and from the beginning of the process, spirits have indeed seemed ?right by our side,'” Cameron says.
Set in fashionable New York in 1938, Tony and Jeff Award-nominated John Herrera plays Bruce Showalter, a gifted medium with one foot in this world and the other in the next.
“The part was made for me,” says Herrera, a Tony-nominated Broadway veteran. “Playing Bruce has given me a dose of optimism. Every once in a while you get a great part like this and it helps you fill your own well.”
The Players’ Carl Occhipinti directed.
“If all goes well, there is talk of a second show being produced at Village Players next season,” Cameron notes.
Cameron and Lively have written four shows together, which are in various stages of development.
