Ted Allen turns talents to theatre

Ted Allen, the food and wine specialist from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” is Chicago’s newest TV star. Despite the recognition he’s found on Bravo/NBC, he still makes his home here with his partner of 10 years. While TV may be new for Ted, he’s been a media star for many years as a multiple award winning journalist with a regular gig at Chicago Magazine and national credits for Esquire, GQ, National Geographic Adventure and Men’s Journal among others.

Now Allen is going to try his hand at playwriting: Victory Gardens Theater has named him as one of three celebrities who will pen one-act plays for the annual VG gala benefit (May 7 at the Four Seasons Hotel). The other two are philanthropist Susan Pritzker and Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. Yes, politics makes strange bedfellows. For benefit info, call 773/ 549-5788, ext. 105. The Victory Gardens gala always is a hoot. More than 500 attended last year, raising $170,000 for the Tony Award winning theatre company.

The prognosis is not good for one of the sweetest tough guys the Chicago theatre industry ever produced, Jack Wallace. You might not know the name, but you definitely would know the craggy face of this burly veteran of 1960’s and 1970’s Off-Loop theatre.

Wallace made the transition to a successful character career in dozens of movies and TV guest shots (among them “Lake Boat” and “NYPD Blue”).

Now in his early 70s, he recently was diagnosed with cancer. His friends nationwide have rallied to his support via internet and telephone.

There is much better news about Chicago author Sarah Ruhl, 30, who has won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, one of the richest and most prestigious of all international playwrighting awards. With a cash honorarium of $10,000, the Blackburn Prize is given annually for an outstanding work written by a woman for the English-speaking stage. Ruhl, associated locally with Chicago Dramatists, received the award for “The Clean House,” a play which has not yet been produced. The play concerns a Brazilian woman who is a live-in made for a professional couple, but secretly aspires to be a comedienne. Ms. Ruhl’s plays have been produced in San Diego, London and Los Angeles (where Joyce Piven staged Ruhl’s “Orlando” at the prestigious Actors’ Gang).

In fact, 2004 is proving to be a very, very good year for the current crop of Chicago playwrights. Ann Noble (a runner-up for the Blackburn) saw her play, “The Pagans,” produced Off-Broadway at the Abingdon Theatre Company; Stuart Flack will have his “Homeland Security” produced next season at the InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia; Mia McCullough will see the world premire of her “Echoes of Another Man” at the Actors’ Express in Atlanta just to name a few. Lisa Dillman, Brett Neveu and Claudia Allen also are local playwrights whose work is being picked up all over. Remember those names!

The King is being treated as if he actually wrote the songs he sang in a new Broadway-bound musical, “All Shook Up,” which bills itself as “inspired by and featuring the songs of Elvis Presley.” Of course, he didn’t write any of them. Nonetheless, a primitive rock ?n’ roll story, set circa 1955, has been cobbled together for the show by Joe DiPetro creating a structure for 20 Elvis hits such as “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Burning Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Hound Dog.” Understand, the show isn’t a biography of Elvis, just a hook for his hits. “All Shook Up” will have its world premiere at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, next December 21-January 23, 2005 on its way to Broadway.

Jonathan Abarbanel is theatre critic for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and theatre editor for the weekly Windy City Times newspaper.