Circle Theatre in Forest Park has reorganized their leadership into a three-person structure, consisting of Kevin Bellie, artistic director; Peter J. Storms, managing director; and the newest member of the team, Jeffrey Cass, who will be the new producing director. Cass, who holds a B.F.A. degree in musical theater performance from Roosevelt University, has extensive acting and directing credits.
“Jeffrey adds a perfect blend of technical theater know-how, business acumen and artistic sensibility to Circle’s leadership team,” said Bellie. “His appointment as producing director completes the carefully selected structure that will take Circle into its future capably and with pride.”
Doing it themselves
Three Oak Park residents, Jim Wilbrot (trumpet), Melanie Frigo (oboe) and Cheryl Flinn (violin) who have been participating in the LaSalle Bank Do-It-Yourself Messiah for a number of years, will be playing in the orchestra again this year. The production, celebrating its 30th year, will take place on Dec. 20 and 21.
Conquering the concerto
The co-winners of the second annual Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest Concerto Competition are Masha Popova and Benjamin Lash. The contest was open to all instrumental musicians who hadn’t completed their senior year in high school at the time of the competition in October, and whose primary residence was within 10 miles of Oak Park. Contestants submitted a recording, and all finalists played one movement of a solo instrumental concerto of their choice at the finals, held at Concordia University. The winners were awarded $250 each and were invited to play with the symphony at the Family Concert on Jan. 15, 2006.
The other finalists were: Jacob Lessing, Crescentia Stegner-Freitag, Sang-Joon Won, Benjamin Mildenhall, David Rubin, Rachel Brade, Shelley Liu, Darcy Hargadon and Reem Worley.
Festival performers
Members of the Roosevelt Concert Band from Roosevelt Middle School in River Forest performed at the 2005 Chicagoland Band Festival at West Leyden High School in Northlake. They were selected after auditioning with hundreds of the best Chicago-area middle-school band students. Representing Roosevelt were Molly Campbell, Marita Farruggia, Christopher Farruggia, John Hazinski, Jing Yi Liu, Kate Liu, Pierce McClanahan, Jack O’Brien, Andrew Wang and Daniel Yerkes. Kate Liu (flute) and Pierce McClanahan (French horn) were also named “first chair,” with the highest audition scores of anyone on their instruments.
A Schutte and a score
Oak Park’s Scott T. Schutte, a partner in the Chicago law firm, Jenner & Block, has been honored with IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Young Alumnus/a Award for 2005. Schutte’s practice focuses on insurance coverage and class action defense and other litigation matters. Last year he was the lead attorney in a case involving a Texas Death Row inmate who had been sentenced to death for a crime he committed when he was 17 years old. He was permanently removed from Death Row after the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute juvenile criminals. Schutte’s professional activities include serving on the advisory board for the Center for Justice in Capital Cases at DePaul University College of Law, and co-chairing insurance law committees for the American Bar Association and Chicago Bar Association.
Learning technology
Don Sorsa of Oak Park has joined The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s management team as director of learning technology. He will be working with the faculty to build educational systems that enhance the teaching and learning of psychology, and will also develop programming for the Institute for New Leadership. Sorsa has spent the last 10 years developing educational technologies and teaching online; his multimedia program, English Insight, was developed for free worldwide distribution and is widely used by ESL students in Russia, China, South Africa and other countries.
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