Circle Theatre, formerly of Oak Park and even more formerly of Forest Park, has won the top Non-Equity Jeff Award for its production of “When the Rain Stops Falling.” The honor was announced Monday night in the 40th annual Jeff Awards ceremony, according to Hedy Weiss, the Sun-Times theater critic.
While Circle has since departed Oak Park’s Madison Street Theatre for a new life as an itinerant theater troupe in the city, we’re going to claim some credit for the award since the show was first mounted while Circle was still Oak Park-based.
Weiss describes the play as “Australian playwright Andrew Bovell’s dark, deeply troubling, multi-generational saga that crosses continents, and travels back and forth in time from 1959 to 2039.”
The show was later produced by Circle at the Greenhouse Theater Center in Chicago.
Circle began as a storefront theater in Forest Park nearly 30 years ago. When it lost its lease on its funky space on Madison Street in Forest Park it moved for two years into the Madison Street Theatre, formerly Village Players. Rather than undertake a major capital campaign to establish a permanent home in Oak Park, the company chose instead to stage its shows in various Chicago theaters.
