By Shana SagerContributing Writer
Though some Northwestern students are cast in the play “Dead End,” their careers are just beginning.
The 1935 Broadway hit written by playwright Sidney Kingsley has been revived by The Griffin Theater Company, a group based in Chicago.
It is directed by company member Jonathan Berry, a graduate student in NU’s theatre directing program. The show is running in downtown Chicago at the Theater Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.
Of the 28-person cast, five are NU students and alumni. Berry said he didn’t expect to cast so many NU students due to the citywide audition.
“I think it says a lot about the NU theatre department,” Berry said. “The NU students were the people who ended up wanting it the most and fitting into those characters.”
The play is set during the Great Depression along New York City’s East River, where rich apartments and slums exist side by side. The story centers on the lives of the six Dead End kids, a gang of teens living in impoverished city neighborhoods.
The plot starts to heat up when a former gang member returns and the teens find themselves in trouble.
The original 1935 cast of “Dead End” was made up of inexperienced actors found in local Boys Clubs.
Berry’s cast was discovered in a different way, but it is still the professional on-stage debut for several of the NU students cast in the play.
Russell Armstrong, Weinberg ’06, called the university’s theatre program “a blessing” because he was able to grow as an actor by playing many types of roles at NU.
While Armstrong said he chose to perform in “Dead End” because the play was a professional opportunity with integrity, he added that a large part of his interest came after reading the script and learning abut the characters.
“In any situation, no matter how horrible or miserable, there will always be fun,” said Armstrong, who plays a gang member named Spit. “They’re kids playing, and no level of poverty or oppression can stop the joy of being young.”
Berry chose to direct “Dead End” because he thought it spoke to current social and economic conditions in the United States.
“I read the play last year around the news of Katrina,” Berry said. “The news reports were looking really hard at the economic disparity in New Orleans.
“The people who were most affected were those who had the least, and I think that it brought the question of poverty and success in America back into focus.”
The 1935 production of “Dead End” was the first play to be performed in the White House. After seeing it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a commission on slum housing.
Roosevelt later credited the play for the passage of the Wagner Housing Bill, which called for the development of sanitary and safe low-income housing.
The play’s themes still resonate despite progress since the 1930s, said Communication sophomore Chuck Filipov, who plays Angel, another gang member.
“I think the most important message of the play is to acknowledge poverty and the grotesqueness that still occurs in some of these neighborhoods,” Filipov said.
The show will run through Nov. 12. Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.
Reach Shana Sager at [email protected].
