Mission Statement

Stormfield Theatre is a not-for-profit theatre dedicated to living playwrights and their works. A home for the development and production of brand-new, and newly established work, Stormfield encourages an ethnically and culturally diverse community of artists and audiences united in support of emerging and veteran dramatists who bring to the stage stories that illuminate our times while they delight and entertain.

In addition to development and production, its mission includes the establishment of the Stormfield Theatre School, where children and adults will be able to take classes in technical theatre, acting, directing, and playwriting. As part of its education department, Stormfield is an incubator for young theatre artists, and, by granting internships, will serve as a bridge from the academic life to the professional career.

Values

Stormfield theatre is dedicated to the following values:

• Stormfield will provide quality in all its practices, be they artistic, administrative, or educational.
• Stormfield will perform with integrity in all its practices, be they artistic, administrative, or educational.
• Stormfield is an equal opportunity employer.
• Stormfield will serve the culturally and ethnically diverse community of mid-Michigan.
• Stormfield will provide assistance to the under-served in the mid-Michigan community.
• Stormfield will partner with other arts organizations for the greater good of the local arts community whenever possible.
  

Kristine Thatcher
Artistic Director, Stormfield Theatre

Kristine Thatcher is a proud member of the 2001 Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble. Her latest work, Voice of Good Hope, which is based on the life of the late Texas congresswoman, Barbara Jordan, premiered there and was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. Her first play, Niedecker, premiered at the BoarsHead Theater in 1986 and made its Chicago debut at The Writer's Theatre, with Ms. Thatcher appearing in the title role. Niedecker was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the National Arts Club's Joseph Kesselring Award, and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. Her fourth play, Emma's Child, which was commissioned by and had a nine-month run at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, played to critical acclaim at Victory Gardens. Emma's Child is the winner of the 1995 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a 1997 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, the 1997 RESOLVE Award for Excellence in the Arts, the 1997 Cunningham Prize for Playwriting from DePaul University, and the 1997 After Dark Award for Outstanding New Work. Under Glass, a companion piece to Emma's Child, was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and premiered at Luna Stage in New Jersey earlier this year. Her play Apparitions was commissioned by and premiered at Peninsula Players in Door County. Among Friends was commissioned by and premiered at Victory Gardens and is the winner of the 1997 Scott McPherson Memorial Award. She is currently at work on A Fair to Middling Woman, a play based on the life of Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumnesnil, the wife of Samuel Beckett, for Victory Gardens.

She has also written for television and video. Current credits include narration for the Joffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker, which airs annually across the nation in mid-December. She is the recipient of the 2002 CINE Golden Eagle Award and the Communicator Crystal Award for Best External Communication and Fund-raising for On The Shoulders of Giants, Lincoln Park Zoo; and the 2002 Communicator Crystal Award, and the 2002 Silver Plaque Award at the Chicago International Film Festival for Best Internal and Employee Communication for LaSalle Bank's Risk-E Business.

Ms. Thatcher is also an actress and director. She has performed the roles of Terri in Jeff Sweet's Immoral Imperatives for Victory Gardens, and Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth for First Folio Shakespeare Festival. Her other Chicago credits include Hannah Jarvis in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia for the Goodman Theatre, Barbara Hoyle in Jon Robin Baitz's Three Hotels for Apple Tree Theatre, Sarah Bernhardt in John Murrell's Memoir for Writers' Theatre, Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Regan in King Lear, and Kate in Taming of the Shrew for Chicago Shakespeare Theater. She has directed for Peninsula Players, City Lit Theatre, A Crew of Patches, Oak Park Shakespeare Festival, Madison Repertory Theater, and Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Most recently, she directed Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight for Chad Badgero's Peppermint Creek Theatre.

Why Stormfield?

Stormfield draws its name from three sources — a famous story by Mark Twain, the home Twain built for himself in Redding, Connecticut, and a company that was an important part of Chicago's theatre renaissance.

The Stormfield Theatre of Chicago was the brainchild of Terry McCabe, an established Chicago theatre artist, teacher, and author. Dedicated to new works, its physical dissolution in the 1980's was mourned by the community of Chicago playwrights. However its spirit lives on in the minds and hearts of many.

It is a strikingly appropriate name for a theatre. After all, when you go to a play, you sit in an intimate group and share the turbulence and exhilaration of a storm.

Written by Mark Twain and published in 1909, "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" combines the satiric and the tall tale to describe Captain Elias Stormfield's cosmic and illuminating flight to heaven. Written some years before it was finally published, it was one of the author's favorites:

"I was never willing to destroy 'Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. Now and then in the past thirty years, I have overhauled my literary stock and transferred some of it to the fire, but 'Stormfield's Visit' always escaped. I am obliged to suspect that the hand of providence was in it. Secretly and privately, I liked it. I couldn't help it." —Mark Twain

He named his last residence (in Redding, Connecticut) Stormfield, and died there in 1910.