Jenn Adams
Founder, and currently Director of Education and Community Engagement
Favorite Halcyon show you directed:
I loved directing Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It was so fun, and magical, and I made incredible friends. I also learned a lot about directing something that comes from a culture different from my own. And it was such a blast! Dance rehearsals were so fun—I just loved it all.
Favorite Theatre Artist:
I am sitting here trying to narrow down, even just here in Chicago, and I really can’t. I never was one to have “idols” when I was younger, but now that I am “older” I find myself really being impressed but longevity and commitment to the craft and the business by people who stay in it when so many don’t.
But, let me try- Charin Alvarez is incredible, and gets better every time I see her. Barbara Robertson also- her performance in Camino Real took my breath away. Coya Paz works in a style I admire and am only beginning to understand, and I really appreciate how her social conviction is connected part and parcel with her art. John Barry is a director I admire as someone who has a style very similar to my own, Fawzia Mirza is just fearless and vulnerable with every breath. I could watch Victoria Alvarez-Chacon eat her shoes and enjoy it, she is that good. And Rinska Carrasco Prestinary is younger, but insanely insightful and specific in her approach, as well as really wonderful to work with.
If you weren't a theatre artist what would you be:
A teacher probably, or a therapist. And a bartender.
What's your first step for tackling a design/role/play/script?
It really is different for each one. Some scripts need physicalization, some need psychology, some just need to ruminate and watch it unfold… You have to be willing to role with it. Oh that’s funny… ROLE with it. Ha! I didn’t mean to do that, but now I’m keeping it!
What's the strangest thing you've been asked to do onstage?
I was chained up naked in a cave by a wolf in Trickster
I create theatre because...
I Make Theatre on the Outside—To Give... Hope, Justice, joy, revolution, laughter, enlightenment, a moment.
I Make Theatre on the Inside—because the rehearsal room and the stage are the only places where my depression knows it's not welcome. My soul lives in a higher plane of hope that my depression can't touch, and doesn't dare to try.
What does "making it big" mean to you? How do you judge success in a show?
Success in a show is that moment of beauty when it all comes together, and the audience feels the same beauty that the artists do. That is success. I felt it most recently, I think, at the March Ceyx Series.
How do you overcome rejection?
It’s hard, I’m not gonna lie. I’m an empath, and my well runs very deep, so it is hard to let go. You just gotta keep going. Keep working to make something else, something new, something beautiful.