Lookingglass Theatre Company announces a one-of-a-kind experience brought to you by a one-in-a-million theatre company…and you don’t even have to be there in person! It’s the 2021 gglassquerade unGALA, a virtual event in support of the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company.
Stay home, stay safe, stay cozy, and all the while, sustain America’s most innovative ensemble-based theatre. We’ll bring the ritz right into your residence as Ensemble (not) hosts Anthony Fleming III and David Schwimmer tour you through an evening of our former majesties and future feats of imagination. Featuring (dis)appearances by Lookingglass Ensemble Members, along with (no) surprise celebrity visits, the unGALA promises to make presence out of absence the way only Lookingglass can. Won’t you join us (by keeping in place)?
More information and register at lookingglasstheatre.org/ungala
33 years. 70 world premieres. More than 55,000 reached through community engagement. And a Tony Award. These are but a few measures of Lookingglass Theatre Company’s impact on Chicago, the American theatre, and on art itself. Through the decades, Lookingglass has proved to be a connector, a community enricher, a recovery agent, a solution seeker, an experience maker, and an examiner and celebrator of the human experience. It is an institution well worth supporting in any year, and after the ravages of the past year, it is an institution that will be crucial to our social and cultural rehabilitation. As a non-profit theatre, Lookingglass relies on your donations. We cannot inspire without your investment – it’s as simple and as stark as that. Help us, then, rebuild the communal imagination the way only Lookingglass can.
Bring the full virtual gala experience directly to your home! We’re partnering with Rick Bayless and Topolobombo to delight sponsors of $2,500 and above with delectable Mexican cuisine (including drinks!).
Explore Sponsorship Opportunities and Benefits
About the Artists
Anthony Fleming III- Lookingglass Ensemble Member and (not) host
Anthony Fleming III is a Chicago-based stage, film, TV actor and voiceover artist, who joined the Ensemble in 2013. His Lookingglass credits include: Moby Dick, Big Lake Big City, Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting, Fedra: Queen of Haiti, The Arabian Nights, 1984, Icarus, Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Race, and 555 performances of Lookingglass Alice. Other Chicago theatre credits include: Camino Real (Goodman Theatre), Division St: America and The Glass Menagerie (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Jitney and Fences (Court Theatre), Hambone, Free Man Of Color, and Denmark (Jeff Nomination for Best Actor, Victory Gardens Theater), Journal of Ordinary Thought and Cut Flowers (Chicago Theatre Company), Orlando (Piven Theatre), and The Cider House Rules (Famous Door Theatre). Regional credits include: Arizona Theater Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, McCarter Theatre in NJ, New Victory Theater in NY, Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Syracuse Stage, and Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. TV credits include: Prison Break (Seasons I and II) and The Beast.
When not onstage, Anthony works as a voiceover artist with Naked Voices and as a fitness instructor. He is a proud member of Actors Equity.
David Schwimmer- Lookingglass Ensemble Member and (not) host
David Schwimmer was born in New York, raised in Los Angeles, and trained at Northwestern University in Chicago. He is a co-founder of the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company, where he has acted in and directed many productions, including: Plantation!, The Jungle, Big Lake Big City, Trust, Our Town, West, The Master and Margarita, Eye of the Beholder, The Odyssey, The Idiot, Of One Blood, and his adaptation with Joy Gregory of Studs Terkel’s book Race. He starred in the premieres of d-girl (Century City Playhouse) and Turnaround (Coast Playhouse) in Los Angeles, Glimmer Brothers (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Some Girls (Gielgud Theatre) in London, the revival of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Broadway), and Detroit (Playwrights Horizons). David last directed Sex with Strangers for the Second Stage Theatre in New York.
David starred as Robert Kardashian in Ryan Murphy’s anthology miniseries, American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, for which he received an Emmy Award Nomination and recently Produced Alexander Zeldin’s play Beyond Caring with Lookingglass.
David’s notable television and film credits include: Intelligence, The Iceman, Nothing But The Truth, Madagascar I, II, & III, Duane Hopwood, Big Nothing, Band of Brothers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Days Seven Nights, Apt Pupil, The Pallbearer, and the hit comedy series Friends, for which he received an Emmy Award Nomination. His film and television directing includes: Friends, Growing Up Fisher, Since You’ve Been Gone, Run Fat Boy Run, the HBO series Little Britain USA, and Trust starring Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, and Viola Davis.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
Presenting Sponsor
BMO Harris Bank
Grand Benefactors
Exelon
Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation
Lee and Sandy Golub
Michael Harrington and Anne Pramaggiore
Event Sponsors
Conagra
Richard Chapman
Shawn M. Donnelley
Rachel Kraft and Doug Brown
Artistic Advocates
Lisa Naparstek Green and Howard Green
Mesirow Financial
Nancy and Michael Timmers
Gala Patron
Aaron and Whitney Fershee
Restaurant Partner
Topolobombo
About Lookingglass Theatre Company
Inventive. Collaborative. Transformative. Lookingglass Theatre Company, recipient of the 2011 Regional Theatre Tony Award, was founded in 1988 by eight Northwestern University students. Now in its 32nd Season, Lookingglass is home to a multi-disciplined ensemble of artists who create story-centered theatrical work that is physical, aurally rich and visually metaphoric. The Company, located in Chicago’s landmark Water Tower Water Works, has staged 70 world premieres, received 161 Joseph Jefferson Award Nominations, and produced work all across the United States. In 2016, Lookingglass received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions and in 2017, was the recipient of the League of Chicago Theatres’ Artistic Achievement Award.
Lookingglass continues to expand its artistic, financial, and institutional boundaries under the guidance of Artistic Director Heidi Stillman, Executive Director Rachel L. Fink, a 29-member artistic ensemble, 22 artistic associates, an administrative staff, and a dedicated board of directors led by Chair Nancy Timmers and President Richard Chapman.
For more information, visit lookingglasstheatre.org.
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