Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to announce that the Chicago streaming premiere with KB Productions of Call Me Elizabeth, a one-woman show about the early life of Elizabeth Taylor, written by and starring Kayla Boye and directed by Erin Kraft, has been extended through Sunday, May 9. The 70-minute production may be viewed on-demand for $25 per household from PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. Streaming is available up to 72 hours after initial viewing. A portion of proceeds benefits Howard Brown Health and Brave Space Alliance in honor of Taylor's advocacy and activism in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Fresh off her triumph as Best Actress for “Butterfield 8” and recovery from a recent brush with death, Elizabeth Taylor is struggling with her hardest role yet: herself. Through an intimate conversation with a biographer, Call Me Elizabeth examines the movie star’s early life, career and loves as she grapples with the culture of celebrity and her place as Hollywood’s brightest star.
The creative team includes Kayla Boye (“Elizabeth Taylor”), Erin Kraft (director), Christopher Pazdernik (associate producer), Ryan Cassell (cinematographer), Ethan Deppe (composer), Bethany Thomas (vocalist) and Kàchí Mozie (production photographer).
“Like so many, I have long been fascinated with Elizabeth Taylor, a pop culture icon who continues to captivate more than a decade after her death,” said Boye. “In her youth, Taylor epitomized movie stardom, later becoming associated with her fabulous jewels, her popular perfumes and her activism in the fight against HIV/AIDS. But what is the story behind the image? How does a star develop into a legend, and how does that legacy sustain itself? With Call Me Elizabeth, I hope to pay tribute to the life of this extraordinary woman by exploring how the strength of her character enabled her to break barriers with unshakable bravery and with signature style.”
ABOUT CALL ME ELIZABETH
Set in May 1961, the play is inspired by Taylor’s conversations with writer Max Lerner as they discuss plans for a biography. Through a morning session with Lerner at The Beverly Hills Hotel, Taylor rediscovers her sense of self following her 1961 Academy Awards triumph and recovery from a nearly fatal battle with pneumonia. The play examines Taylor’s career, life and loves, chronicling her survival in the face of adversity and tragedy, and illuminating the core compassion of her character that inspired her later activism in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Call Me Elizabeth had its first staged reading on October 1, 2019, at The Den Theatre in Chicago, directed by 12-time Joseph Jefferson Award-winner Hollis Resnik. The play’s 2019 premiere was named one of the Top 3 Solo Events of 2019 by the Michael and Mona Heath Fund.
ABOUT KAYLA BOYE, writer/actor/producer
Kayla Boye is a Chicago-based artist whose recent credits include: Can-Can, Billy Elliot, Little Me (Porchlight Music Theatre), The Wizard of Oz (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), South Pacific (Drury Lane Theatre), Pippin, Mary Poppins (Mercury Theater Chicago), Anything Goes, Gypsy, and Mame (Music Theater Works). Regional credits include: Guys & Dolls, A Christmas Story (Fireside Theatre), On the Town (Capital City Theatre), and seasons with Bigfork Summer Playhouse and The Huron Playhouse. Concurrently, Boye serves as executive director of The Youngstown Playhouse, one of America’s oldest ongoing theatres, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary season in 2024. As an arts administrator, she has worked in development, marketing and finance for Goodman Theatre and Writers Theatre, and served as a producer for Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s Garage Rep series. As a consultant with Artistic Fundraising Group, her portfolio included work for Arts of Life, BrightSide Theatre, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Chicago Mosaic School, Oak Park Festival Theatre and Snow City Arts. Boye holds a BA in Professional Writing & Editing from Youngstown State University and is a Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) through the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance.
ABOUT ERIN KRAFT, director
Erin Kraft is a Chicago-based director whose recent projects include: In A Word (Urbanite Theatre, Sarasota), the world premiere of The Great Inconvenience (Annex Theatre), We Are Proud to Present a Presentation..., The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, Circle Mirror Transformation, Tender, The Lady From the Sea and The Merchant of Venice (The Theatre School). She has directed new play workshops and world premieres for Seattle Repertory Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, 20% Theatre, Prop Theatre, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre and Northwest Playwrights Alliance. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, the SDCF 2018-2019 Observership Class and earned her MFA in Directing from The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she is currently a directing faculty member for the Summer High School Training Program.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER PAZDERNIK, associate producer
Christopher Pazdernik is an artist with “a near encyclopedic knowledge of musicals” (NewCity Stage) based in Chicago. He is Porchlight Music Theatre’s producing associate & company manager and recently directed Porchlight’s virtual offering New Faces Sing Broadway 1987 in fall 2020. Pazdernik has also directed for Porchlight Revisits, Porchlight Music Theatre's lost musicals series, where he has helmed Anyone Can Whistle, City of Angels, Applause, The Rink, Do Re Mi, Merrily We Roll Along (play), Minnie's Boys and Call Me Madam. For three seasons, he was the artistic director of Refuge Theatre Project, where he directed High Fidelity (Jeff Awards: Best Director & Best Musical), The Spitfire Grill, The Last Session and Hands on a Hardbody as well as producing the Chicago premieres of Things to Ruin and Lysistrata Jones. Other credits include work with Round Barn Theatre, Chicago Theatre Workshop, Underscore Theatre Company, Eclectic Theatre Company, Ohio Northern University, three years directing the Non-Equity Jeff Awards and a judge for the 2019 Chicago Music Theatre Festival. Pazdernik also has extensive producing, casting and management experience including First Date (company manager--Chicago premiere), Splintered Soul (company manager--Chicago premiere), Rosencranz Mysteries (associate producer--world premiere), Civility of Albert Cashier (associate producer--World premiere), Miracle (casting director--world premiere) and Call Me Elizabeth (associate producer--streaming premiere). In addition to his work with Howard Brown, he conceived and produced the Chicago Offstage! benefit event in 2020 for Season of Concern and he has captained a team for the AIDS Run & Walk Chicago since 2015, where he is consistently one of the top fundraisers for the event.
ABOUT KB PRODUCTIONS
KB Productions LLC is a female-owned production company based in Chicago. Call Me Elizabeth is its first production and has been presented in Chicago and Youngstown, Ohio.
ABOUT PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
Porchlight Music Theatre is the award-winning center for music theatre in Chicago. Through live performance, youth education and community outreach we impact thousands of lives each season, bringing the magic of musicals to our theatre home at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in the Gold Coast and to neighborhoods across the city. Porchlight has built a national reputation for boldly reimagining classic musicals, supporting new works and young performers, and showcasing Chicago’s most notable music theatre artists, all through the intimate and powerful theatrical lens of the “Chicago Style.”
Now in its 26th season, Porchlight's quarter-century production history includes more than 70 mainstage works with 15 Chicago premieres and five world premieres. Porchlight’s commitment to the past, present and future of music theatre led the company to develop the Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway program series, both quickly becoming audience favorites.
Porchlight's education and outreach programs serve schools, youth of all ages and skill levels and community organizations, most notably the ongoing collaboration with Chicago Youth Centers. Porchlight annually awards dozens of full scholarships and hundreds of free tickets to ensure accessibility and real engagement with this uniquely American art form.
The company’s many honors include 178 Joseph Jefferson Award (Jeff) nominations and 45 Jeff awards, as well as 33 Black Theatre Alliance (BTA) nominations and 12 BTA awards. In 2019, Porchlight graduated to the Large Theatre tier of the Equity Jeff Awards, and was honored with eight nominations in both technical and artistic categories and won three awards in our inaugural year in this tier, most notably Best Ensemble for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
Through the global pandemic, Porchlight has emerged as one of Chicago’s leaders in virtual programming, quickly launching a host of free offerings like Sondheim @ 90 Roundtables, Movie Musical Mondays, Porchlight by Request: Command Performances and WPMT: Classic Musicals from the Golden Age of Radio. For the 2020-2021 season, Porchlight’s fall schedule included all-new ticketed virtual programs including Broadway by the Decade, New Faces Sing Broadway 1987, Chicago Sings Rock & Roll Broadway and the return of The Ruffians’ Burning Bluebeard as well as collaborations with Hershey Felder and L.A. Theatre Works. Porchlight continues to announce new premium and free offerings in 2021.
Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to announce that the Chicago streaming premiere with KB Productions of Call Me Elizabeth, a one-woman show about the early life of Elizabeth Taylor, written by and starring Kayla Boye and directed by Erin Kraft, has been extended through Sunday, May 9. The 70-minute production may be viewed on-demand for $25 per household from PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. Streaming is available up to 72 hours after initial viewing. A portion of proceeds benefits Howard Brown Health and Brave Space Alliance in honor of Taylor's advocacy and activism in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Call Me Elizabeth is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Porchlight Music Theatre is partially supported by generous contributions from Actors’ Equity Foundation; Allstate; Bayless Family Foundation; Michael Best & Friedrich LLP; Chapman | Spingola, LLP; Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation; Gen Ops Plus; Elegant Event Lighting; Glimpse Vision; James P. and Brenda S. Grusecki Family Foundation; Hearty Boys; A.L. and Jennie L. Luria Foundation; The MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince; the Pritzker Traubert Foundation; Ryan and Spaeth, Inc.; Daniel and Genevieve Ratner Foundation; The Saints and Dr. Scholl Foundation.
The season program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency, and by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
Porchlight Music Theatre wishes to thank members of the Matching Gift Corporate Program including abbvie; Allstate; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; Peoples Gas; Pepsico; Polk Bros Foundation and The Saints.