The Chicago Landmark Project concludes Theatre Seven of Chicago's season July 10

In twin shows of six short plays each, Theatre Seven of Chicago has seventy-five artists  presenting  twelve different Chicago neighborhoods in The Chicago Landmark Project. It's fun, enlightening and informative and the last performance is July 10. That show (Program B) will be one-half of the twelve plays and it starts at 2:30 p.m. in the Green House Theater in the downstairs' mainstage, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. It includes "Honore & Milwaukee: Una Mae's Freak Boutique," a Wicker Park retail experience which is portrayed in a most delightful manner.

"Division & California: Steel Flags" and "Logan & Milwaukee: Logan Square Farmers Market" are two reasons to also see Program B. Set in two other familiar locations in our community, these pieces give another view of daily life around us. For the complete schedule of remaining performances click here. Other pieces in Program A are "Lincoln & Webster: Oz Park," "Garfield & State: Midway Liquors" and "Ohio & The Lake: Navy Pier." In Program B there are "63rd & Woodlawn: Robust Coffee Lounge," "Lincoln & Eastwood: Laurie's Planet of Sound," "Devon & Kedie: Thillens Stadium," "63rd & Kedzie: Arab American Coummunity Center" and "Belmont & Western: Riverview Amusement Park.

Initially, Theatre Seven's artistic director Brian Golden wanted to commission one playwright to create  three one act plays, each focusing on a different Chicago location. What ended up happening however was that "after we talked about the project we decided that we wanted to speak, not just about three locations in Chicago but many different communities," explained Cassy Sanders, co-coordinator of the show with Golden.

They emailed writers, either based in Chicago or fans of Chicago. "We thought that we might get six respondents. But, they all responded!  Many of them had written or wanted to write a story about a Chicago location."

"We were asked, 'If there was one spot in Chicago that is a landmark for you, where would you set it and what would it be about?'," explained Laura Jacqmin, playwright of "Logan & Milwaukee." "When I came to Chicago I moved into Logan Square and have lived there ever since. Given time parameters of ten to twelve minutes, I wanted to make sure to tell a whole story. I have seen many musicians at the Logan Farmers Market that are like the ones I wrote about." Not only did Jacqmin write well, but strumming guitarist Victoria Blade was memorable in her portrayal of Lizzie as a rival to Greg Williams' Milton.

Megan Shuchman, Director of "Honore & Milwaukee." said, "The current owner of Una Mae's has been really wonderful throughout the process. We had an onsite reading of the play with her and she has been really really supportive of the project. The actress (Jessica Thigpen) is not portraying her in any way but asked her all sorts of questions in developing her role and that was really exciting." Whatever the process the end result was a hoot!

One of the other excellent plays which is the first in Program A is "State & Madison: The Chicago Grid" by Marisa Wegrzyn and directed by Jennifer Green. Set in 1901, it begins with an exuberant Lyon and Healy clerk Edward Brennan (Joe Zarrow) giving his case for a new street numbering system to his wife Irene (Tracey Kaplan) ..."It would behoove our city to adopt a uniform street numbering system and designate State Street and Madison Street as the baseline...the new numbering system should indicate how far it is from the new State and Madison baseline. Odd and even numbers should be used to indicate on which side of the street that the business or residence is located. Currently a man has to spend half his time studying street guides in order to find his way around town." (Like in NY and Boston!) An historic event comes to life in this charming, witty and fun filled piece.

Founder of the Theatre Seven in 2006, Golden explained that "We try to make work relevant to people living in Chicago now. We make sure that the stories we are telling speak to the diversity of Chicago in 2011. We invest in  the power of local stories. So many stories are about the corner or that street or this person in Chicago. There is a real value and power to that and all too often it gets forgotten in our multi media global world."

It is not forgotten in The Chicago Landmark Project ...see for yourself...but hurry.