Our Staff
Eileen Sutz- Founder and Artistic
Director
Eileen has
a BA from the University of Illinois and had been a dancer for 15 years studying with the Chicago Moving Company and the Ed
Parrish Ballet on full scholarship as well as Chicago City Ballet and Homer Bryant Ballet. She also taught ballet.
Eileen has now focused her artistic endeavors on her one true love – acting. She studied with Phillip Van
Lear and John Green at Act One Studios and most recently with Peter Forster, Phyllis Schuringa and Chris Kohn at the Chicago
Center for Performing Arts. Eileen wrote and performed a one-woman show "Flight of the Blue Heron".
She played Luba in Lady and the Clarinet and has appeared in several commercials and independent films throughout Chicago.
Most recently Eileen performed in a staged reading of the film "Mud" at the Act One Theatre. Eileen has traveled
extensively throughout the U.S., Mexico, Europe and the Orient. She's taught languages for ten years at Chicago City Colleges
as well as creating and teaching high school equivalency classes for underprivileged kids and adults in need.
Radica Radovic-Sutz
- (Company Member)
As Fleetwood Jourdain Theatre in Evanston, officially closed it's doors after many successful
years, everyone involved with the company felt very sad. Our last performance was The Cave Dwellers. Phillip Van Lear
was the artistic director of the company. This theatre was a place where people of all races and ethnicities
had found a home to create something beautiful, but no more.
In working on creating a theatre
in the same area in Evanston, we found more challenges than anticipaged. Drugs, loitering and criminal activities plauged
the neighborhood. In the midst of all of this, we tried to start a theatre in the same area and the challenge was much greater
than anticipated. I left war torn Yugoslavia to come to this country and in the midst of this particular battle,
I found a wonderful community of neighbors who reminded me of the people I had left behind.
We all joined forces
and month after month we met with the police department, went to court and fought hard. Building owners like myself guarded
their porches, stood for hours in the areas the drug dealers liked to hang out and we implemented every idea we were given by
the police department. So, we the neighborhood decided to do something ...and we did.
We
went on a mission to see if any funds would be available through the City of Evanston for the theatre. We wanted that to be
a part of the revitalization of West Evanston along with ideas being discussed for the African American Museum, library and
cultural center., In the end we got nothing. Everything else seemed to be more important than the theater. (Thank you
to the Alderman and City officials who gave us their vote and their trust).
Disappointed, but not defeated and
yet again through the support of neighbors, who are our best agents, posting fliers, handing out our cards and looking
forprops...along with family, friends and the visionary help of Mrs. Hill (Director of Family Focus) and an Allstate
Insurance Company grant, we succeeded in bringing the first production of Blue Heron Theatre: Master
Harold.. and the Boys, to our community.
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Eileen
Sutz on the name Blue Heron Theatre
I had an amazing friend named Dominic who really cared about people and had an idea of how things should change in
this world. We spent many years together as close friends and life as well as business partners. Dominic had non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma. When he had been in remission for 4/12 years and we thought maybe he was home free, the cancer came back.
He always told me he'd come back as a bird
or a horse. In 1999 he died at the age of 35. In the winter of 2001, I was driving on a beach in Corpus Christi, TX. I realized
that this amazing bird was flying alongside the car. I had never seen a creature so huge, beautiful and graceful. I stopped
the car in total awe and the bird flew around to my side of the car and stopped about 10 feet from my window. The Blue Heron
and I stared at each other for a good 15 minutes…tears streaming down my face, because I knew who this was. My parents loved Dominic very
much. When I told my mother that we were looking for a name for the theatre, with no hesitation she said "Blue Heron".
Bringing theatre to the community, involving the community in the world and celebrating our cultures and ethnicities was a
dream we had. Dominic's memory lives on through Blue Heron.
Rob Baker (Company Member) has appeared in film
and theater throughout Chicago and oddly, also in commercials in Wisconsin and Florida. He pops up in a
bunch of independent films , including two that are supposed to be released in the near future--and that currently have preview
clips on YouTube.com: "Exit" and "Diacritical." He has been on a couple of documentaries aired on
the History Channel, most recently as hurricane expert Norton Duncan (where he was asked, on the day of shooting to, oh yeah, speak
with a Southern accent). Plays he has been in include "Rascal," "Close Your Eyes," "In
the Garden of Wild Flowers" (an odd but moving play about environmentalist Rachel Carson), and a bunch of other
titles you're probably not familiar with (It is a minor goal of his to only be in plays that no one's ever heard of
before). Thanks to our dedicated and talented actors and director for hanging in there!!!
Sheila
Baker (Company Member) has gone from stage to stage most of her adult life. She was the proud recipient of the
"Best Supporting Actress" award by season ticket-holders for her role in Crossing Delancey. She has
also been in a number of films, two of which were showcased at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago. She
is very much enjoying her current role behind the set as a co-producer of "Art"and a member of the Blue Heron
group.
THANKS TO ROSSANA DISILVIO
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