If you’d like to take a break from the Big Blue Guilt-Mongering Hand of Chase Community Giving, there are other worthy arts-related causes. (Though of course we don’t play favorites and hope that many small Chicago companies get a chance to get their mitts on some of that corporate lucre—and then turn around and do some scathing Brechtian pieces on the evils of Big Banks, because why not?)

Mookie Jam Foundation, started up by Chicago actress and A Red Orchid Theatre ensemble member Mierka Girten, celebrates 10 years of helping artists with multiple sclerosis with a benefit on July 28 at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln. (That’s what we old-timers still think of as “the Three Penny building.”) Girten, who chronicled her own struggles with MS in her one-woman show With or Without Wings, has managed to raise over $50,000 to date in order to help 10 different artists in the U.S. The benefit, with the theme of “The Decade of Decadence,” helps provide funds this year for Stacie Anderson, a writer and jewelry maker. Tickets are $40 in advance, $50 at the door, and include entertainment from TJ and Dave, Red Orchid’s Youth Ensemble, and Factory Theater , as well as bands, a silent auction, and a raffle. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the shebang begins at 8 p.m. You can order tix online.

On July 31, you can help raise funds for a fledgling indie motion picture, Using, created by and starring Tom O’Quinn (brother of Terry of “Lost” fame). Fresh Bread Productions and Phenom Features, based in central Illinois, are teaming up for this project about a father’s desperate struggle to save his addicted daughter. Terry O’Quinn will be the special guest at the party at the Park West, which runs 8-11 p.m. Tix range from $200 VIP to $50 for student/industry, and can be ordered at http://benefitforusing.eventbrite.com/. An advance online auction also allows you the chance to bid on a private dinner before the benefit with Terry O’Quinn (who just nabbed an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor in a drama). No word on whether or not the dinner will include private insights into just what the hell the Lost finale was all about.

On Monday, July 12th, Steppenwolf Theatre hosts a memorial for the late and beloved Guy Adkins, who died of colon cancer on May 12. “No Regrets: A Celebration of the Life and Love of Guy Adkins” opens with cocktails in the lobby at 6 p.m. and moves into the theatre at 7 p.m. Seating is open—first come, first serve—and the lineup of artists paying tribute to Guy is stunning, including Heidi Kettenring, Ross Lehman, Timothy Edward Kane, Kate Fry, Hollis Resnik and Larry Yando. Doug Peck provides musical direction, and the event was created by longtime Adkins collaborator Tina Landau and by Adkins’ partner, Sean Allan Krill. Krill will return to the local stage this September in She Loves Me at Writers Theatre . More information about the celebration of Adkins’ life is at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124149030957109&ref=ts.

And this Saturday, Village Players Theatre in Oak Park hosts a memorial for playwright Keith Anwar, who succumbed after a brief battle with liver cancer on July 5. Anwar had just received Polarity Ensemble Theatre’s Dionysos Cup for his play Kabulitis in June. The memorial will run 3-4:30 p.m., with a reception to follow. Our condolences to Keith’s family and friends.

If you’re as fed up with cancer as I am (and why wouldn’t you be?), you may appreciate a unique way to raise funds for the American Cancer Society’s Carry On Fund, brought to our attention by Zev Valancy, who wears many hats (critic for Center Stage, proprietor of his own blog and ensemble member with Stage Left Theatre ). Valancy’s friend Tim Brayton, a survivor of testicular cancer, has a blog wherein, if you donate $15 or more to the ACS campaign, he will write a film review or essay of your choosing. Check it out at http://antagonie.blogspot.com/. Who will be the first Chicago theatre blogger to follow suit? (Don Hall—I’m looking at YOU!)

Tonight, the lovely Tom Mula receives the Arden Award from Oak Park Festival Theatre , right before the company’s current show, Of Mice and Men. This is the second year OPFT has handed out the trinket—Richard Christiansen, former theatre critic for the Chicago Tribune, was the inaugural recipient. In other OPFT news, Lisa Gordon (former proofreader for Performink) has taken over the reins as managing director from Galen Gockel. And the 35-year-old company hosts a “Family Reunion” on July 25 at 5 p.m. for patrons and artists past and present to mingle in lush Austin Gardens before the next show, Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Stephanie Kulke announces that she is stepping down as director of marketing and communications for Remy Bumppo after eight years in order to launch her own marketing and media relations firm, Kick Start Marketing Chicago. She will still be the company publicist through her new firm, and Chelsea Keenan, formerly of Next Theatre , will take over the in-house spot vacated by Kulke.

Lots of exciting new season announcements, but a few extensions to report as well. Writers Theatre has announced one final extension for A Streetcar Named Desire—it will now run through August 15. Raven Theatre ’s production of The Odd Couple goes through August 27. Theo Ubique has added five shows for Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen, which will now go through August 15. And The Gift Theatre Company ’s hit production of Andrew Hinderaker’s Suicide, Incorporated, starring artistic director Michael Patrick Thornton, who has received wider notice recently through his recurring role as Dr. Gabriel Fife in ABC’s “Private Practice,” now goes through September 12. Mike is also scheduled to film a role in Ron Howard’s Cheaters, shooting in Chicago this summer.

Now that the war in Afghanistan is officially the longest conflict in United States history, what better time to re-visit what is in the eyes of many the greatest anti-war play ever written? Georg Buchner’s unfinished Woyzeck, written toward the end of his life in 1837, forms the basis for “The Woyzeck Project,” featuring three different takes on the story from About Face Theatre , Collaboraction , and The Hypocrites , all produced at Chopin Theatre. Collaboraction remounts 2005’s Guinea Pig Solo by Brett C. Leonard, with Dale Rivera and Sandra Marquez back in their original roles. About Face presents Sally Oswald’s Pony, which brings a transgender perspective twist to the tale of a soldier and his philandering wife, and Sean Graney of the Hypocrites will direct his own adaptation. (He staged Buchner’s less-famous Leonce and Lena in 2004.)

And all three companies have announced their season offerings in addition to the Buchner re-imaginings. About Face presents artistic associate Patricia Kane’s Float as the headliner in the annual XYZ Festival of New Works, directed by 500 Clown founder Leslie Danzig. The festival also includes workshops and readings of new plays by Carson Kreitzer, Tanya Saracho, Patrick Andrews, Jordan Seavey, Jorge Ignacio Cortinas (the first Cuban-American playwright to be produced in Havana), David Myers, and the team of Caitlin Montanye Parrish and Erica Weiss. There will also be two “performance lounges” where performance art, dance, and partying come together. The season also includes Phillip Dawkins’ Chicago-set The Homosexuals. Next weekend, the company’s Youth Theatre Ensemble presents Queertopia, created by the ensemble and Paula Gilovich and directed by Sara Kerastas. The subject of the oral-history-inspired piece is violence within and against the LGBTQ community. Shows run through July 25 at the Center on Halsted, and then there will be a city-wide tour to youth communities through July 31st.

Collaboraction has nabbed the local premiere of Jason Grote’s 1,001, which combines the stories of “The Arabian Nights” with a post-9/11 Manhattan. And the Hypocrites continue expanding into musicals with a Graney-directed production of The Pirates of Penzance. (Man, Kabuki Harvey seems more and more likely all the time—or perhaps a butoh-inspired version of Steel Magnolias.) The Hypocrites also bring back Greg Allen’s Kafka-inspired K., (based on The Trial), which was originally produced by The Neo-Futurists in 1995.

Steppenwolf Theatre had so much fun with the “Garage Rep” last year that they’re bringing back the visiting-companies initiative in 2011. From February 16-April 24, three groups will share the Merle Reskin Garage. Sideshow Theatre Company presents Elizabeth Meriwether’s Heddatron, an upside-down look at Hedda Gabler involving renegade robots, South America, and a depressed Michigan housewife. Infamous British murderer Dr. H.H. Crippen gets exhumed by playwright Emily Schwartz in The Three Faces of Dr. Crippen for Strange Tree Group . And UrbanTheater Company presents Jose Rivera’s Sonnets for an Old Century. Rivera is also on tap with the company in the Midwest premiere of Brain People, directed by Marti Lyons and slated to open at their home base at Batey Urbano in Humboldt Park this November. Meantime, Strange Tree, though not a part of the Woyzeck Project, tackles the subject of war in Schwartz’s The War Plays, in which a young couple in London falls in love during the Blitz. That runs October 28-November 21 at the Athenaeum.

Victory Gardens could hardly have asked for a better inaugural season with the Ignition Festival—both Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity and Michael Golamco's Year Zero got New York productions. The former transferred to off-Broadway using almost all the artists in the VG production and Diaz became a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize. This year, the festival (designed to showcase younger playwrights of color) features six works in readings from August 15-22. The participating writers include Chisa Hutchinson, Leonard Madrid, A. Rey Pamatmat, Tanya Saracho, Jackie Sibblies and Andrea Thome.

Make plans now for Labor Day Weekend with Redmoon Theatre . The company’s first festival, “Festival 2010: J.O.E. A Joyous Outdoor Event,” takes place September 2-6 at Belmont Harbor and offers spectacles ranging from the Luminarium, created by the U.K.’s Architects of Air, roaming performers, and Last of My Species II: The Perilous Songs of Bibi Merhad, a sequel to last year’s Last of My Species: The Fearless Songs of Laarna Cortaan, based on the fictional Norwegian pop star. Redmoon also collaborates with Museum of Contemporary Art in The Astronaut’s Birthday, running September 9-26 in front of the MCA’s glass façade, which becomes the back drop for this graphic-novel-inspired performance. Tickets are on sale now for both shows.

TimeLine Theatre Company has added In Darfur by Winter Miller to its four-play season. Miller wrote the piece after a visit to Sudan and the refugee camps with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. In addition to Miller’s piece, the season includes the Chicago premiere of Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon, William Brown and Doug Frew’s take on the Julia and Paul Child love story, Mastering the Art, and a revival of the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur classic, The Front Page.

Steep Theatre , this year’s recipient of the Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theater Award, kicks off their season with the local premiere of Mark Schultz’s A Brief History of Helen of Troy (alternately titled Everything Will Be Different). The story of a teenage girl trying to put her life back together with beauty products and sex after the death of her mother is directed by Joanie Schultz (no relation to the playwright, but if you want to spread that rumor just for fun, who are we to stop you?) It runs September 23-October 30.

Piccolo Theatre in Evanston offers a mix of contemporary and classic, low-brow and political, in their three-comedy season. They begin with Italian Nobel laureate Dario Fo’s We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay!, continue with their traditional holiday panto (this one based on the legend of Robin Hood), and conclude with Carlo Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters.

Though the idea of a fringe festival in Chicago seems a bit of a coals-to-Newcastle proposition, the Chicago Fringe Festival is raring to go, September 1-5 in Pilsen. Local participants include Lake Forest’s Citadel Theatre , Lincoln Square Theatre, New Millennium Theatre Company with The Texas Chainsaw Musical, and solo performer Jason Economus. An array of talent from out of town will also be on hand as part of the 40-plus shows. As is typical with most of the fringe festivals in North America, participants were selected by lottery. A tip of the hat to executive producer Sarah Mikayla Brown and the rest of the hardworking all-volunteer staff for CFF—may this be the beginning of a long fruitful venture.

Finally, it’s not too early to start thinking about Halloween. Wildclaw Theatre seeks submissions for its third annual “Deathscribe” presentation of radio horror plays. Deadline is October 1. If you can tackle your deepest, darkest fears in 10 minutes or less, scribble it down and send it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . More details are on the company website. They are also sponsoring “The Monster Bowl” benefit on July 31 at Timber Lanes, 1851 W. Irving Park, so save the date and find yourself something creepy and disturbing that goes with bowling shoes. (Oh wait—my mistake: NOTHING goes with bowling shoes.)

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