Theater News

Victory Gardens’ Artistic Director Dennis Zacek to Retire Spring 2011

Dennis Zacek
Dennis Zacek

Dennis Zacek, the artistic director for Chicago’s Victory Gardens, has announced his intention to retire from his position at the end of spring 2011, after 34 years heading the company. He will remain with the company as Artistic Director Emeritus and plans to remain active as an actor, director and board member.

Under Zacek’s leadership, the theater received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 2001, and local and national media have recognized Victory Gardens as one of the most important playwriting theaters in the country.

Zacek recently accepted the Actors’ Equity Association’s (AEA) Spirit of Diversity Award, which is given to institutions that “have made non-traditional casting a way of life.” He also received the 2005 Jeff Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chicago Equity Theatre and the 2004 Artistic Leadership Award from the League of Chicago Theatres. Zacek and Marcelle McVay, his wife and former VG Managing Director, received the 1999 Rosetta Lenoire Award from Actors’ Equity and the 1998 Sidney R. Yates Arts Advocacy Award from the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation.

Zacek has directed more than 250 productions in his career including the recent staging of Blackbird, starring William Petersen, which broke the theater’s box office record last summer.

For complete information, visit www.victorygardens.org.