The Next Act By Katie Dyson
O
n many Thursday evenings over the past decades, students in Todd Bauer’s Newberry seminars have watched Mike Nussbaum deliver a David Mamet monologue from American Buffalo full of, as Todd puts it, “nothing but anger and four-letter words”; they’ve passed around Deanna Dunagan’s Tony Award for August: Osage County; interviewed Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights like Martyna Majok; and learned about theater from a range of artists, actors, directors, and writers who make it happen. Todd believes that classroom learning, like theater, is an embodied experience. It’s a deeply collaborative and communal process. “The more you’re community-oriented, the more you’re nourished,” he says. Todd Bauer is a masterful teacher and an accomplished playwright, as well as an ensemble member of the New Yorkbased Apothetae Company. His plays have been performed as staged readings, workshops, and productions at venues including Chicago’s Raven Theatre and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. For many years, Todd questioned whether he could turn his passion for theater into a sustainable career. He’s been legally blind since the age of eight. After being diagnosed with a form of macular degeneration, Todd embarked on a career as an accountant, seeking the stability afforded by his business degree from Miami University. “I felt like it was prudent to pursue a very safe and secure path. In my heart, my passion was always writing and teaching.”
Deanna Dunagan, Tony Awardwinning actress of August: Osage County, with Todd Bauer.
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Spring/Summer 2020
Todd Bauer poses on the front steps of the Newberry before teaching one of his Adult Education Seminars.
Initially drawn to Chicago for its accessible public transportation, Todd quickly threw himself into the life and culture of the city. “I was just picking up all kinds of pamphlets everywhere,” he says. In 1992, he made his way to the Newberry for an Adult Education Seminar on American theater with Terry McCabe, now the Artistic Director of City Lit Theater Company. The experience left a lasting impression because McCabe didn’t teach the iconic plays that Todd expected; instead, McCabe focused on the craft of playwriting. “Terry didn’t teach the classics like Death of a Salesman. These were plays that either Terry was going to do that season or plays that had just arrived in the mail. It was my first little instance of glimpsing behind the curtain, because up to that point my parents had always taken me to the theater but I knew nothing about how it was made.” Enrolling in multiple Newberry seminars gave Todd an escape from his day job as an accountant and allowed him to explore his passions for literature, theater, and writing.
