Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
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The Theater Queen BARBARA GAINES In the mid-1980s, when Barbara Gaines told a local arts patron she was starting up a Shakespearean theater company, he laughed. "I was mocked," Gaines, 68, recalls. "It never affected me in any way, strangely enough." No one's laughing at Gaines now. Over the past three decades, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater has become the city's largest employer of local actors and one of the world's most respected Shakespearean companies—winning a Regional Theatre Tony Award and 78 Joseph Jefferson Awards along the way. Yet the whole thing started as a sideline. Gaines was a Chicago actress ("I wanted to be a big Broadway star," she says) when knee surgery forced her to stay off her feet and find another way to pay the rent. So she began teaching Shakespeare to actors, who performed in the company's first production on the roof of Lincoln Park's Red Lion Pub in 1986. STRONGEST INFLUENCES: "First, my entire family because I was so loved and supported as a kid. Second, Shakespeare and Dr. Wallace Bacon. At Northwestern, I had Dr. Bacon, a great Shakespeare professor, senior year. We used to call his course 'Shake and Bake.' I was a lonely kid until I started reading Shakespeare, and I realized someone understood everything about me." BIGGEST CHALLENGE: "Trying to balance my personal artistic life with the needs of an artistic director." THE CHICAGO THEATER SCENE: "You can make something extraordinary happen, and you don't need a million dollars to do it. It's not easy, but if you have the will and you have talent, the city will crack open for you." DOWNTIME: "I haven't had time off in over a year and a half. If I had three days right now, I would spend them working at my desk here at home. That, to me, is a vacation." THIS PAGE: Basila cardigan, Escada ($1,575). 51 E. Oak St., 312-915-0500; us.escada.com. 7.98-carat white pear-shape and round diamond half earrings and 16.02-carat white diamond leaf bracelet (both price on request), Graff. 103 E. Oak St., 312-604-1000; graffdiamonds. com. Top, pants, and shoes, Gaines' own OPPOSITE PAGE: Dress, Akris Punto ($1,290). Saks Fifth Avenue, 700 N. Michigan Ave., 312-944-6500; saks.com. Necklace with pearls, Blanshay ($595). LuLu's on the Avenue, 900 North Michigan Shops, 312-888-9149; lulusvintagestore.com. Beaded necklace, Smith's own 114 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM