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Pegasus Players' Future in Uptown Linked to Partnership

By Adeshina Emmanuel | August 23, 2013 6:34am
  The Preston Bradley Center is weighing changes that officials hope lead to a starring role in Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Ald. James Cappleman's vision of a go-to entertainment district in Uptown.  Two theaters in the building are key to the transformation.
The Preston Bradley Center
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UPTOWN — Fears that the Pegasus Players would be forced out of Uptown after losing their home may be over.

Laurence Bryan, artistic director at the National Pastime Theater, said the two groups were "negotiating a partnership."

Hinting that the two "are working on a big surprise," Bryan said, "I think the union between Pegasus Players and National Pastime is going to be amazing." 

He declined to discuss specific details of the arrangement ahead of an official announcement, which he said would be coming soon. Pegasus Players Artistic Director Ilesa Duncan was also mum on the topic.

Bryan's theater is in the Preston Bradley Center, 941 W. Lawrence Ave.

Earlier this summer, a City Council committee granted a zoning request that cleared the way for a developer to turn the former Hull House community center that Pegasus Players was using at 4520 N. Beacon Ave. into an apartment complex.

The development spurred fears among some in the community that the troupe, which moved to the Hull House center in 2010 after departing from Truman College's O'Rourke Theatre, would have to move out of Uptown.

A neighborhood staple since 1984, the theater company is known for socially-conscious and affordable productions, and is behind the annual Young Playwrights Festival.

In the spring, after Bryan heard Pegasus Players could be displaced, he invited the theater company to the Preston Bradley Center "to take a look at the space to possibly do a residency here," he said.

“I’m very serious about it. I would really, really want to have them here," he said in May. "We want to keep them in the neighborhood."