Pair Of Chicagoans Named MacArthur Fellows

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 28, 2010 2:20PM

Once again, Chicago has placed a few names on the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's annual list of Fellows, giving them each a no-strings-attached grant of $500,000 over the next five years. Huzzah for geniuses! So who are this year's local connections?

David Cromer, graduate of Colombia College and former member of Steppenwolf, is a theater actor/director who was chosen because: "Performing the role of the Stage Manager himself, Cromer adopts modern dress and a conversational tone and is simultaneously the omniscient, efficient director and a character in the play. The minimalist aesthetic of the production and his portrayal of the Stage Manager avoid the sentimentality characteristic of other versions of Our Town and, at the same time, increase the emotional force of the play’s exhortation to live in the present moment."

Shannon Lee Dawdy, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago who's been leading an excavation in, of all places, the French Quarter of New Orleans. Sounds pretty awesome, actually. "Her recent fieldwork in New Orleans, concentrating on the former site of the Rising Sun Hotel and St. Antoine’s Garden behind St. Louis Cathedral, is the largest archaeological excavation undertaken to date in the French Quarter. These two sites are an important part of her current project: an exploration of the connections between aesthetics and social life."

The Tribune has a bit more background on the work of both Cromer and Dawdy available and the entire list - which includes David Simon, writer/creator of TV series The Wire and Treme - is available here.