Hello Dalai
The good folks at Trinity High School put on numerous fundraisers annually. So we assume they’re used to fielding calls and e-mails from people sending their regrets with a polite excuse. But it’s doubtful they’ve ever heard a turn-down quite like the one Dr. Victoria Brander offered recently.
Brander, a 1980 Trinity graduate, called to inform the school she’d be unable to attend the 44th “Bal Dominique” fundraiser on Saturday, April 25. That’s because on Sunday, April 26, she’ll be in San Francisco to receive the Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award, which highlights people doing compassionate but unheralded work.
Dr. Brander’s presenter? He’s a guy we understand knows a thing or two about compassion, and is anything but unheralded – the Dalai Lama.
Dr. Brander heads an organization called Operation Walk Chicago, a not-for-profit medical humanitarian organization that performs free hip and knee replacements for the poor in developing countries. The group also works with host hospitals to develop education and training programs in orthopedics, with the intent of fostering lasting improvement in quality of orthopedic care in these countries.
Over the last several years, they have worked in China, Ecuador and India. Having no religious or political affiliation, teams of approximately 50 skilled medical volunteers, including surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists and physical therapists, travel to distant locales to offer their services.
Anyone wishing to take Dr. Brander’s place at the Bal Dominique can contact Trinity at 771-8383. The fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, April 25, 6:30 p.m., in the Gold Coast Room of the Drake Hotel.
This year’s event celebrates 44 years of supporting financial assistance for students. Dominican University President Dr. Donna Carroll is the guest of honor.
Wedoff holds court on bullying
OPRF grad Alice Wedoff, who previously appeared, if memory serves, in a Festival Theatre production a few years back, is currently starring in a one-woman play titled, The Shape of a Girl, produced by Pegasus Players in Chicago. The play, by Canadian Joan MacLeod, explores the destructive power of playground bullying. Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss describes Wedoff as “giving one of the more riveting performances of the season.”
Wedoff plays a 15-year-old who recounts an experience she took part in – based on a real incident that occurred in 1997, about the time Alice would have been a student in District 97, which eventually adopted its own anti-bullying policy.
As Weiss puts it, “Blonde, energetic and quicksilver, Wedoff holds the stage with absolute ferocity and confidence.” Sounds like it’s worth a look. Pegasus Players perform at the O’Rourke Center of Truman College, 1145 W. Wilson (773-878-9761).
After graduating from OPRF, Wedoff earned her B.A. from Syracuse University, then studied in Paris. Her last role was the lead in Romeo and Juliet at Chopin Theater.
Shades of Nixon?
We knew the River Forest trustee election would be contentious, but the “Return of the Dirty Tricks of Watergate”? That’s how trustee candidate Jim Winikates headed a recent e-mail informing us about a slick move pulled by one of the slates.
Winikates is “supported by an organization” called “Residents for Progess.” The other candidates he’s not running with (they don’t like to think of themselves as “a slate”), John Rigas, Cathy Adduci and Mike Gibbs, nonetheless have a Web site with the domain name residentsforprogress.net. But when supporters or the merely curious trying to reach them type in “.com” by mistake, they are routed to the Web site of “Vote for River Forest,” the opposing slate that includes Steve Hoke, Rick Gillis, Roma Steinke, Tom Lamm and Russ Nummer.
If you typed in “.org” by mistake, the same thing would happen. Both domains are owned by Rex Burdett, who happens to be Steve Hoke’s campaign manager.
The Quiet Mahon?
Former Oak Parker Frank Mahon, president of Smock Alley Theater Co. has co-written a play called The Quiet Man Tales, which premieres March 22 at the Chicago Theatre (downstairs), 175 N. State St. A fan of the film, The Quiet Man, with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara (directed by John Ford), Mahon spotted The Quiet Man & Other Stories by Maurice Walsh (published in 1935) in a Killarney book store a decade ago, and decided to bring it to the stage.
A former writer on ABC’s Equal Justice, he started Smock Alley in 2000 and has also written a number of plays and screenplays. A former Cook County assistant state’s attorney (1979-89) and graduate of Notre Dame, he now lives in Evanston. His hobbies and interests include Irish history, music and culture; American history; Abraham Lincoln; and playing the guitar.