In 1987, the Chicago nonprofit organization Season of Concern was created to financially assist members of the local theater community who were ill and dying from HIV/AIDS. But the roots of Season of Concern go back two years earlier following the AIDS-related deaths of two beloved figures from the Chicago theater community: actor/stage manager Tom Biscotto and actor J. Pat Miller.
The creation of Season of Concern’s Biscotto-Miller Fund grew from a grassroots fundraiser called Arts Against AIDS that was held at The Second City on May 13, 1985. In light of the 40th anniversary of Arts Against AIDS, a fund-raising event commemorating the ongoing Biscotto-Miller Fund will be held at the Goodman Theatre on Tuesday, June 3.
“In 1985, there was nothing like this,” said theater journalist and Columbia College faculty member Albert Williams. “There was no established fund-raising or service providing organization for the theater community in general, and there was precious little for anybody in terms of giving money for direct support for people with AIDS.”
Williams and Jonathan Abarbanel, also a theater journalist and college professor (as well as frequentWindy City Times contributor), were among many people involved in the creation of the original Arts Against AIDS fundraiser. Both realized that a 40th anniversary event was needed, appropriately enough, at the press performance last year of Redtwist Theatre’s revival of Larry Kramer’s landmark AIDS drama The Normal Heart.
“It was born out of frustration out of people dying and not enough being done for AIDS,” said Williams about the 1985 fundraiser. “It was the year that people really started paying attention to it in the media and in entertainment.”
In addition to The Normal Heart, Williams cited William M. Hoffman’s Broadway AIDS drama As Is and the NBC-TV movie An Early Frost starring Aidan Quinn and Gena Rowlands—all marking their 40th anniversary this year. Hollywood icon Rock Hudson also publicly came out of the closet and disclosed his AIDS status after a worrying July 1985 TV interview with his former silver-screen co-star Doris Day. Hudson died later that year on Oct. 2.
Williams said Tom Biscotto, a longtime Goodman Theatre stage manager, became an early AIDS advocate in Chicago before his death in 1984. Williams also remembers how talented J. Pat Miller was before his passing in 1985. Miller often starred as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Goodman Theatre’s A Christmas Carol.
Williams said Biscotto and Miller first attracted attention as actors in the Godzilla Rainbow Troupe that was founded in Chicago in 1971. The troupe aimed to emulate the irreverent gender-bending plays of Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York.
Williams noted that Arts Against AIDS featured scenes from plays like The Normal Heart and As Is. Performers at that event included future Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble members and TV stars Gary Cole (NCIS) and Amy Morton (Chicago P.D.). Also involved was the late playwright/director Frank Galati, who would later win a 1990 Tony Award for his Steppenwolf stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
“I was also very struck in looking at the program that one of the (Arts Against AIDS) performers was Scott McPherson, who was brand new to Chicago at the time,” Williams said. “He, of course, went on to perform in Next Theatre’s 1986 Chicago-area premiere of The Normal Heart, and would then go on to write his own very famous play Marvin’s Room.”
McPherson was the partner of activist and cartoonist Daniel Sotomayor; both men were inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Sotomayor and McPherson were very public about their AIDS status in protests and documentaries before their deaths in 1992.
Along with Williams and Abarbanel, the organizing committee for the 40th anniversary of Arts Against AIDS is Christopher Pazdernik, the new managing director of Season of Concern. Pazdernik succeeded Michael Ryczek, who stepped down in early April after more than two decades of involvement with the organization.
“I am thrilled and honored to be entrusted to help continue this organization that is so important and vital to the Chicago theater landscape and making sure that everyone working in Chicago theater knows who we are and that we are here to help,” Pazdernik said.
Pazdernik previously was the producing director for Theo (Ubique Cabaret Theatre) and is the founder of the fundraising event Belting for Life, a birthday-timed event he created to benefit organizations that were helpful to him following his HIV-positive diagnosis in 2009. The 10th anniversary of Belting for Life is on Monday, May 19, at SPACE in Evanston, and once again benefits AIDS Foundation Chicago.
But in terms of the 40th anniversary of Arts Against AIDS, Pazdernik is still helping to coordinate the featured performers and material. So far, Jonathan Abarbanel is slated to host, while performers include Honey West, Keely Vasquez, Season of Concern board member Mark David Kaplan and pianist Chuck Larkin.
Though Season of Concern’s Biscotto-Miller Fund was originally created just to assist those afflicted by HIV/AIDS, Pazdernik noted that it expanded once life-saving protease inhibitors were available for HIV treatment in 1996. The Biscotto-Miller Fund, which was folded into Season of Concern, now provides short-term emergency financial assistance to members of the Chicago theater community who are in need due to any incapacitating illness, injury or health-related circumstance.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to honor and to commemorate such an important event in both Chicago theater history and HIV/AIDS history,” said Pazdernik. “I’m pleased as punch, honestly, to have something so meaningful to work on right away.”
Season of Concern’s 40th Anniversary Reception and Commemoration of the Biscotto-Miller Fund is at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 3, at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. Sponsors include Broadway in Chicago, The Goodman Theatre, Jim Rinnert & Brent Fisher, and Roche Schulfer & Mary Beth Fisher. Tickets are $40. Visit SeasonOfConcern.org for more information.
The 10th annual Belting for Life concert to benefit AIDS Foundation Chicago is at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 19, at SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave., Evanston. Tickets are $50 with a $20 streaming option. Visit here for more information.