Brad Nelson Winters, theater co. artistic director
Hyfler/Rosner
Theater director went far from his rural roots
BYLINE: By Chris Jones, Tribune arts reporter.
Brad Nelson Winters was born on a dairy farm in Salesville, Ohio, but at a
young age his brothers, Brian and Brent, had already figured out that his
passion did not reside anywhere within the family business of agriculture.
"We'd force him to show his cattle at the fair, and he'd kind of go along
with it," Brian Winters recalled. "But we always knew his heart wasn't in
it."
Mr. Winters' heart, it turned out, was in the theater.
Mr. Winters, 38, was found dead Tuesday, Aug. 19, in his Lincoln Park
apartment. According to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's
office, the cause of death was multiple stab wounds and strangulation. The
death was ruled a homicide.
Mr. Winters' theatrical ambitions required him to forge his own trail, since
his background offered few easy opportunities, aside from the local
community theater in Cambridge, Ohio, where he cut his creative teeth.
"Being on the farm means that those kinds of doors do not easily open to
you," Brian Winters said. "Brad always was interested in things his brothers
knew nothing about."
Nonetheless, Mr. Winters found a way to pursue his art.
After graduating from high school and attending classes at Wayne State
University, Mr. Winters left his rural roots and became an important player
in Chicago fringe theater.
He took classes at Second City, where he was regarded as a superior student,
said Anne Libera, one of his teachers. He also acted at the Indiana
Repertory Theatre and other theaters.
He was best known for his work as the artistic director of the Terrapin
Theatre Company, a low-budget but long-established troupe with a reputation
for carefully crafted productions of progressive new works. He became its
artistic director in 1998.
Mr. Winters' friends and colleagues at Terrapin described him as someone who
genuinely cared about both his artistic colleagues and the art itself.
He was not yet able to make a full-time living in the theater--his day job
was at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University--but Mr.
Winters nonetheless quickly developed a strong reputation for directing
contemporary scripts with unusual care and skill.
"Brad was the new-work champion," said Terrapin member Gerrit O'Neill. "And
whenever the company went through a difficult time, it always was Brad who
rallied us all."
"He would tear into a script with passion," said Susie Griffith, Terrapin's
former managing director. "He was a remarkable director."
Among Mr. Winters' achievements were a rare and memorable 1999 production of
Dennis Potter's anti-war play "Blue Remembered Hills," a fiendishly
difficult script that requires adult actors to play 7-year-olds. Fond of
British playwrights who were rarely produced in the United States, Mr.
Winters also delved into a decrepit working-class nightclub for a stellar
Chicago production of Willy Russell's dark comedy "Stags and Hens." It was a
big hit.
Most recently, he directed "The Go," by the emerging Chicago playwright
Brett Neveu.
In addition to his brothers, Mr. Winters is survived by his mother, Lathiel.
Services will be held Saturday in Bolivar, Ohio.