We do have a brand new layout in the works, it is something we have been wanting for some time and we hope this will make everything on the site easier to find, it’s a big site and very easy to miss sections that are definitely worth checking out .   We also have plenty of images to upload to The Gallery, so we will be spreading those out over the next few months.

Flyovers on CD was due to be released yesterday, unfortunately it doesn’t look like Amazon have received their stock yet.   Do let us know what you think of it once you receive your copy.

We did receive some feedback from Billy regarding our Victory Gardens Fundraiser, as you all know the theatre means a great deal to him and he thanked everyone for their donations.

Lastly, we have received several emails from concerned fans regarding a profile on Facebook claiming to be Billy, we did check with the Petersens directly over the weekend and they confirmed that Billy does not have a Facebook page, they are also aware of the profile.   We hope that clears that issue up.

Enjoy your summers everyone!

Artistic Director Dennis Zacek today announces plans for his retirement from Victory Gardens, after 34 years at its artistic helm. Zacek will continue his tenure through spring 2011, as the board conducts a national search for his successor. He will remain with the company as Artistic Director Emeritus and plans to remain active as an actor, director and board member.

William Peterson comments :

“For almost forty years Dennis Zacek has been at the center of Chicago Theatre. His encouragement, influence and development of Chicago playwrights, actors, directors and designers has been an immense gift to our city. He was my mentor. Without him, I would very likely not have become an actor. Because of him, I have certainly become a better man.”

Image copyright - Victory Gardens

]]> http://billypetersen.com/site/2010/03/photos-from-the-victory-gardens-richard-christiansen-theater-naming-evening/feed/ 2 http://billypetersen.com/site/2010/03/now-open-for-business-the-richard-christiansen-theater/ http://billypetersen.com/site/2010/03/now-open-for-business-the-richard-christiansen-theater/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:47:35 +0000 thewpap http://billypetersen.com/site/?p=2246 As per our tweet yesterday (we do recommend you follow us on Twitter because we usually post news there first) the new Richard Christian Theater at Victory Gardens opened.     Billy was at the opening ceremony and gave a speech.

The actor William Petersen followed with an equally moving and self-effacing speech, remarking on how generously Christiansen treated the famous opening-night fiasco of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” when the great Joe Mantegna went up on his lines. Petersen had a similar story to Cleveland’s. Christiansen told him, in print, that he was a great actor. And from that point, he believed it himself.

The full article is available via the Chicago Tribune : Now open for business: The Richard Christiansen Theater

I’ll never forget his review of In the Belly of the Beast at Wisdom Bridge Theatre in 1983. He wrote in the review that he was so moved he had to “pull over to collect himself”. That review became famous among us actors. When a review would run, we’d ask, “was it a pull-over review”. That play was a powerful. It was a hard piece. The next day I read all the reviews by Glenna Syse, and Rick Kogan and Richard’s. I read Richard’s twice. I was so touched and moved. Richard got it.

In other news, Billy was quoted in a recent Chicago Tribune article regarding the new Richard Christiansen Theater at Victory Gardens.

“Richard was the one guy who most influenced my career,” said Petersen, who cut his teeth on the Chicago stage and who described making booze-aided, nocturnal trips down to Tribune Tower and begging for someone on the loading dock to throw him a copy of the paper with the Christiansen review.

“It wasn’t just that he made other people believe I was a better actor,” Petersen said. “He made me believe I was a better actor.”

You can read the full article online at the Chicago Tribune website.

Many of you who have been following Billy’s theater career will be very familiar with Mr Christiansen, especially his thoughts of Billy’s performance in ‘In the Belly of the Beast’ (check out his review).

Now for some long overdue updates.

Neil Midgley of the Daily Telegraph (UK newspaper) had the opportunity to interview Billy during his visit to London towards the end of last year.

William Petersen on life after CSI - The actor, who played Gil Grissom in CSI, tells Neil Midgley why he loves his new life on stage.

Click this link to read the full interview.

From the live blog feed of the CBS Press Tour (c/o The Hollywood Reporter) Nina Tassler (Entertainment President) states the following:

On “CSI” and Lawrence Fishburne’s character: “I think they’re doing much better in finding Fishburne’s character. ‘CSI’ is in its 10th season it’s still No. 7. You can’t deny Fishburne is a powerful actor and a force to be reckoned with.” That said, Tassler said afterward that CBS would welcome back William Petersen with “open arms,” though right now “there are no plans” to have him on the show.

The ‘Theater World’ is gearing up for Steppenwolf’s production of Endgame, with both Playbill and Theatermania sharing brief articles on the synopsis and set information.   As a reminder, for those of you who do not have subscriptions, tickets go on sale later this month on January 29th.

We have received a nice letter back from Victory Gardens regarding the recent fundraiser we organized.   A copy of which can be found in The Gallery.  Again, well done everyone!  We will be sending off all the relevant fundraiser information off to Billy very soon.

We are currently working on the rest of the ‘Grissom’s Greatest’ clips, which we hope will be available on the site on Sunday, as well as some deleted scenes from the Season 1 Blu-Ray Box Set of CSI c/o our good friends over at Margamania.

5 “Blackbird,” Victory Gardens: The gusty William Petersen and Mattie Hawkinson together raised the summer heat at the Victory Gardens to fever-pitch. Dennis Zacek’s superb new production of David Harrower’s gripping two-character drama about a young woman confronting the predatory older man who whom she had a sexual relationship in adolescence was a deserved box office smash.

Chris Jones full top 10 list can be found on the Chicago Tribune online : My 10 Best Theater Shows of 2009.

We have also uploaded the 4th intro from yesterday’s airing of Grissom’s Greatest on Channel 5.

We have uploaded to The Gallery the Donation Certificate that has been sent to Victory Gardens Theater in respect of our Fundraiser.  We have also scanned a copy of the check to confirm the funds that have been sent to VGT was indeed, $1,500.

An article with a brief review of Billy’s appearance on Sacree Soiree is available at toutelatele.com – Les Experts : William Petersen veut Jean Reno dans son film (translation to follow).  Clips of the appearance will be available later today.

We believe there are 3-4 promos on Channel 5 advertising the upcoming “Grissom’s Greatest” Special that starts this Saturday at 7.40pm on Channel 5 (UK).  We managed to catch two of them, which are available to download via our Entertainment/Multimedia Section.

You will notice a few Google ads floating around on the site at the moment, something we are trying, if any of the ads catches your eye please feel free to click on those links, it doesn’t cost you anything and it helps maintain billypetersen.com, thank you!

The total donation figure raised was…

$1,500.00

To everyone involved, thank you again for your donations and participation in this fundraiser, we hope to have the money on its way to Victory Gardens this week.   All the monies raised are being donated in the name of William Petersen to the VGT Annual Fund.   Once again, we have all the relevant information to pass on to both VGT and Billy (which we will pass on at our earliest opportunity) and will be posting some pix this week of the certificates, etc.

We have already received a brief message from Victory Gardens regarding the fundraiser:

Thank you so much for your efforts.  We appreciate it and are impressed with your success.

Thanks again everyone, this was made possible because of you!