Actor David Parkes performed in “Gaslight,” the first show that TimeLine Theatre produced at its 99-seat black box theater at 615 W. Wellington in Chicago in 1999. Now, the Evanston actor is playing the lead role of Pa in “Black Sunday” by Dolores Diaz, TimeLine’s last production in the company’s home for 25 years before moving to a new theater that it is building in Uptown.
“Black Sunday,” a show developed through TimeLine’s Playwrights Collective, is a Dust Bowl-era drama that deals with conflicts of climate change, race and gender leading up to that devastating dust storm.
“Pa is a provider,” Parkes said. “He’s a man faced with catastrophic circumstances and he has a family to take care of. He’s going to do everything in his power to protect his family. The choices he ends up making will be interpreted in many ways as being ultimately very destructive. But from his perspective, he’s trying to solve a problem—to provide for his family in the only way he knows how.
“Black Sunday” runs through June 29. Tickets are priced from $35 to $67. For reservations, call 773-281-8463, ext. 6 or visit timelinetheatre.com.
Artistic Director PJ Powers spoke of Parkes’ vital role with TimeLine.
“He has been an actor with us for all 25 years that we’ve been on Wellington Avenue,” Parkes said. “For most of those 25 years, he has also been one of our company members, which is our core group of artists who craft our artistic vision for TimeLine and choose all of our programs.”
Powers praised the contributions that Parkes has made to the company, calling him one of the finest artists in the Chicago theater community.
“He’s been one of the standout performers who has defined what TimeLine was in the early years and defined what this 25-year chapter has been on Wellington,” Powers said. “He’s a treasure.”
Parkes fondly recalled playing the role of Manningham in “Gaslight”, who is trying to convince his wife that she is insane, for its first production in the Wellington space.
“I still don’t quite know how they found me but they asked me to come and audition,” the actor said. “I’ve never looked back. It was a great experience.”
Parkes, who became a TimeLine Company Member in 2003, has been in numerous productions with the company since then. One of his favorite productions with TimeLine was “Not About Nightingales” in 2000 because he said the company got to break out a bit resulting in more attention coming their way.
Parkes also cited, “Hannah and Martin,” a performance the company staged in 2003 and 2019, and for which Parkes received an After Dark Award.
“’Awake and Sing!’ (2002) was a great opportunity,” Parkes said. “And then probably ‘Crucible’ (2001) was a big one for us. We were in rehearsal during 9/11 and ended up rehearsing that night. As the subsequent events began to develop and the administration was starting to put up these walls of either you’re with us or against us, here we were doing ‘The Crucible’ and it couldn’t have been more timely.”
Becoming a TimeLine Company Member meant a lot to Parkes, a group he has gone on to call a family.
“The more that I worked with the company the more I realized that this was a family that I wanted to continue to be a part of,” he said. “This group of individuals has always been uniquely adept at getting the right people in the room, understanding the importance of this mission.”
Parkes attributes the mission to being the key to the company’s success. Its website says: “TimeLine Theatre Company presents stories inspired by history that connect with today’s social and political issues.”
Parkes is convinced that “Black Sunday” is a great show for the last production in TimeLine’s longtime home.
“It’s a classic example of how we apply the mission to current stories and conversations that we want to have,” the actor explained. “It’s TimeLine’s mission at its core.”
In terms of leaving TimeLine’s home for 25 years, Parkes declared that he is going to miss, “the nooks and crannies. All the things that can be frustrating about the space is also part of the charm and the history of the space. There’s ghosts in the bones of that space.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
