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If you really do break a leg…
In the early ‘80s, Chicago’s theater community was deeply struck by the losses of actor J. Pat Miller and stage manager Tom Biscotto to AIDS. Their tragic deaths brought Chicago’s theater professionals together to stand up, speak out, and fight back by raising funds for financial assistance to support our community. Now, almost 40 years later, the Biscotto-Miller fund provides short-term emergency funds for Chicagoland theater workers experiencing short-term or ongoing physical and/or mental health challenges.
Even if you don’t break a leg…
there is the Malcolm Ewen Emergency Fund.
Founded during the Pandemic, the Ewen Emergency Fund provides short-term assistance for theater employees facing non-health-related emergencies resulting in extraordinary financial issues. Emergencies are defined as fire, natural disaster, sudden loss of job, eviction, an abrupt change of circumstance that could be the loss of a roommate or family member, or other catastrophic occurrences causing great financial harm.
Here’s Another Resource…
Our Mental Health Services.
In partnership with the Entertainment Community Fund (ECF), Season of Concern can provide pathways to a variety of mental health programs, services, and assessments:
- Suzanne Whychoki is the full time Licensed Clinical Social Worker now working in the Central Regional Office (located in Chicago) of the ECF. A certified social worker (and founder of Be Mindful Chicago, a private practice that offers mindfulness-based therapy and financial wellness coaching to individuals, couples, and families), Suzanne can provide a variety of services to Chicago-based theater workers, including assessment to help determine an individual’s mental health needs, short term supportive counseling, and referrals for ongoing care and/or medication management.
- ECF also runs a series of support groups (run by licensed clinical social workers) for members of the performing arts community, with topics including grief support, caregiver support, parents in the industry, self-care for women in entertainment, Black women in entertainment, seniors living alone, and many more. Currently, these workshops are offered in person in New York and Los Angeles only, but the Central Regional Office is exploring the establishment of workshops in Chicago.
- Suzanne can also provide theater workers with information about understanding mental health insurance coverage and community resources in Chicago.
Financial support is provided by the Entertainment Community Fund to qualified individuals under the ECF guidelines. In addition, Season of Concern provides financial support for the following:
- Psychotherapy (limited to $65 per hour for 13 sessions) through SOC’s Biscotto-Miller Fund;
- Chemical dependence treatment, also through the Biscotto-Miller Fund;
- Other mental health crises through SOC’s Malcolm Ewen Fund.
For complete information concerning ECF Mental Health guidelines, please visit entertainmentcommunity.org/services-and-programs.
For Season of Concern guidelines and applications for assistance, please visit seasonofconcern.org/apply-for-assistance.
So the show can go on…
We can’t predict when the unexpected will happen. Sometimes that wish of good luck turns into a prophecy. But if you are a theater artist in the Chicagoland area, on stage or behind the scenes, and an emergency strikes, Season of Concern is here to help. We provide direct, short-term emergency financial assistance to Chicago-area actors, directors, designers, technicians, and playwrights through our Biscotto Miller Fund and our Malcolm Ewen Emergency Fund.
APPLY FOR ASSISTANCE
Who can apply?
Season of Concern supports members of Actors Equity Association, as well as Non-Equity theater makers. If your name appears in a local theater program, you’re eligible to apply for short-term financial assistance. Eligible persons include:
- actors
- directors
- stage managers
- designers
- theater technicians
- cabaret artists
- playwrights
- front of house
- box office
- theatre musicians
- crew members
- improvisational performers
Please Note:
Funds will be paid directly to the organization/person to which the debt it owed, NOT to the applicant. Do you qualify? When in doubt, apply.
APPLY NOW
ABOUT
Tommy Biscotto and J. Pat Miller
Tommy Biscotto and J. Pat Miller, for whom the Biscotto-Miller Fund was named, both came to Chicago theater in the very early days of the Off-Loop movement, performing in Godzilla Rainbow Troupe’s gender-bending, genre-jumping 1971 production Whores of Babylon, which was presented as a midnight show at the Body Politic. Tommy was also stage manager for the show and was responsible for bringing director Eleven (a.k.a. Gary Tucker) to Chicago from New York where he had been associated with the Ridiculous Theatre Company.
From that time on, Tommy and J. Pat (Jimmy, to his friends) each worked in many Off-Loop companies, both were beloved figures in the Chicago theater scene. Biscotto was resident stage manager at Victory Gardens in that theater’s early years, before becoming stage manager for Goodman Theater’s Stage Two studio, where he was working when he was diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma in 1982.
He died in October 1984. Miller had just returned from a tour playing Lucky in Waiting for Godot when he was diagnosed with pneumocystis pneumonia and died six months after Biscotto’s death. Incidentally the production of Godot had been directed by Rick Cluchey with additional directing by Samuel Becket in rehearsals in Paris. Becket told J. Pat that his was the best performance of Lucky he had ever seen.
It was at the memorial service for Jimmy at Victory Gardens that the Biscotto-Miller Fund was spontaneously created:
“We have to take care of our own.”
DONATE TO THE BISCOTTO-MILLER FUND
ABOUT
Malcolm Ewen
A long-time Production Stage Manager at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and a decades-long member of the board of Season of Concern, Malcolm Ewen was a tireless advocate for the Chicago theater community, devoting himself to the development of resources that would ensure the health and well-being of union and non-union theater workers alike. Although his premature death in 2019 robbed the community of one of its most effective leaders, Malcolm’s generous spirit lives on in this Fund, established through his generous bequest to Season of Concern.
“As a family, we are truly honored that Malcolm will be recognized for his efforts to help others in the theatre community. He touched so many lives by his time, energy, and caring. We hope his legacy of leadership and generosity inspires others for many years to come.”
– The Ewen Family
DONATE TO THE MALCOLM EWEN EMERGENCY FUND