A festival of short, one-act plays celebrating Riverside’s past, present and future is coming to town this weekend to celebrate the village’s 150th anniversary of incorporation this year.
Produced by the Riverside Theater Guild and Glaser Players, “Bends in the River” will be performed on Aug. 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. at L.J. Hauser Junior High School. Admission is free to the public.
“It’s performed by 27 local actors. It includes eight different one-act plays that were written by community members past and present, and it’s directed by 10 community members,” said Jacob Palka, the festival’s executive producer. “Each little vignette is a slice of life in Riverside.”
Seven of the plays are about 10 minutes each and will be shown in succession both nights without an intermission, Palka told the Landmark. The eighth is a series of two-minute scenes, shown between the other plays, “about the conversations you overhear at Riverside Foods and all the funny stuff that we talk and gossip about,” he said.
Some of the plays harken back to important moments and “crannies” alike in Riverside’s history, like the designing of its roads by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux or the operation of a trolley that used to run through town, Palka said.
As the mastermind behind the festival, Palka said it’s been in the works since last summer.
“The Riverside 150 committee has been planning for probably two years now all their activities, and [committee member] Jane Lauritsen reached out to me and asked if the theater guild might be interested in reviving a show that was originally written for Riverside’s 100th in the ‘70s, and that show was called ‘[At the] Bend in the River,’” he said. “Many people who are still in town might’ve been in it as kids, and they had it over at RB, and they had music, and each scene was a different decade in Riverside history.”
Palka opted not to revive the 1975 pageant but instead took inspiration from it.
“We thought, ‘Well, why don’t we let Riversiders now write their view of life here?’” he said. “I know there’s a lot of artsy-fartsy people in Riverside, but we were nervous we wouldn’t get a lot of script submissions. We announced this, and then there were about five months that people had to write their one-act plays, and we got about 16 or 17 submissions.”
The cast and crew features some big names, including Neal Fischer, a North Riverside-native author and commercial director; Mike Speller, who played vice principal Mr. Lippman in Nickelodeon’s ‘90s comedy “Welcome Freshmen;” Jennifer Pollock, performer with the North Riverside Players, Westchester Civic Theater and Downers Grove Choral Society and wife of Village President Doug Pollock; and John Reeger, an actor and playwright whom Palka called “Chicago theater royalty.”
“It’s really a testament to Riverside, in that it is a place that attracts that caliber of people and inspires that caliber of people,” Palka said. “There are a lot of artsy folks that live here. They call it home; they find it rejuvenating; they find it a peaceful, relaxing and inspiring place to live. … I think all these people that have contributed are doing it because they have a love of their home, of Riverside, where they grew up, and its rich history.”
Palka said the level of engagement from the community may lead to similar theatrical efforts in the future.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate the 150th, but we’ve found throughout this process that there are clearly a lot of talented people in Riverside who have come out to join us, and whether it’s another one-act festival or a straight play, we clearly have the talent,” he said. “We have really good scripts, and I think we’re, hopefully, doing them justice, and I’m just excited to see the reaction from the audience.”
Correction, July 30, 2025, 3:45 p.m.: A previous version of this story omitted the theater credentials of performer Jennifer Pollock, who has worked with the North Riverside Players, Westchester Civic Theater and Downers Grove Choral Society. The Landmark regrets the error.
