Vicki Quade
Vicki Quade has written and produced a lot of theater in Chicago, including comedies, bluegrass musicals, improv, and magic. She is best known for co-creating the one-woman show, Late Nite Catechism, which opened in 1993 in Chicago and holds the record for the longest running religious comedy not only in Chicago’s theater history, but also off-Broadway in New York.
She created four other religious comedies: Put the Nuns in Charge! (a look at modern sins), Sunday School Cinema (a look at religion & Hollywood), Saints & Sinners (about church fundraising schemes) and a holiday show, Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night.
She also created a line of bingo shows, starting with Bible Bingo, and continuing with Christmas Bingo, Saints & Sinners Bingo, Movie Bingo, and Convent Bingo. In 2019, her Halloween comedy opened, called Holy Ghost Bingo. In March 2020, her Easter comedy premiered, called Easter Bunny Bingo. She performs these regularly in Chicago and on tour.
In 2012, she created the show, Changing Habits: The Nun Monologues.
Some of her other plays include Room for Advancement (1994), Mr. Nanny (1997), and Here Come the Famous Brothers (2001).
As a producer, she has produced her own shows, as well as the mentalist Christopher Carter (2002-05), the musical Forever Plaid (2003), the improv comedy Cast on a Hot Tin Roof (2004), and the political spoken word piece Verbatim Verboten (2004, 2009). In 2005, she produced the U.S. premiere of Drapes by Australian playwright Stephen House, at Victory Gardens Theatre, Chicago. A version of Verbatim Verboten, produced in conjunction with her production company, opened off-off-Broadway in 2009 and later ran at WorkShop Theater Company.
Vicki grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago and started her career in journalism, working for daily newspapers, national magazines, and writing for just about every publication in Chicago. She also spent 10 years as a correspondent for Newsweek.
In 1999, she contributed to the Chicago Sun-Times millennium book, 20th Century Chicago: 100 Years, 100 Voices. She also wrote the biography, I Remember Bob Collins, about the WGN-Radio legend who was killed in a plane crash in February 2000.
During the 2020 pandemic, she worked with her musical collaborator, David Corbin Rockenbaugh, to finish a musical parody based on the characters Laverne & Shirley, called Hasenpfeffer, Incorporated!
Vicki has three adult children, Michael, David, and Catherine, who keep her safe and sane. Not surprisingly, all three of her children are products of the Chicago Catholic school system, where they excelled. They went on to become successful in their individual fields.
