Oct. 2-25
Do You See What I’m Saying
by Megan Terry
“A heartbreaking lyric poem ... but Megan Terry also recognizes the humor in the human situation and highlights the nobility that can survive all kinds of blows to the human spirit. The action transpires over the course of one early morning as we meet: Copper Queen a down on her luck prostitute, B.A. and Crissie two enterprising prospectors/garbage pickers, Mychelle and Himilce one drug addict who wants to get clean and one who doesn’t, Valrave a super intense, burned out sex kitten and Sunny a pregnant woman who shouts out sermons which shame and threatens the existing order of power the culprit who undermines the human spirit.”
— Chicago Magazine and Arts Weekly
Dec. 11-20
by John Belluso
Louise is a divorced mother of three, getting by on welfare checks and child support in a depressed, industrial New England town. Harry is a handsome, clever young man, a wheelchair user since a childhood accident. Their pathscross in an emergency room as Louise seeks out care for her daughter's mysterious sickness. Yearning for connection beyond his online friends and his pile of Russian novels, Harry reaches out to help Louise navigate her daughter's care. More compatriots than lovers, they find solace with each other for a brief and intense interlude before their paths diverge. A frank and melancholy portrait of life on the fringes of American society.
"John Belluso's blistering PYRETOWN…crackles with heat. I don't say it lightly: This play is worth braving the cold to see."
— NY Sun.
"PYRETOWN has none of the flashy emotional pyrotechnics that animate many comparable stories; Harry and Louise's romance expands and contracts naturally, like the beating of a heart…Belluso gives his characters an inchoate touch of poetry, which they must guard against the icy bureaucracy of American health care."
— Time Out.
March 5-28
Belle
by Florence Gibson
Belle is the extraordinary story of two recently freed slaves, husband and wife, journeying to thenorth in search of a new life. When they encounter a woman fighting for the suffrage movement, they become entwined in the social upheaval that epitomizes post Civil War America.
“Belle is a massive achievement. Florence Gibson has written boldly, bravely; She writes with poetry, she writes with imagery. A beautiful very important piece of theatre. Florence Gibson is a writer we ought to cherish.”
— Richard Ouzounian, CBC Radio
May 21-June 13
The Exonerated
by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
The true story of five American men and one American woman who were convicted and sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. Collectively, they spent over one hundred years on death row before the criminal justice system finally corrected its errors and freed them. Blank and Jensen constructed the play entirely out of interviews conducted with the former prisoners and from various court documents and case files. They tell their stories plainly, and the result is a shocking exposure of police and prosecutorial misconduct that led to the conviction and condemnation of the innocent. The stories are mini-chronicles of lives destroyed and precious time wasted but the play also has its moments of humor as well as being a testimony to the fact that hope and faith can survive in even the bleakest of situations.