FROM A PRESS RELEASE
World premiere by Obie Award Winner anchors the XYZ Festival of New Works
Chicago (October 21, 2009) -Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar is pleased to announce the opening of Adam Bock’s The Flowers, a world premiere production directed by Trip Cullman. Opening Friday, October 23 at Stage Left Theatre, The Flowers is the headlining production for About Face Theatre’s XYZ Festival of New Works.
With major sponsorship provided by The Boeing Company Charitable Trust, the festival showcases new works in various stages of development. Rehearsed readings, workshops and full productions by LGBTQA artists are being presented in locations all over Chicago.
The Flowers runs from October 16 through November 7 at Stage Left Theatre, located at 3408 N. Sheffield. All shows at 7:30pm. For tickets, visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call (866) 811-4111. The show is directed by Trip Cullman and features performances by Caron Buinis, Merrina Millsapp, Bruch Reed, Benjamin Sprunger, Brian-Mark Conover and Kieran Kredell.
Bock’s play follows the travails of a small theatre company, run by a gay couple, that struggles to keep together their self-contained community. Bock is especially interested in the ways that the similarly insulated cultures of theatre people and gay people overlap. A writer based in New York, he says that he is excited to bring his work to Chicago’s leading LGBTQ theatre. “It is great to be making a play that examines issues around sexuality and community at a theater that is so committed to this exploration,” says Bock.
In addition to THE FLOWERS, the XYZ Festival features a lesbian playwrights reading series, two workshop productions and new pieces from fellow Chicago theatre companies Teatro Luna and Pavement Group.
“XYZ is an opportunity for About Face to showcase the best new plays being written about sexuality and gender today,” says Metzgar. “We are passionate about supporting the creative growth and development of artists pushing the boundaries of new work. It’s thrilling to share that unique experience with our audiences.”
LET THEM EAT CAKE, A Marriage Equality Project
by HOLLY HUGHES AND MEGAN CARNEY
About Face Artistic Associate Megan Carney joins forces with performance artist Holly Hughes to workshop a new piece called LET THEM EAT CAKE. Part show, part community forum, Hughes and Carney are working with a Chicago-based ensemble to build an exploration of the rituals of marriage and the community conflict around marriage rights. Leading the ensemble is Maureen Angelos, of Five Lesbian Brothers fame. The workshop will have public presentations on October 30, 31 and Nov 1 at 7:30 at XYZ Festival HQ, 4707 N. Broadway.
SEASON CAKE-OFF PARTY
About Face Theatre will be hosting a Cake-Off Party, where memberships will be on sale for a discounted rate. Cakes will be judged by celebrity guests E. Patrick Johnson and others, and there will also be a people’s choice award. Tickets are $10, but members and those who bring their own homemade cake get in for free. The Cake-Off will be on October 28 at 7:30 PM, at Los Manos Gallery, 5220 N. Clark Street.
XYZ FESTIVAL MAP AND AUDIO TOURS
Audiences will be able to engage interactively with the festival as well as attending performances and events. Other festival projects include XYZ Artist Walking Tours and the XYZ Mapping Project.
Hosted by artists who live and work in Chicago, the walking tours, presented in the form of audio podcasts with accompanying maps, will offer an insider’s look at neighborhoods around Chicago from an artist’s perspective. The podcasts will be available for download from the theatre’s website, aboutfacetheatre.com, and printed maps will be on hand at XYZ Festival Headquarters at 4707 N. Broadway. XYZ artists, contributors and audiences will create a wall-sized map of the entire city throughout the festival. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the mapping project by visiting XYZ Headquarters by writing on or taping objects to the huge map of Chicago.
An inside look at all XYZ Festival activities is available through the XYZ Blog at www.XYZFestival.wordpress.com.
XYZ Festival Events
HALF
A Teatro Luna open studio
September 30, 7:30pm
St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
2649 Francisco Ave
FLOAT by Patricia Kane
Workshop, directed by Jessica Thebus
October 2 & 3, 7:30pm
The Wild Pug
4810 N. Broadway
IN LOCO PARENTIS
By Sarah Gubbins
Reading, directed by Joanie Schultz
October 5, 7:30pm
Las Manos Gallery
5220 N. Clark
MAN IN LOVE
By Christina Anderson
Reading, directed by Carlos Murillo
Oct 6, 7:30pm
Depaul Univerisity Art Museum
2350 N. Kenmore
PAVEMENT GROUP presents
I AM MONTANA
By Samuel D. Hunter
Reading
Oct 27, 7:30pm
Chopin Theatre
1543 W. Division
Free and open to the public
SEASON CAKE-OFF PARTY
Oct 28, 7:30pm
Las Manos Gallery
5220 N. Clark St.
$10 Tickets – FREE for Members
or if you bring a homemade cake!
LET THEM EAT CAKE
By Holly Hughes & Megan Carney
Workshop
October 30 – November 1, 7:00pm
XYZ Festival Headquarters
4707 N. Broadway
$15 Tickets include a piece of cake
For tickets, visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call (866) 811-4111
PRECIOUS LITTLE
By Madeleine George
Reading, directed by Dan Stermer
Nov 2, 7:30pm
Silk Road Theatre Co., Chicago Temple
77 Washington St
Free and open to the public
COUGAR BLIND
By Bonnie Metzgar
Reading, directed by Leslie Danzig
Nov 3, 7:30pm
XYZ Festival Headquarters
4707 N. Broadway
Free and open to the public
Adam Bock (Writer) Adam Bock’s plays include The Thugs (2007 OBIE Award), The Receptionist (Joe Mantello dir.), The Drunken City, Swimming in the Shallows (3 BATCC Awards, Clauder Award), Five Flights (Glickman Award), The Typographer’s Dream, The Shaker Chair, and Three Guys And A Brenda (Heideman Award)). His plays have been commissioned, developed and produced in NYC by MTC, Playwrights Horizons, NYTW, Second Stage, SoHo Rep, Primary Stages,The Vineyard, Rattlestick, Clubbed Thumb, and regionally at the O’Neill, the Humana Festival, and Yale Rep and in San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Salt Lake, Montreal, Toronto, London, and Edinburgh, among others. He is the resident playwright at Encore Theater, a Shotgun Players artistic associate, a New Dramatists member playwright and a NYTW Usual Suspect. He is currently writing a screenplay for Scott Rudin/Miramax, and a musical We Have Always Lived in the Castle with Todd Almond that will premiere at Yale Rep in 2010.
Trip Cullman (Director) Also by Adam Bock: The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons, NYC) and Swimming in the Shallows (2econd Stage, NYC). Other NYC credits include: Gina Gionfriddo’s U.S. Drag (The StageFARM), Terrence McNally’s Some Men (2econd Stage), Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God (Century Center), Paul Weitz’s Roulette (EST), Glen Berger’s The Wooden Breeks (MCC), Sarah Schulman’s Manic Flight Reaction (Playwrights Horizons), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Dark Matters (Rattlestick), Jonathan Tolins’s The Last Sunday in June (Century Center and Rattlestick), Rinne Groff’s Of a White Christmas (Clubbed Thumb), Ken Urban’s The Happy Sad (SPF ’09), Gary Sunshine’s Sweetness and Brooke Berman’s Sam and Lucy (both at SPF ’04), The Wau Wau Sisters (Ars Nova). For The Play Company in NYC: Lloyd Suh’s American Hwangap (also at the Magic Theater, SF), Bob Farquhar’s Bad Jazz, Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Night, Brooke Berman’s Smashing. Regional: Terrence McNally’s Unusual Acts of Devotion (La Jolla Playhouse), John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation (The Old Globe), Richard Greenberg’s The Injured Party (South Coast Rep), Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain (New York Stage and Film), Lauren Weedman’s Rash (The Empty Space).
About Face Theatre
In February 2009, battling the ravages of the economic downturn, About Face Theatre launched Face the Future, a highly successful fundraising campaign to stabilize the theatre. Leveraging both conventional outreach methods, online video appeals and social networking Web sites, About Face has raised nearly $300,000 and to date is officially debt free.
About Face Theatre is one of Chicago’s most acclaimed theatre companies, and is a national leader in the development of new work exploring gender and sexual identity. Since its founding by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen in 1995, the company has premiered more than 30 new plays by writers and directors who have been recognized with several Tony Awards, The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The MacArthur Fellowship and dozens of Joseph Jefferson Awards.
Landmark world premieres include Doug Wright’s Pulitzer and Tony-winning I Am My Own Wife; Moisés Kaufman’s production of Tennessee Williams’ One Arm (a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project) ; Mary Zimmerman’s M. Proust, and, with Lookingglass Theatre, the famed Eleven Rooms of Proust; Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty’s Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein (a co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Original Cast Album recorded by Jay Records) ; the multi-award winning musical Winesburg, Ohio by Eric Rosen, Andre Pluess, Ben Sussman and Jessica Thebus; and the cult hit Pulp by Patricia Kane.
In addition to its award-winning mainstage performances, About Face is known nationally for its ground-breaking Youth Theatre, which creates critically acclaimed new work by and about LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Youth Theatre has performed on major stages across the country, and, through its outreach tour, changes the lives of thousands of young people each year. Building on the success of the youth theatre model, About Face recently launched its corporate outreach program to provide diversity training and onsite workshops to the corporate community. About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world.