Gift begins 2009 season with Stop/Kiss.

STOP/KISS

By Diana Son

Directed by Michael Patrick Thornton (winner of the 2008 Meier Achievement Award, 2006 Jeff Award)

Assistant Directed by Tom Blandford

January 15, 2008 – March 15, 2008

Thursdays & Fridays @ 7:30pm; Saturdays @ 2:30pm and 7:30 PM

Featuring Gift Ensemble Members Paul D’Addario (Non-Eq Jeff Award winner) and Alexandra Main (Equity Jeff Award nominee).  With Anna Carini (After Dark Award winner), James Farruggio, Amy Speckien, and Kyle Zornes.

Are we really living our lives or just sleepwalking?  What do we want? And how willing are we to go after it, even if we must, in the pursuit, lose ourselves to find ourselves? Son’s play about a friendship between two girls which blossoms into a romance with devastating consequences receives a bold storefront staging at Chicago’s award-winning Gift Theatre.

 Previews for STOP/KISS are January 15^rd –18^th , 2009. The production opens on Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 7:30 p.m., and runs through March 15th, 2009.  Showtimes are Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30pm.  Special Sunday, January 18^th preview at 2:30.   For tickets: (773) 283-7071 or buy online @ www.thegifttheatre.org

The Gift Theatre

                                                                   4802 N. Milwaukee                

The Gift Theatre is conveniently located at 4802 N. Milwaukee in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood—two storefronts north of Lawrence, on the west side of Milwaukee—and is easily accessible by the Kennedy Expressway, the Lawrence and Milwaukee buses, and the CTA Blue Line.

Preview tickets are $15. 

Regular run prices are $20 (Thursdays, Saturday Matinee)  $25 (Friday and Saturday nights). Group rates are available for groups of 10 or more by calling the Box Office.  $15 tickets are available at all performances for students, seniors, and industry with proper identification.

Jeff Award winner Courtney O’Neil is the set designer, Scott Pillsbury is the lighting designer, Driehaus Award For Fashion Excellence Winner Branimira Ivanova is the Costume Designer, Jeff Award-nominee Miles Polaski is the Sound Designer, and the Stage Manager is Jenna Stinson.

“STOP/KISS” is the first production of The Gift’s ’09 season.  The Gift concluded a successful 2008 season with White People, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, W;t,, and Streamers, and Santa’s Great American Depression Holiday Show! America.

The Gift Theatre is dedicated to telling great stories on stage with honesty and simplicity.  Since its 2002 debut, The Gift has consistently established itself as an actors’ theatre, eschewing directorial cleverness for honest, powerful connections between the actors and the audience.  With the conception of The Lab—an ensemble-only forum dedicated to artistic growth and exploration—The Gift continues to deepen its commitment to the idea of ‘ensemble’ by training together on an ongoing basis.  Previous and future instructors in The Lab include Sheldon Patinkin, Jeff Perry, and Dr. Eric Forsythe.

Previous productions include Santa’s Great American Depression Holiday Show! America, Streamers, W;t, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, White People, Three Sisters, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Blithe Spirit, 365 Days/365 Plays, The Halloween Show, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Glass Menagerie (Remount—Theatre on the Lake), The Good Thief, The Clearing, Hurlyburly, The Glass Menagerie, The Pavilion, A Young Man In Pieces, Language of Angels, 6, County Fair, The Countess, Alcatraz (Abbie Hoffman Festival), Orestes 2.0, Boys’ Life, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (giftSYDNEY).

The educational program of The Gift Theatre Company, giftED., continues its work at The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) by combining theatre and speech therapy to combat pediatric oral aversion in addition to its work through Chicago Public Schools, staging extant productions such as Pecos Bill as well as creating new pieces for the theatre, such as HOME / ROOM.  The Gift is also beginning to secure equipment for its first feature-length project under its film component, giftFILM.

The Gift Theatre is the only professional theatre company in the working class neighborhood of Jefferson Park.  As one of Chicago’s most exciting theatre companies, The Gift is marked by acting of the highest caliber with continual training in The Lab, the important educational work being done at RIC through giftED., and sold-out houses on the northwest side of Chicago.  Recent generous support has been provided by the Donnelley Foundation and Driehaus Foundation as well as The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council.