Gift Theatre Announces New Play Reading Series Featuring Holiday Girl 3/22

The Gift Theatre opens its New Play Reading Series with a reading of Laura Jacqmin's Holiday Girl. Hadara is the new girl in charge of holiday planning at the upstate manse of Madge, a home and garden maven currently residing even farther upstate, at another compound. When Hadara discovers that her predecessor - the Former Holiday Girl - is locked up in the greenhouse awaiting interrogation, she must figure out a way to crack the FHG's tough exterior in time to save herself. A torture comedy set in a world filled with doilies and Madeleine recipes and other nefarious Good Things.

One night only-March 22nd at 7:30 P.M. Cost is five dollars at the door.

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.

The Gift's New Play Reading series for 2011 will include White Tie Ball by Martin Zimmerman, Four Deuces by Stuart Dybeck and Katyn by Gift Ensemble member John Gawlik.

About the playwright- Laura Jacqmin is a Chicago-based playwright, and the winner of the 2008 Wasserstein Prize, a $25,000 award given to recognize an emerging female playwright. She graduated cum laude from Yale University and earned an MFA from Ohio University .
Her plays include Look, We Are Breathing (2010 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab on Governors Island , dir. Mark Brokaw), January Joiner (2010 Page 73 Productions summer Yale residency), and Ski Dubai (Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 5th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work). Her play Dead Pile will premiere with XIII Pocket in Chicago in February 2011. Her play Dental Society Midwinter Meeting enjoyed a sold-out run at Chicago Dramatists in summer 2010, and will be remounted at 16th Street Theater, February-March 2011. Her short play Wax Party is currently a finalist for Actors' Theatre of Louisville's 2011 Heideman Award.
Other plays include Folk Song, And when we awoke there was light and light, and Do-Gooder. These and others have been produced and developed at the Goodman Theatre, Ars Nova, the Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Second Stage Theatre, Joe's Pub, Aurora Theatre Company, Northlight Theater, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the MacDowell Colony, and the inaugural NNPN University Playwrights Workshop at Stanford University, among others.
Jacqmin has taught playwriting at Ohio University , the Center on Halsted, 826CHI, the Noyes Cultural Arts Center , and Chicago Dramatists, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at Carthage College . From 2007 to 2008, she was a contributing writer for The Onion A.V. Club and A.V. Club Chicago. She is a member of the 2010-2011 Playwrights' Unit at the Goodman Theatre, and is currently working on new play commissions for Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology Project, Arden Theatre Company, the Goodman Theatre, and InterAct Theatre. She is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a founding member of At Play Productions. Her plays are published by Smith & Kraus and Playscripts, Inc.

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, consistently 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 The Lonesome West, Suicide, Incorporated, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Almost, Maine , Santa's Great American Depression Holiday Show! America 2: Son of Santa's Great American Depression Holiday Show! America, Summer People, The Ruby Sunrise, Talk Radio, Stop/Kiss, Santa's Great American Depression Holiday Show! America, Natural Gas, 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, and Boys' Life.

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. At the Chicago Public Schools, The Gift has staged productions such as Pecos Bill and created new pieces for the students, such as HOME / ROOM.

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 the Illinois Arts Council.