Idle Muse Theatre Company Announces ATHENA FESTIVAL Lineup; Runs 12/5-6

Idle Muse Theatre Company will produce new festival celebrating plays written and directed by women entitled Athena Festival to be curated by ensemble member Sara Robinson.

Athena Festival is a project to provide a greater voice and representation for women in Chicago theatre. Athena is the Greek goddess of reason, intelligent activity, arts and literature. Likewise, Athena Festival will feature staged readings of plays by diverse women playwrights, directed by women, and featuring women in prominent roles. Idle Muse is hoping this will be the beginning of an annual festival that will expand into full productions.

Festival lineup includes Better Angels: A Parable by Andrea Scott, Space Girl by Mora V. Harris, Missed Connections by Hallie Palladino and Girl Found by Barbara Lhota. A talkback with the creative team will follow each staged reading. Better Angels: A Parable by Andrea Scott, takes the story of the bored housewife/distracted husband and turns it on its head by incorporating a little bit of fairy tale and magic realism into an all too common problem plaguing the modern world. After moving to Canada from Ghana to work for Greg and Leila Tate in a beautiful Toronto enclave Akosua finds herself in an impossible situation: she has become a statistic, joining more than 22 million people trapped in modern day slavery. Does Leila miss her high-powered job and is Greg cheating again? Taking cues from the Anansi tales Akosua knows the answer. Elana Elyce directs Better Angels: A Parable.

In Space Girl by Mora V. Harris, Arugula Suarez just wants to fit in. But it's not easy when you're a 16 year old lesbian alien from the planet Zlagdor. In a world where the only things that make sense are Roller Derby and salad, Arugula and her father, Nancy, must carve out an existence and figure out how to pass as humans in an alien world. Space Girl is directed by Emma Couling.

Hallie Palladino's Missed Connections, directed by Ann Kreitman, centers on Avery, an introverted grammar nerd, who has a crush on Layla, a stylish and self-possessed newspaper editor. When a missed connection ad details their chance encounter Avery is uncharacteristically emboldened to take a chance on love. The problem? The ad was printed before they met. When more ads start predicting the future everyone's lives into upheaval.

Barbara Lhota's Girl Found is the story of a seventeen-year-old girl who mysteriously went missing four years ago and turns up in a youth shelter in Canada with no memory of where she's been. Soon she recalls a name, Sophia Sobin, and a life she wants back. Her aunt, Ellie, and trouble mother, Eva, welcome her home, but subtle changes in Sophia's demeanor make others question. Sophia revives her damaged family, but chaotic past events bubble beneath the surface. Inspired by true life events, Girl Found explores how perceptions can be distorted in the desperate pursuit of primal love. Who are you if you cannot remember your past? Girl Found is directed by Alison Dornheggen.

Athena Festival will run December 5th through December 6th and will be presented at Jackalope Theatre's Frontier performance space located at 1106 W Thorndale Ave, Chicago, IL 60660. Scheduled line up of shows include Better Angels: A Parable by Andrea Scott, Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 1:00pm, Space Girl by Mora V. Harris, Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 5:00pm, Missed Connections by Hallie Palladino, Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 1:00pm, and Girl Found by Barbara Lhota, Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 5:00pm. Ticket prices range from $7 - $20. Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.idlemuse.org or by calling 773-340-9438.

Now in its tenth season, Idle Muse Theatre Company is a 501c3 non-profit Charity organization that produces theatre which transports. Idle Muse Theatre Company was established in 2006 by theatre artists who were interested exploring the relationship between individuals and worlds they inhabit. Seeking to create production opportunities for themselves and other artists, they believed the best way to do this was to build a "modern guild" of players, an environment where theatre artists of different experience levels and background could develop their craft and learn from each other.

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