MATT & BEN, EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM & More Set for First Floor Theater's 2014-15 Season

First Floor Theater has announced its 2014/15 season, featuring one world premiere, one Chicago premiere and the return of its annual literary festival. The season opens with Matt & Ben, Brenda Withers & Mindy Kaling's uproarious and irreverent send-up to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's attempt to make it big with Good Will Hunting, directed by Managing Director Amanda Fink. Next up is the Chicago Premiere of A. Rey Pamatmat's Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them, directed by Artistic Producer Hutch Pimentel, a stunning, electric portait of a brother and sister on the brink in the middle of nowhere. Closing out the Mainstage season is the World Premiere of artistic associate Emmett Rensin's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, an explosive examination of the new American far right, directed by Artistic Director Will Bishop. And in the summer, FFT's Annual LitFest returns, promising new work from celebrated Chicago playwrights, based on the life and work of a classic author, to be selected by the attendees of FFT's season kick-off party.

After a season inspired by literature, from the Greeks, to Elizabethan England, to a children's masterpiece, the next season investigates three different contemporary American experiences: the pursuit of making it big, creating family, and redefining the line between personal and political.

First Floor will be a Resident Company with Collaboraction Theatre for the entire 2014/15 Mainstage Season, performing all shows in the Pentagon Theatre in The Flat Iron Arts Building.

First Floor Theater's 2014/15 Season:

MATT & BEN
By Mindy Kaling & Brenda Withers
Directed by Amanda Fink
November 16-December 13, 2014

It's 1995 and best friends and struggling actors, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are trying to catch their next big break by writing a screen adaptation of Catcher in the Rye when the script for Good Will Hunting literally falls from the ceiling. The Office's Mindy Kaling offers us an uproarious glimpse at how Hollywood's golden boys went from anonymous to A-list.

The Chicago Premiere of
EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
By A. Rey Pamatmat
Directed by Hutch Pimentel
February 15-March 7, 2015

After their mom dies and their dad disappears, Edith, 12, and her brother, Kenny, 16, are all alone in the middle of nowhere. When Kenny brings home his new friend Benji, the three become a force to be reckoned with, wielding only their latchkey wit and a bb gun in this touching dramedy.

The World Premiere of
THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS
By Emmett Rensin
Directed by Will Bishop
April 17-May 9, 2015

In this explosive world premiere by artistic associate Emmett Rensin, a group of young Tea Party staffers struggle to discover who among them leaked the information that's sinking their senatorial campaign. Toeing the line between personal and poilitical, this new work challenges audiences to see both sides of the extremist characters, and confront their own prejudices in the process.