Three Cat Productions Set 2015-16 Season

Three Cat Productions is excited to announce its third full season, three world premieres of new works by Chicago playwrights, produced in partnership with the Chicago Park District's Berger Park Cultural Center at 6205 N. Sheridan Road. The 2015/16 season kicks off in fall with Death in a Beulah, a play by Barbara Wells, about three "transplants," or African Americans who have escaped to the queer-friendly North Side. For the holidays, Three Cat presents Holiday Stories, nine playwrights explore what it means to be an outsider on the biggest, most commercial, and most televised event of the year! . Playwrights include David Bald, Hope Hommersand, Susan Lieberman, Paul Moulton, Paul Pasulka, Lisa Scott, Fouad Teymour, Helen Valenta, and Joe Weintraub. The season concludes in spring with the newly revised musical revue, At Mister Kelly's, about the history and music of Chicago's Rush Street's legendary night club with original music and lyrics by Gary Gimmestad. Tickets are now on sale at threecatproductions.com.

In addition, Three Cat announces the return of its Chicago New Work Festival. The festival helps Chicago area playwrights refine new plays and musicals. The 2016 Chicago New Work Festival will be held Jan. 11 to Feb. 5, 2016. Up to eight invited playwrights will be paired with a director, and the playwright-director team will be assigned one week of the festival to workshop the play, with a staged reading at the end of the week.

This season also includes to two monthly programs the Cabaret on the Lake series and the Next Draft Series. Cabaret on the Lake is a free, monthly variety show giving singers, storytellers, comedians, performance artists, musicians, dancers, poets, and solo artists of every type a place to develop their work. Cabaret on the Lake is the second Friday of each month at the Berger Park Cultural Center. The Next Draft Series provides staged readings for playwrights with full length plays-in-progress. Each month, we pair playwrights with directors, actors, and space for 4 hours of rehearsal and a staged reading. The reading series will held on the third Monday of each month at the Berger Park Cultural Center first floor. Both monthly events are free to the public.

Three Cat Productions Season:

* Performances at the Berger Park Coach House Theater, 6205 N. Sheridan Road

Nov. 4 to Nov. 29, 2015

Opening Performance: Friday, November 6, 2015 at 7:30pm

Death in a Beulah Box

written by Barbara Wells

directed by Jason Paul Smith

The place - a "beulah box", the ubiquitous raggedy beauty salon of Chicago's South Side. The people - three "transplants," or African Americans who have escaped to the queer-friendly North Side. What draws each back here, to the dangerous place where they grew up? Death in a Beulah Box is a pressure cooker of the psychological wounds of racism, and how African Americans' choices over healing those wounds, or not, pit them against each another.

Dec 2, 2015 to Jan 3, 2016

Opening Performance: Friday, December 4, 2015 at 7:30pm

Holiday Stories - The Other Side of Christmas

written by David Bald, Hope Hommersand, Susan Lieberman, Paul Moulton, Paul Pasulka, Lisa Scott, Fouad Teymour, Helen Valenta, and Joe Weintraub directed by Jason Paul Smith

It's a new tradition! Three Cat Productions brings you the second annual Holiday Stories - The Other Side of Christmas. Eight playwrights & composers explore what it means to be an outsider on the biggest, most commercial, and most televised event of the year! Join us for drama, wacky humor, adorable actors, and some truly transcendent four-part harmony that will chase away your "I Can't Believe It's the Holidays Again" blues.

May 6 to June 3, 2016

Opening Performance: Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 3:00pm

At Mister Kelly's: A Musical Revue

Music and lyrics by Gary Gimmestad

Directed by Jason Paul Smith

Mister Kelly's was a tiny supper club located at 1028 N. Rush Street from 1957 to 1975. Artists entered the stage from the kitchen, and there was only room for 150 people. But the history that passed through that club was huge. Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, and Barry Manilow sang there. A surprising list of comedians from Bob Newhart to Phyllis Diller to Richard Prior got their start at the club. Travel back in time and hang your hat At Mister Kelly's in this musical homage to an icon of Chicago history.