Photos: First Look at Theater Wit's ADOLESCENT SALVATION in Chicago

Theater Wit is presenting the Chicago premiere of Adolescent Salvation, L.A. playwright Tim Venable's audacious new play that dares to portray adolescence in all its abundance of contradictions. Over the course of one night, through a haze of tequila, texting, and Taylor Swift, three teenagers banter, bicker, and push each other to the edge of danger — with consequences that could prove lethal.

Photo Credit: Boris Martin

The Chicago premiere features Jordan Levene as Taylor (F), Piper Jean Bailey as Natasha and Brandon Acosta as Taylor (M). Guillermo Cienfuegos directs. Cienfuegos (the directing pseudonym of L.A. actor Alex Fernandez) staged the world premiere of Adolescent Salvation at Rogue Machine Theatre, where he is Artistic Director, in November 2025, and returns to helm this second staging at Theater Wit.

Adolescent Salvation begins light and funny, then shifts into something far darker, its tonal shifts as natural as the mood swings of youth. Critically acclaimed in its L.A. world premiere in 2025, Stage and Cinema wrote Adolescent Salvation 'lurches, it burns, it contradicts itself — alive in ways most new plays are not.' StageScene LA called it 'one humdinger of a stunner.'

Adolescent Salvation marks the Chicago debut for playwright Tim Venable. Originally from Iowa, and a graduate of Illinois State University, he is an L.A. writer/director/actor/producer. His other plays include Baby Foot, The Beautiful People, Blue Roses and Crystal Gayle is a Beautiful Lady.

Theater Wit's cast features Brandon Acosta as Taylor (M), Piper Jean Bailey as Natasha, Jordan Levene as Taylor (F) and Maura Kidwell as Victoria. Designers include Jonathan Berg-Einhorn (set), Josephine Everett (costumes), Ellie Fey (lights), AnnaMae Durham (props), Daniella Brown (sound) and Sarah Scanlon (intimacy). Drew Donnelly is production stage manager. Matthew R. Chase is production manager.

Performance Details

Previews are August 14—23: Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. Press opening is Monday, August 24 at 7 p.m. Performances run through October 3: Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. Exception: No show Thursday, August 27.

Tickets are $18-$46. Run time is ninety minutes, no intermission. Purchase tickets at theaterwit.org, by calling (773) 975-8150, or in person at the Theater Wit box office.

Be advised: Adolescent Salvation contains material that might be challenging for some viewers. For more, look for a link to spoilers on the show web page.

Theater Wit is located at 1229 W. Belmont Ave., in the Belmont Theatre District in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. Convenient parking is available for $10 across the street from the theater in the lot behind Kubo restaurant (pay at the Theater Wit box office.) Neighborhood street parking is available, as are private paid lots. Theater Wit is also accessible via the CTA 77 Belmont bus, and is three blocks west of the CTA Belmont Red/Brown/Purple line stop.

Following Adolescent Salvation, Theater Wit's four-play, 2026-27 season continues with the return of its holiday season hit Who's Holiday!, and the Chicago premieres of Dead Outlaw, book by frequent Wit collaborator Itamar Moses, in a co-production with Porchlight Music Theatre, and Joshua Harmon's latest work, We Had a World.

In addition to Adolescent Salvation, visiting companies opening shows soon at Theater Wit include Nova Entertainment's Hail Mary/Maria, August 14-22; Black Cat Theatre's Elephant in the Room, August 28-September 13; and Water People Theatre's Muses, September 1-27.

About Theater Wit

As a production company, Theater Wit is a smart art theater in Chicago, producing humorous, challenging, and intelligent plays that speak with a vibrant and contemporary theatrical voice. Led by Artistic Director Jeremy Wechsler, Wit brings together Chicago's storefront theater companies in its three, 99-seat spaces. In Fall 2025, Theater Wit received a three-year, $600,000 grant from the Paul M. Angell Foundation in support of Theater Wit's Shared Spaces program, which empowers the artistic work of independent itinerant theater producers through subsidized, affordable space rentals and tailored production, accessibility and administrative support.

Artist Biographies

Tim Venable (playwright) is an actor, director, playwright, and filmmaker, born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, newly relocated from L.A. to Chicago. His plays at L.A.'s Rogue Machine Theatre include Adolescent Salvation, The Beautiful People (dir Guillermo Cienfuegos), and his critically-acclaimed play Baby Foot, which he also directed, that played to sold out audiences in New York and at Rogue Machine Theatre. Other plays include Blue Roses, Crystal Gayle is a Beautiful Lady, Handwriting, American Brutus and Front Foot Impossible. His feature-length screenplay Singin' the Blues was a finalist in the ScreenCraft Drama Competition, and he is currently adapting his play Baby Foot into a feature film. Other screenplays include Pretty Good Year (feature), All Apologies (co-writer, pilot), Iowa (pilot) Brooklyn, Maybe (short film), and Front Foot Impossible (short film). As director, his production of Romeo and Juliet at the Hollywood Fringe Festival was hailed as 'superb...incredibly exciting...a very rare experience.' Other directing credits include Mouse in a Jar and Petty Harbour, both by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok at The Road Theatre (staged readings). Acting credits include S.W.A.T. and American Horror Story: Delicate, and onstage at Portland Stage Company, Shakespeare & Co., The Black Dahlia, The Antaeus Company, A Noise Within, and Son of Semele Ensemble.

Guillermo Cienfuegos (director) serves as Artistic Director at Rogue Machine Theatre in Los Angeles. He directed the RMT productions of Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Middle of the World, The Beautiful People, Disposable Necessities, Ready Steady Yeti Go and Dutchmasters. Most recently, Cienfuegos directed Martyna Majok's Ironbound with Marin Ireland and Jon Bernthal as the inaugural production of the Ojai Theatre Festival and Shaw's Misalliance and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at A Noise Within. He won both the Ovation and Los Angeles Drama Desk Circle Awards for Best Director for his production of Shakespeare's Henry V at Pacific Resident Theatre. He has directed numerous productions at PRT, including Ionesco's Rhinoceros, Pinter's The Homecoming and Safe at Home: An Evening with Orson Bean. Other theater directing credits include the Los Angeles premiere of Stephen Andy Guirgis' Pulitzer Prize-winner Between Riverside and Crazy at The Fountain Theatre, Juan Alfonso's Middle of the World at Boise Contemporary Theatre, Carlos Zenen-Trujillo's Christmas Contigo at Oregon Cabaret Theatre, and Vince Melocchi's Julia, both at PRT and at New York's 59E59 theatre, Off-Broadway. Cienfuegos was featured in the 'People to Watch' issue of American Theatre Magazine and is a graduate of The American Conservatory Theatre.

Brandon Acosta (Taylor M, he/him), most recently seen playing Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap (Peninsula Players), is making his Theater Wit debut. Other select Chicago credits: Do Something Pretty (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble), Peter and the Starcatcher, An Act of God, Little Shop of Horrors (Paramount Theatre), Grease (Drury Lane Theatre), Frederick (Chicago Children's Theatre, title role), The 25th Annual…Spelling Bee, Guys and Dolls and Godspell (Music Theater Works). Acosta has also composed original music for stage, screen and podcast.

Piper Jean Bailey (Natasha, she/her) is returning to Theater Wit over a decade after her professional debut in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at twelve years old. Credits include An Enemy of the People (Timeline Theatre, u/s), Romeo and Juliet (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre), Bonnie and Clyde (The Rev Theatre), It Girl (Goodman Theatre, Playwrights Reading Unit), and the upcoming indie feature film Big Time. She received her B.S. in Acting from Northwestern University. She is also a fiber artist and clothing designer.

Jordan Levene (Taylor F, she/her) is a Chicago-based actor, singer, and dancer. Recent theater credits include Poor Queenie at Subtext Studio Theatre Co., Dogs at Red Theater, and The Best Damn Thing at The Understudy.

Need more Chicago Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...

Get Chicago Emails & Offers

Get the latest news, discounts & more