16th Street Announces 2019 Season Twelve: Shadows & Light

16th Street Theater announces their Season Twelve 2019: Shadows and Light featuring three new plays by Chicago authors Steven Strafford, Julie Ganey and Loy A. Webb, as well as a one-nighter of The South Side by WBEZ's Natalie Moore and a new play series curated by 16th Street's 2018-2019 NNPN Producer-in-Residence Nancy García Loza.

SHADOWS AND LIGHT Do we need to throw another under the bus in order to save ourselves? Ambition OR activism... and can we have both? In our fervor for our own kids to have the very best, have we lost shared community? The expression goes, "saving the best for last." But are we instead, saving the best for me and mine? What is lurking in the shadows of our American consciousness, and will we find the light again?

We open our twelfth season with three brothers who cannot stop joking around, even as they uncover hidden secrets from their past, in Steven Strafford's SMALL JOKES ABOUT MONSTERS (January 10 - February 16, 2019) directed by Kristina Valada-Viars. At Lagunitas Chicago Taproom and Beer Sanctuary we bring a special one-nighter where actors take on real life Chicagoans portrayed in Natalie Moore's book THE SOUTH SIDE (Monday, March 4, 2019) adapted and directed by Ann Filmer. Next we bring one of Chicago's favorite storytellers Julie Ganey (Love thy Neighbor... Til it Hurts), and her director Megan Shuchman (Agreed Upon Fictions), back to 16th Street with one woman's funny and brutally honest attempt to do right in Ganey's new GOOD ENOUGH (March 14 - April 20, 2019). Beginning on the first night of football season (September 5 - October 12, 2019) we bring a story of ambition vs. activism on the football field in the world premiere of Loy A. Webb's HIS SHADOW directed by Wardell Julius Clark. Nancy García Loza curates three new Latinx plays to continue our popular Pop Up Series in venues in and around Berwyn.

Here are the plays and playwrights:

SMALL JOKES ABOUT MONSTERS by Steven Strafford directed by Kristina Valada-Viars Starring Esteban Andres Cruz Jan 10 - Feb 16, 2019 There are three different kinds of funny people: Godzillas, Mothras and Gameras. Three brothers arrive in a rented beach house after their estranged father's funeral. Their father has left them an envelope to open after his death. When their mother arrives, truths are revealed and tempers flare. Small Jokes is about how we choose to deal with trauma, and how we use humor to cover it up. Featuring Esteban Andres Cruz, Eric Slater, Christopher Maynard Jones and Shariba Rivers.

THE SOUTH SIDE A special evening with acclaimed author and WBEZ South Side Reporter Natalie Moore at Lagunitas Taproom 2607 W 17th, Chicago. Adapted/Directed by Ann Filmer Monday, March 4 at 6:30 PM (Doors 5:30) In this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago-native Natalie Moore shines a light on contemporary segregation in the city's South Side; with a memoirist's eye, she showcases the lives of these communities through the stories of people who reside there. The South Side shows the impact of Chicago's historic segregation - and the ongoing policies that keep the system intact. Actors perform excerpts from Natalie Moore's book while 16th Street 100 Club Members enjoy craft beer from Lagunitas in the brewery where it is created.

GOOD ENOUGH Written and performed by Julie Ganey directed by Megan Shuchman March 14 - April 20, 2019 How good is good enough? Sometimes life's biggest questions confront you in seemingly mundane spaces: third period of a high school drama class, the sidelines of a soccer match, the middle of a busy Chicago intersection. Written by Chicago theatre/storytelling veteran and author of 16th Street's 2012 Love Thy Neighbor... Til It Hurts, Good Enough is Julie Ganey's funny and brutally honest attempt to do right. Because you can be all about your community and the greater good, but when push comes to shove, you look out for your own kid first. A world premiere

HIS SHADOW by Loy Webb directed by Wardell Julius Clark Sept 5 - Oct 12, 2019 A disgruntled college freshman tries to step out of his older brother's towering shadow and make a name for himself on the football field. When tragedy strikes, the course of his career is challenged, and his life is altered. His Shadow is a story of ambition and activism: which one will emerge the victor when the two collide? A world premiere by the author of the 2018 hit The Light.

POP UPS 2019: THREE NEW PLAYS Curated by Nancy García Loza Plays, times and dates TBD 16th Street's new NNPN producer-in-residence, Nancy García Loza, brings to 16th Street three new Chicago voices in three new play readings at venues in and around Berwyn. El teatro vive aquí!

THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Steven Strafford is a playwright and actor living in Chicago. His one man show, Methtacular! has been seen across the country. Its NYC production was picked by TimeOut NY as the number one show to see in NYC. Its Chicago production received a Jeff nomination for solo performance. It will be released soon as part of an anthology from Opus Books. His short play, The Breakup Play, had a Chicago production this past year. His plays, Mona Q: Age 38 and Steven Strafford is Steven Strafford as Ann Jillian in the Ann Jillian Story Starring Ann Jillian as Ann Jillian are in development. Small Jokes About Monsters received workshops and readings in Houston at The Landing Theatre Company and at Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine, as well as here in Chicago. As an actor, Steven has performed around the country and around the world, on stage, TV, and film. He was Prince Herbert (and other roles) in the original Las Vegas company of Spamalot. In Chicago, he has been seen in roles at Goodman Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, First Folio, and Windy City Playhouse.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ's South Side Reporter where she covers segregation and inequality. Her enterprise reporting has tackled race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie's work has been broadcast on the BBC, Marketplace and NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Natalie is the author of The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation, winner of the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and a Buzzfeed best nonfiction book of 2016. She is also co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang and Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation. Natalie writes a monthly column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her work has been published in Essence, Ebony, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian. She is the 2017 recipient of Chicago Library Foundation's 21st Century Award. In 2010, she received the Studs Terkel Community Media Award for reporting on Chicago's diverse neighborhoods.Natalie has won several journalism awards, including a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Other honors are from the Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow), Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, National Association of Black Journalists, Illinois Associated Press and Chicago Headline Club. The Chicago Reader named her best journalist in 2017. She has taught at Columbia College and Medill. Natalie and her husband Rodney live in Hyde Park with their four daughters.

Julie Ganey returns to 16th Street Theater where she previously appeared in Agreed Upon Fictions, The Dental Society Midwinter Meeting, and in her original solo show Love Thy Neighbor...till it hurts. She has also performed at Victory Gardens, Northlight, Chicago Dramatists, Shattered Globe, and Drury Lane Theatre, among others. In addition, her original solo plays have been produced by Next Theatre, the side project, and throughout the Midwest. An active member of the Chicago live lit scene, Julie has performed her work at such venues as: Story Club, Tuesday Night Funk, This Much Is True, Here's the Story, The Chicago Writers Conference, Printer's Row Lit Fest, and numerous times with 2nd Story, where she is a company member. Her work has been featured on WBEZ, and her story "When the Fairies Came" appears in the anthology, Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck. Julie is particularly proud of her work as an arts educator. She has spent two decades as an artistic associate at Wavelength, an award winning comedy ensemble that provides professional development for educators nationwide. Her bullying prevention program, Stand Up on the Schoolyard, has been presented at the National Conference on Bullying and to students and educators across the country.

Loy A. Webb is a Chicago born playwright and theatre journalist. Her debut play, The Light, which premiered at the New Colony, was the recipient of the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play, and will have its Off-Broadway Premiere in January 2019 at MCC Theater. She is an inaugural Tutterow Fellow at Chicago Dramatist, and her one-act plays have been developed at Black Ensemble Theatre, American Theater Company, 20 Percent Theatre Company Chicago, University of North Dakota, GI60 International One Minute Play Festival, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company New York, and the Black Lives, Black Words International Project, in which she is an associate artist. As a theatre journalist she is a member of the Association of Women of Journalist-Chicago, a past mentor with the AWJ-Chicago/Goodman Theatre's Cindy Bandle Young Critics Program, and a contributing theater critic for Newcity. Loy holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a J.D. from The John Marshall Law School. She is represented by The Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency.

Nancy García Loza is a pocha playwright rooted in Chicago, IL & Jalisco, MX who was recently recognized in TCG's American Theatre Magazine Roll Call Series: 6 Theatre Workers You Should Know. Nancy joined the staff of 16th Street Theater this September as NNPN's Producer-in-Residence thanks to a grant from National New Play Network. She co-launched and participates in ALTA Chicago's El Semillero: Latinx Playwrights Circle since 2014. Her inaugural play, MACHA: a pocha sister story, was a 2017 finalist for the Theater on the Lake In The Works: New Play Commission and will soon appear on Steppenwolf's The Mix list. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Theatre Marathon, Peacebook (Collaboraction & Goodman), Saints & Sinners (Collaboraction & Steppenwolf), Black Ensemble Theater (a Community Fighting the Ism's), Joe's Pub at The Public (NYC), Encounter Festival (Collaboraction & Theater on the Lake), Paula Vogel's National UBU Bake-Off (Victory Gardens), New Works Lab Festival (Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble - CA), Theatre Nuevo (St. Louis), ALTA El Semillero's Public Reading Series of New Work (Victory Gardens), Broken Nose Theatre's Bechdel Fest with Steppenwolf's Lookout Series, Something Marvelous' New Works Festival, and more. In 2018, she enjoyed residencies at: Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Brown Swan Lab, SPACE on Ryder Farms (Brewster, NY), HBMG Foundation National Winter Playwrights Retreat (Creede, CO), SWARM (Indiana), and has been selected for the Fornés Playwriting Workshop for two consecutive years. She is most recently commissioned by Make-Believe Association for the inaugural season, as well as, Teatro Leyden. She is a 2018-20 Chicago Dramatists Tutterow Fellow (commissioned for 19/20 season), an Artistic Associate with 16th Street Theater, an Artistic Associate with Teatro Vista. Beyond playwriting, she serves as the Co-Creative Director of The Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists in Chicago (ALTA) and a playwright & producer for El Semillero: a Latinx Playwrights Circle.

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