About Face Theatre Announces QUEERTOPIA, Runs 7/15-25

Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar and Executive Director Jason Held are pleased to announce the world premiere of QUEERTOPIA: The Anti-Violence Project, by Paula Gilovich and the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble, directed by Sara Kerastas. The press openings are Saturday, July 17 and Sunday, July 18 at 3:00pm at the Center on Halsted (3656 N Halsted).

QUEERTOPIA is a fast-paced, youth-driven oral history project that investigates violence within and against the LGBTQ communities in America. QUEERTOPIA imagines and performs a future just beyond our grasp. Through the intertwining stories of Flea, a transgendered boy who falls for a straight girl and feels the pressure to take T (testosterone), Teddy, a woman-identifying queer person dealing with harassment and Lexi, a half-Serb/half-Bosnian straight girl turned bisexual.

"This show moves beyond the politics of the present and the standard anti-violence story-the tokenizing and victimizing of queers in American culture, where gay identity is often defined by a lacking," says Sara Kerastas, Education Programs Director. "We're moving to a place where queers are complex, fierce and real."

QUEERTOPIA asks its audiences to consider, "What is queer space? Queer time? What does it mean to actively queer space and time? And, by extension, a theatre audience?" says Paula Gilovich, QUEERTOPIA co-writer.

After completing its two-week run at the Center on Halsted, QUEERTOPIA will embark on a free, city-wide tour to a number of Chicago youth communities from July 28th - July 31st. By facilitating the engagement of Chicago's youth communities, About Face seeks to spark dialogue, forge connections and fulfill its social justice approach to theater making.

The About Face Youth Theatre (AFYT) was created in 1998 as a safe space for open dialogue and community. Youth participants attend artistic training sessions, access professional LGBTQ activists, and participate in intergenerational dialogue. AFYT hopes to move its ensemble from positions of marginalization into positions of inclusion and power. For over ten years, The Youth Theatre has sought changes within the larger community through innovative thought, dialogue, and performance.

QUEERTOPIA runs from July 15 through 25 at Center on Halsted, located at 3656 N. Halsted. Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm, and Sunday at 3pm. For tickets, visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call (866) 811-4111.

Community partners of QUEERTOPIA include The Goodman Theatre, Howard Brown, Genderjust, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance and the Center on Halsted.

BIOS

Sara Kerastas (Director) is the Education Programs director for About Face Theatre, where she manages the Education Outreach program as well as The Youth Theatre. In Chicago, she has worked with such theaters as Strawdog, Redmoon, The Plagiarists, Theatre Seven, New Leaf and DirectorsLabChicago among others. Across Canada, she has directed with Pi Theatre, The Havana, Le Cagibi, F4L Productions and Théâtre Ste. Catherine. She received her B.A. in English-Drama & Theatre and Women's Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Recently, she received a 2010 Windy City Times 30 Under 30 Award. Sara is the Associate Artistic Director of 2nd Story, Chicago's urban storytelling theatre company.

Paula Gilovich (Co-writer) lives and writes in Brooklyn. As a reporter and essayist, she has contributed to The New York Times, Allure, The Stranger, Metro and other publications nationwide. She co-founded Tenth Avenue East Publishing, where she edited and published, The World Is Yours: The Geography of Hip Hop, Pacific Bell and The Rendezvous Reader. As a playwright and director, her work has been performed at PAC/Edge, Curious Theater Branch, SAIC, About Face Theatre and The Vic. For two years, she co-directed Gurlesque Burlesque. From 2006-2009, she served as the Education Programs Director for About Face Theatre. At About Face Theatre, she contributed to the writing of The Home Project and she wrote/directed, Fast Forward. She also co-created and co-curated, The Homo Show. For the educational touring program, she adapted, wrote and directed, How to Have a Friendship in America, As Big As The World, The Home Project and Fast Forward. As a sexual health educator and queer activist, she worked as a consulting instructor for ICAH and served as a design team member for the controversial LGBTQ-friendly high school, Pride Campus. Currently, she is working on her first novel.

About Face Theatre is one of Chicago's most acclaimed theatre companies, and is a national leader in the development of new work exploring gender and sexual identity. Since its founding by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen in 1995, the company has premiered more than 30 new plays by writers and directors who have been recognized with several Tony Awards, The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The MacArthur Fellowship and dozens of Joseph Jefferson Awards.

Landmark world premieres include Doug Wright's Pulitzer and Tony-winning I Am My Own Wife; Moisés Kaufman's production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm (a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project); Mary Zimmerman's M. Proust, and, with Lookingglass Theatre, the famed Eleven Rooms of Proust; Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty's Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein (a co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Original Cast Album recorded by Jay Records); the multi-award winning musical Winesburg, Ohio by Eric Rosen, Andre Pluess, Ben Sussman and Jessica Thebus; and the cult hit Pulp by Patricia Kane.

In addition to its award-winning mainstage performances, About Face is known nationally for its groundbreaking Youth Theatre, which creates critically acclaimed new work by and about LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Youth Theatre has performed on major stages across the country, and, through its outreach tour, changes the lives of thousands of young people each year. Building on the success of The Youth Theatre model, About Face recently launched its corporate outreach program to provide diversity training and onsite workshops to the corporate community. About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world.

About Face Theatre presents
QUEERTOPIA: The Anti-Violence Project,
By Paula Gilovich and the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble
Directed by Sara Kerastas
July 15-25, 2010
Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted)
$20/$12.50 Students
Visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call 866-811-4111 for tickets

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