Broken Nose Theatre Announces Tenth Season

Broken Nose Theatre, one of Chicago's premier Pay-What-You-Can theatre companies, is excited to announce its tenth season, featuring two streaming audio plays followed by two in-person performances, including a world premiere and Chicago premiere. BNT will celebrate a decade of programming, most of which was presented under their economically accessible ticketing model in the Chicago theatre community.

The 2021-22 season kicks off this fall with a streaming audio adaptation of BNT's hit 2018 play Kingdom, written by Resident Playwright Michael Allen Harris and directed by Manny Buckley. This spellbindingly lyrical family drama features ensemble members RjW Mays and Watson Swift reprising the roles they performed in 2018, joined by ensemble members Ben F. Locke and William Anthony Sebastian Rose II, and guest artist Darren Jones.

Up next, BNT presents the virtual world premiere audio drama Primer, a deeply honest look at the prioritization of property over people, written by ensemble member Spenser Davis and directed by Literary Manager Brittney Brown. Set in the same location of Davis's hit 2018 play Plainclothes, the cast consists entirely of Broken Nose Theatre company members: Kim Boler, JD Caudill, Catherine Dildilian, August Forman, RjW Mays, Watson Swift, Aria Szalai-Raymond, David Weiss and Brenda Scott Wlazlo, with several reprising their characters from Plainclothes.

Broken Nose Theatre is excited to welcome back live audiences in February 2022 with the world premiere of Eric Reyes Loo's drama This Is Only a Test. Toma Tavares Langston directs this all-too-prescient view of the future our youth may be inheriting. In spring of 2022, BNT presents the Chicago premiere of Stephanie Alison Walker's drama Friends With Guns directed by Georgette Verdin, a conversation-provoking drama about relationships in the wake of disagreement. Both plays will be presented at BNT's resident home, The Den Theatre at 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

BNT's tenth season will also include the 9th annual Bechdel Fest, the company's annual theatre festival, featuring a full slate of new short plays with female-identifying, trans and nonbinary casts.

Finally, Broken Nose will continue to provide institutional support to two outside playwrights through The Paper Trail, its new play development program. This season's playwrights include Rachel DuBose and Brynne Frauenhoffer.

Tickets for all Broken Nose Theatre performances are "pay-what-you-can," allowing patrons to set their own price. Tickets for Kingdom and Primer are currently available at www.brokennosetheatre.com. Tickets for additional performances will go on sale at a later date.

Artistic Director E.M. Davis and Managing Director Rose Hamill comment, "After the last year and a half we all experienced, combined with so much uncertainty as our industry slowly reopens, we still get emotional thinking about a new year of theatrical programming. Our tenth anniversary season combines audio dramas with in-person productions, staged readings with virtual workshops, allowing us to take everything we have learned from working digitally and apply it to thought-provoking new work about captivating characters coming to terms with a world that has shifted beneath their feet. While we may not be in the same physical space together until 2022, we are thrilled to bring two compelling pieces of audio drama to you this fall, both of which are cast almost entirely from within our incredibly talented ensemble. Then in the new year, we're bringing back the conversation-driven stories we had to pause last season, helmed by two directors we admire so much within the community. And all of it, made possible through our economically accessible Pay-What-You-Can ticketing model, removing the financial barrier that can prevent so many from experiencing live theatre. We cannot wait to share these with you"