Chimera Ensemble presents Jessica Moss's CAM BABY at Collaboraction Studios

After a provocative first season, Chimera Ensemble is launching into Season Two with CAM BABY, an unsettling comedy written by Jessica Moss, a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School. Jesse Roth, renowned in Chicago for her direction of WORLD BUILDERS at First Floor Theater and THE TERRIBLE at the New Colony, will direct.

This rich, sensitive tale exploring voyeurism, privacy, and the complexity of relationships in the digital era is sure to invigorate and inspire. During its workshop last year at the Toronto Fringe Festival, CAM BABY was awarded "Best Play." Chimera Ensemble will perform CAM BABY February 9 - March 3, 2018 in The Vault Theater at Collaboraction Studios in The Flat Iron Arts Building at 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. Tickets are on sale now.

Nora Hunt stars as Clara, an average blogger who's never really had a boyfriend before - until Tim, played by Arif Yampolsky, comes along. In her cozy Toronto bedroom, the millennials bond over their affinity for meme-worthy YouTube videos and shared anxieties. Little do they know that Clara's roommates (the effortless heartthrob Natalie, played by Chimera Ensemble member Norma Chacon, the morally-questionable Joseph, portrayed by Ian Deanes, and the charming schemer Matabang, played by Nico Fernandez) are inviting a plethora of anonymous strangers to tune in to their every move online - until the voyeuristic Ezra, played by Christopher Donaldson, appears. This humanizing look at technology begs the question: What does it mean to truly know someone in an age of social media, surveillance, and self-exposure?

The design and production team includes Rachael Koplin (Stage Manager), David Lovejoy* (Production Manager), Joy Ahn (Scenic Designer), Morgan Lake (Sound Designer), Cassandra Bowers (Costume Designer), Murphy Mayer* (Assistant Director), Nicole Fabbri* (Properties Designer), Vada Briceño (lighting Designer), and R&D Choreography (Violence and Intimacy Designer).
*Denotes Chimera Ensemble Member

Jessica Moss (Playwright). Jessica Moss is a performer, writer, and producer from Toronto, Canada. She currently lives in New York City where she is a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School. She is the creator/performer of solo shows 'Modern Love' (Next Stage Festival, Toronto), and 'Polly Polly' (Theatre Mischief at Toronto and Edmonton Fringe; Patron's Pick, Best of Fringe, Ed Mirvish Award for Entrepreneurship). She is a contributing writer/performer to the collectively created 'Swoon!' (Toronto Fringe) and 'TEASE' (Crows' Theatre East End Performance Crawl).

Her full-length plays include 'Next to Him' (RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwrights Contest Shortlist, Second Prize in Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition, Finalist for Tangent Theatre Tivoli's NEWvember, Finalist for the SafeWord Theatre New Play Contest), 'I Will Miss You When You're Gone', and 'Cam Baby' (Toronto Fringe New Play Contest Winner 2015). She has been nominated for a Canadian Comedy award, and the Tom Hendry Emerging Playwright Competition. Her work has been presented at the Canadian Stage Festival for Ideas and Creation, the Toronto International Film Festival, Theatre Passe Muraille, Tarragon Theatre, and elsewhere.

Open Captioning for Every Performance
Thanks to the generosity of its Season Two donors, Chimera Ensemble is proud to provide Open Captioning for every performance of CAM BABY. Open Captioning is a service that has traditionally been used by individuals who experience any level any level of hearing loss, individuals with learning disabilities and attention disorders, those looking to read song lyrics, and those for whom English is not their first language. About 30 theatres out of the more than 200 theatres in Chicago provide Open Captioning for their productions, and most of those theaters can only provide this programming for one performance during a show's run. Chimera Ensemble has incorporated Open Captioning into the design of CAM BABY, allowing all audience members to access the story with a multisensory approach. By approaching accessibility as a part of the artistic process from the very beginning with directors, designers and performers, Chimera Ensemble hopes to create not only a more cohesive and inclusive theatrical process that better reflects the varied ways in which individuals experience the world, but a model for other theatre companies to follow.

Community Organization Partnership
As a part of its mission to give back, Chimera Ensemble chooses to partner with a community organization for every mainstage performance. For CAM BABY, Chimera Ensemble is proud to partner with The Grateful Garment project to help return dignity to victims of sexual violence and is looking forward to collecting both clothing and monetary donations for this worthwhile organization.

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