Garage Rep Presents OOHRAH!, HIT THE WALL, and HE WHO 2/3-4/8

Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents its 3rd annual Garage Rep, featuring three productions in rotating repertory by some of Chicago's most innovative, storefront companies:  LiveWire Chicago, Theatre Zarko and The Inconvenience. Garage Rep will play a ten-week run February 2 – April 8, 2012 in The Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 N. Halsted St.  Single tickets and three play passes for Garage Rep are currently on sale.

The Garage Rep 2012 Productions & Companies include the following which all run through April 8:

LiveWire Chicago presents OOHRAH! by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Brad Akin featuring Peter Esposito, Joel Ewing*, Madeline Long*, Melissa Engle, Josh Odor, Calliope Porter and Ian R. Tranberg.

Surprised by her husband's early return from a tour in Iraq, Sara is unprepared for the complications of his re-entry into civilian life.  Tension simmers around their gun-obsessed teenage daughter, Sara's oddball live-in sister Abby, and Abby's newest infatuation – a sexy, young Marine who's keeping a secret. Oohrah! turns a comic eye to a homecoming gone awry.

Bekah Brunstetter's plays include A Long and Happy Life (Naked Angels), Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova, Collaboraction), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival), Oohrah! (Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater) and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Finborough Theater). She is a member of The Primary Stages Writer's Group, a New Voices/New York Fellow with The Lark Play Development Center and the 2011 Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theater, London.  Brad Akin is a company member at Steep Theatre where he has directed  productions including Greensboro: A Requiem, Insignificance, Book of Days, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Under the Blue Sky.  He also directed Where We Were Born as part of Steppenwolf's 2011 NEXT UP Rep. Akin holds an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University.

The OOHRAH! production team includes: Anders Jacobson and Judy Radovsky (scenic design), Kristin DeiTos (costume design), Eric Branson (lighting design), Stephen Ptacek (sound design), Maria DeFabo (props design), Kendra Miller (dramaturg), Mary Ellen Rieck (stage manager), Cory Conrad (production manager) and Ryan Nash (assistant stage manager).

LiveWire Chicago is a collective of artists who create theatre that reflects the current cultural landscape of our community through productions of original and contemporary works. Visit www.livewirechicago.com for more information.

The Inconvenience presents HIT THE WALL by Ike Holter, directed by Eric Hoff, featuring Walter Owen Briggs, Manny Buckley, Daniel Desmaris, Desmond Gray, Steve Lenz, Layne Manzer, Shannon Matesky, Rania Salem Manganaro, Arturo Soria  and Mary Williamson*.  Musicians include Josh Lambert, Ryan Murphy and Will Wood.

It's the summer of '69 and the death of music icon Judy Garland has emboldened her gay followers. A routine police raid on an underground Greenwich Village hotspot erupts in to a full-scale riot, the impetus of the modern gay rights movement. That's the well-known, oft-rehearsed myth of Stonewall, anyhow. Smash that myth against the vivid theatrical imagination of playwright Ike Holter, add a howling live rock 'n roll band, and you get the world premiere play, Hit the Wall.  Remixing this historic confrontation reveals ten unlikely revolutionaries, caught in the turmoil and fighting to claim "I was there."

Ike Holter's pieces have been presented with Nothing Without a Company, ATC, City Lit, Stage 773, EP Theater and Mixed Blood Theater. He's the two time recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry award for Playwriting from the Kennedy Center's ACTF festival and a Many Voices fellowship from The Playwrights Center. He has had four  shows produced with The Inconvenience, where he is a company member.  Eric Hoff is a director and an activist, whose mission is to explore the intersection of beautiful art and social justice. He is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab. Next summer, he is directing What's the T? for About Face Youth Theatre. In New York, Eric serves as Operations Manager for ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble and is a co-founder of The Accidentals.

The HIT THE WALL production team includes: John Holt* (scenic design), Coral Gable (costume design), Jeff Glass (lighting design), Joe Court (sound design), Ryan Murphy (music composition), Kelly Kerwin (dramaturg), Erin Kilmurray* (choreography), John Cicora* (musical direction), Ryan Bourque* (fight choreography), Ellen Willett (stage manager), Missi Davis* (production manager) and Gus Menary* (assistant director).

The Inconvenience is a community of interdisciplinary artists who seek to create a new way of experiencing art through a collaboration of music, theatre, dance, fine art and celebration. We create, produce, and curate work that challenges audience and artist perspectives and ignites social dialogue.

Theatre Zarko presents HE WHO written and directed by Michael Montenegro* featuring Nancy Andria*, Karen Hoyer*, Katherine Jones, Laura Montenegro*, Ellen O'Keefe*, Noah Silver-Mathews* and Colleen Werle*.  Musicians include Ben Goldberger, Stephen Lieto and Jude Mathews.

Within an old man's dying few seconds, he experiences the distorted and painful dreams of his most influential acts and their consequences. He must witness the birth of his life's work and its devastating effect on those people closest to him and ultimately on the whole world. Darkly poetic and arresting, He Who brings together live performers, puppets, and original music for an intimate audience experience.

Theatre Zarko explores puppet and mask theatre as an innovative, developing art form, with a focus on building strong artistic relationships within the community. The work expresses a strong visual point of view that plays with scale, metaphor, integral live music and a surrealistic expression of images and themes. Visit www.theatrezarko.org

For over twenty years, Jeff Award-winning puppet artist Michael Montenegro has been developing his unique style in the Chicago area-both as a solo artist and as a collaborator with different theatre groups and commissioned projects, culminating in the recent formation of his own company, Theatre Zarko. Works include Iktu Blas, Dreams from an Upside Down Man and The Sublime Beauty of Hands.    

The HE WHO production team in includes: Michael Montenegro* (scenic design, costume design and casting), Karen Hoyer (costume design), Jeff Glass (lighting design), Danielle Love (stage manager) and Stephen Lieto (production manager).

Theatre Zarko explores puppet and mask theatre as an innovative, developing art form, with a focus on building strong artistic relationships within the community. Our work expresses a strong visual point of view that plays with scale, metaphor, integral live music and a surrealistic expression of images and themes.

The GARAGE REP production team includes: Becky Mock (assistant production manager), Maria Gerbino (technical director) and Paul Doran (master electrician and light board operator).

The third annual GARAGE REP plays Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 pm; and Saturdays and Sundays at 4 pm and 8 pm. Please note: there will be an 8 pm performance on Tuesday 2/14; there will be a 1 pm performance on Saturday 2/18, Sunday 2/19, Saturday 4/7 and Sunday 4/8 ("three show marathon" days). 

Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, IL (Martha Lavey, Artistic Director; David Hawkanson, Executive Director) is where great acting meets big ideas.  Our passion is to tell stories about how we live now. Our mission is to engage audiences in an exchange of ideas that makes us think harder, laugh longer, feel more.  The company was formed in 1976 by a collective of actors and is dedicated to an ethic of mutual respect and the development of artists through ongoing group work.  Steppenwolf has grown into an internationally renowned ensemble of 43 artists who represent a remarkable generation of actors, directors and playwrights.  For additional information, visit www.steppenwolf.org, www.facebook.com/SteppenwolfTheatre and www.twitter.com/SteppenwolfThtr.

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