Invictus Theatre Company Presents Suzan- Lori Parks' TOPDOG/UNDERDOG

Full cast and crew have been announced for Invictus Theatre's upcoming production of Suzan Lori-Parks's TOPDOG/UNDERDOG, its first at the Windy City Playhouse, the company's new home.

Parks's drama is a darkly comic fable of brotherly love, family identity and the way we are defined by history. Lincoln and Booth are two African American adult brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Aaron Reese Boseman (director of Invictus's productions of THE MOUNTAINTOP and A RAISIN IN THE SUN) will direct the two-hander. His cast will include Mikha'el Amin (previously seen at Invictus as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in THE MOUNTAINTOP, Marc Antony in JULIUS CAESAR, Laertes in HAMLET, and Walter Lee Younger in A RAISIN IN THE SUN) as Lincoln, and DeMorris Burrows (of 1919 at Steppenwolf and the BET feature film INFIDELITY) as Booth.

Understudies are Stanley King (u/s Lincoln) and Aaron McCloud (u/s Booth).  TOPDOG/UNDERDOG will be performed at the Windy City Playhouse at 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. Press opening is Monday, February 19 at 7:00 p.m., following previews from February 13-18. It will play through March 31. 

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG'S Lincoln and Booth cope with poverty, racism, work, women, and their troubled upbringings. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future. TOPDOG/UNDERDOG premiered off-Broadway at New York's Public Theatre in a production directed by George C. Wolfe and starred Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. It won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play and moved to Broadway the following year. Its 2022 Broadway revival won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.
 
Invictus Theatre Company has been one of the most notable success stories among Chicago's storefront theatres in spite of the challenges facing the theater community in recent years. When the pandemic shut down in-person performances just three years after the company's founding, they responded with a thrillingly intimate Zoom production of ‘NIGHT, MOTHER. They returned from the pandemic by acquiring their own space – the former Jackalope Frontier Theater – which they renamed in honor of the late founding company member Reginald Vaughn. In that space, they continued to build a reputation for intimate and honest interpretations of classics with fidelity to the original texts and close attention to character development. The company's extraordinarily successful 2021-22 season netted the company five Jeff Awards for its 13 nominations.
 
The company continued its upward trajectory during its 2022-23 season. That season began with intimate, yet full-scale stagings of the epics JULIUS CAESAR and THE CRUCIBLE along with the two-hander THE MOUNTAINTOP. BUZZ CENTER STAGE's Wesley David said in reviewing  JULIUS CAESAR that “Invictus Theatre Company is quickly becoming one of my favorite venues in Chicago” and of THE MOUNTAINTOP said “They constantly exceed their reach. I have to remind myself this is a storefront theatre.” The CHICAGO READER'S Jack Helbig said of THE CRUCIBLE “This is a production that grabs an audience in the first seconds, pulls us in, and doesn't let go until the final lights go out.”
 
Tickets for TOPDOG/UNDERDOG and the rest of Invictus's 2024 season will be available soon at www.invictustheatreco.com.

 

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