Isolation...Fear...Budding sexualities.... The 2009 Season!

The Gift Theatre • The 2009 Season

Isolation...Fear...Budding sexualities.... Technology as refuge.... A Chicago premiere and World Premiere...An unprecedented re-commitment to Ensemble...An Indiana Farmhouse, a CBS studio during the Golden Age of television,  a clustered Cleveland sound studio where a bomb may explode, romance and destruction in pre 9-11 New York, post-traumatic stress disorder and sexual awakening on the razor-sharp coastline of a Maine summer retreat;  Horrific acts of violence and humongous displays of love:

From a sunrise to a sunset, welcome to the themes and settings for  The 2009 Season of The Gift Theatre Company.

THE RUBY SUNRISE
January 15th--March 22nd, 2009
a Chicago premiere by Rinne Groff
Directed by Ensemble member John Gawlik

Setting off from a farm in Indiana as a young girl named Ruby struggles to turn her dream of the first all-electrical television system into a reality, and jumping forward to a McCarthy-era New York TV studio where Ruby's heirs fight over how her story should be told in a live teleplay, THE RUBY SUNRISE charts the course of the phenomenon of television: from early idealism and sparks of genius, to promises fulfilled and compromises brokered, and beyond.

TALK RADIO
April 9th  - May 31st, 2009
By Eric Bogosian
Directed by TBA

Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio-his breakthrough 1987 Public Theater hit that was made into a film by Oliver Stone-has been revived in a "mesmerizing"(Newsday) production on Broadway, with Liev Schreiber playing the role of the late-night shock jock that Bogosian himself originated. The drama is set in the studio of Cleveland's WTLK Radio over the course of Barry Champlain's two-hour broadcast, being scrutinized that night by producers with an interest in taking the show national, and fueled as always by coffee, cocaine, and Jack Daniel's. Barry's jousts with his unseen callers-ranging from a white supremacist to a woman obsessed with her garbage disposal-are peppered with insights into his character from his ex-deejay pal and his sometime girlfriend/producer, and punctuated with a transformative visit from an embodied voice.

Eric Bogosian is a writer and actor who over the last twenty years has authored five full-length plays and created six full-length solos for himself, including subUrbia; Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead;and Drinking in America.He is the recipient of three OBIE Awards and a Drama Desk Award, and has toured throughout the United States and Europe.
 
 
 
STOP/KISS
June 25th - August 9th
By Diana Son
Directed by Ensemble member Michael Patrick Thornton

It doesn't do this play justice to say that much of the action takes place in a hospital room around the bed of a comatose woman. On the other hand, it may explain why critics have been so impressed. From unpromising material--standard urban settings, stilted exchanges, missed cues, private jokes, half-finished sentences--Diana Son has crafted a subtle, moving drama about vulnerability and risk.

When Callie, a twentysomething New York traffic reporter, promises to take on a cat owned by Sara, "some friend of an old friend of someone," she arranges to leave quickly after Sara drops off the cat so that she doesn't get drawn into a dull evening with a stranger. Callie is an expert at avoiding conflict, which serves her well in the city. Sara, on the other hand, has willingly left her job at a Quaker school in St. Louis to teach third-graders in the Bronx. Although both are "straight" women, they circle each other warily, nursing an unspoken attraction. The playwright's choice to shuttle back and forth in time, between the hospital room and police station and the early days of Callie and Sara's friendship, lends a bittersweet quality to even their lightest exchanges, allowing us to wonder, along with the two women, whether the violent outcome of their single kiss makes it a bad idea. Stop Kiss revises Romeo and Juliet, with one thug and the mores of a nation standing in for the family feud. --Regina Marler

Untitled
September 3rd - November 1st
A world premiere by Ensemble member Jenny Connell
Directed by Ensemble member Michael Patrick Thornton

If the Postone family can rely on anything, they can rely on their summers in Maine. They spend every summer in a cottage by the sea and nothing–the cold mornings, the creaky porch steps, the crusty veteran who runs the general store–nothing ever changes. Until this summer. With a divorce on the horizon, a daughter on the brink of sexual awakening, and a veteran of the current war keeping watch from across the bay, after this summer nothing will ever be the same.

Jenny Connell's plays have been seen in Chicago, New York, Colorado, Montana, and Texas. She was part of the inaugural year of the new Theatre Masters Program, was a finalist for the 2008 Bay Area Play Festival, and is a nominee for the Williamstown Theater Festival's Arnold L. Weissberger award.  She received the writer's prize at Venture Theatre's 2007 short play festival, and just shot her first short film, Unmoored, with Trillium Studios.  It will be making the
rounds at film festivals in 2009.  Jenny is currently pursuing her MFA in playwriting at UT Austin, trained in acting at The School at Steppenwolf, and is a proud member of The Gift Theatre Company.

The Gift Theatre
4802 N. Milwaukee  Box Office: (773) 837-7071
The Gift Theatre is conveniently located at 4802 N. Milwaukee in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood—two storefronts north of Lawrence, on the west side of Milwaukee—and is easily accessible by the Kennedy Expressway, the Lawrence and Milwaukee buses, and the CTA Blue Line.
 
The Gift Theatre is dedicated to telling great stories on stage with honesty and simplicity.  Since its 2002 debut, The Gift has consistently established itself as an actors’ theatre, eschewing directorial cleverness for honest, powerful connections between the actors and the audience.  With the conception of The Lab—an ensemble-only forum dedicated to artistic growth and exploration—The Gift continues to deepen its commitment to the idea of ‘ensemble’ by training together on an ongoing basis.  Previous and future instructors in The Lab include Sheldon Patinkin, Jeff Perry, and Dr. Eric Forsythe.
 
Previous productions include W;t,The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, White People, Three Sisters, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Blithe Spirit, 365 Days/365 Plays, The Halloween Show, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Glass Menagerie (Remount—Theatre on the Lake), The Good Thief, The Clearing, Hurlyburly, The Glass Menagerie, The Pavilion, A Young Man In Pieces, Language of Angels, 6, County Fair, The Countess, Alcatraz (Abbie Hoffman Festival), Orestes 2.0, Boys’ Life, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (giftSYDNEY).
 
The educational program of The Gift Theatre Company, giftED., continues its work at The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) by combining theatre and speech therapy to combat pediatric oral aversion in addition to its work through Chicago Public Schools, staging extant productions such as Pecos Bill as well as creating new pieces for the theatre, such as HOME / ROOM.  The Gift is also beginning to secure equipment for its first feature-length project under its film component, giftFILM.
 
The Gift Theatre is the only professional theatre company in the working class neighborhood of Jefferson Park.  As one of Chicago’s most exciting theatre companies, The Gift is marked by acting of the highest caliber with continual training in The Lab, the important educational work being done at RIC through giftED., and sold-out houses on the northwest side of Chicago. Recent generous support has been provided by the Donnelley Foundation and Driehaus Foundation as well as The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council.  

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