Ka-Tet Theatre Company to Present LYDIE BREEZE at Greenhouse Theater Center, 10/12-11/10

Ka-Tet Theatre Company is pleased to present Lydie Breeze by John Guare, directed by Jeremy Garrett, playing October 12 - November 10, 2013 at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. Tickets will be available online at www.greenhousetheater.org or by calling the Greenhouse Theater Box Office at (773) 404-7336.

It is 1895 in a weather-beaten beach house on Nantucket Island, formerly the center of an idealistic commune. The hopes of this noble experiment have long been destroyed by adultery, murder, and suicide, and now those haunted by the tragedy gather to seek atonement. Moving from comedy to melodrama as it untangles the twisted strands of their lives, the play illuminates both the undying optimism, which underlies the American ethos, and the infecting corruption, which so often can reach beyond its own time to subvert the cherished hopes of the future.

John Guare (Playwright) is an American playwright best known for The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body. He received his BA from Georgetown University and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Guare is a founding member of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and served as Resident Playwright at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1976. He has also been nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for the film Atlantic City. Currently, he is a council member of the Dramatists Guild, co-editor of theLincoln Center Theater Review, co-produces the New Plays Reading Room Series at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, and teaches in the Playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama.

Jeremy Garrett (Director) graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 and since then has worked for a variety of regional theaters around the country - from Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee to the Hampstead Stage Company in Center Barnstead, New Hampshire. Upon completing a stint as Associate Artistic Director of Gamut Theatre Group in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Jeremy was chosen to join Illinois State University's MFA Directing program and successfully attained his degree in May of this year. Recent directing credits include: American Theater Company (We Support the Troops), ISU (The Adding Machine, Cloud 9, The Merchant of Venice), Harrisburg Shakespeare Company (Richard III), Indiana Repertory Theatre (Assistant Director for Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde).

Ka-Tet Theatre Company produces ensemble driven theatre focusing on a strong collaboration and cohesion between actors, directors and designers. The name of the company, Ka-Tet, means a group of people brought together by ka, or fate, to achieve a common goal. We believe that theatre is a collective experience, that theatre should be visceral; felt first and intellectualized later. We know that experience is only possible when there is an honest connective link, a symbiosis of audience and artist. We welcome each audience to bring their own unique collective experiences and energies to form, every performance, our Ka-Tet.

Since 2009, Ka-Tet has proven to be a dynamic storefront theatre, producing seven critically acclaimed and challenging full-length productions. The Chicago Tribune called Ka-Tet's inaugural production of Road "fearless." TimeOut Chicago said the performances in Ka-Tet's 2010 production of Bertolt Brecht's In The Jungle of Cities were "stylized but burn with intensity" and it appeared on WBEZ's Onstage/Backstage list of one of the top 5 overlooked shows of 2010. Ka-Tet Theatre's ensemble acting routinely garners high praise. Ka-Tet's keen vision, willingness to take risks, and insistence on high-quality production values provides a unique connection with its audience.