Mercy Street Theatre Company Kicks Off 16/17 Season With THE MERCY STREET AFFAIR: WITH WILD ABANDON

Mercy Street Theatre kicks off its third season on October 10 with The Mercy Street Affair: With Wild Abandon, a classy cocktail party and festival of new short plays that will take place at The Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale Ave. at 7:00 pm. Cost of entry is a suggested donation of $15. To RSVP, please visit http://www.mercystreettheatre.org/affair2016/.

Sure to be a fierce party, THE MERCY STREET AFFAIR will kick off the night with four short plays from the playwriting residents of Mercy Street, based on a collection of animal poems Anne Sexton. The plays include Sheep by EJC Calvert directed by FranCisco Lopez Jr.,Hornet by Ian Michael James directed by Will Quam, Cockroach by Rachel DuBose directed by Sonja Lynn Mata, and Bat by Shannon Pritchard directed by Sophie Blumberg. Following the performance, the audience will get a chance to mingle with the Mercy Street ensemble while enjoying tasty treats and craft cocktails inspired by the plays in the upcoming season.

"The Affair is our opportunity to connect with our audience and showcase the work of our incredible ensemble. A poem by Anne Sexton gave this company its name, so we wanted to pay tribute to even more of her work," says Artistic Director Julia Rohed.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:

E.J.C. CALVERT is from St. Louis, Missouri. Recent productions include Happy 3rd Birthday Siobhan (First Laugh Festival, Piccolo Theatre), Fast in Fire (Theatre HAN, Theatre for the New City), Sarazad and the Monster-King (The TRUF, Canal Park Playhouse), Calamity Jane Battles the Horrible Hoopsnakes (Lookingglass Theatre), Testify! (Audience Favorite Award, Roy Arias Studios), The Bear (A Tragedy) (Winner of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, 2010), Cadaver Synod (The Brecht Forum). Most recently, she developed and performed the shadow puppet play The Infinity Carrot with the Meowsner Players at the Piccolo Theatre in Evanston, IL. Publications include Calamity with YouthPlays LLC, The Bear (A Tragedy) in Samuel French's Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays 35th Series, and A Dinner Party Goes Awry in the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project anthology. E. J. C. holds an MFA in Playwriting from the New School for Drama.

RACHEL DUBOSE returned to the Chicago area by way of Atlanta, GA. After finishing her undergraduate career at Spelman College, Rachel went on to work with NinaHoliday Productions and BET. Some of her work, Eve Within and Alkie's Anonymous have received stage readings at Spelman with the latter being showcased at The ALLIANCE THEATRE during the Spelman Salon. Most recently, Lonely Hearts participated in The Fade 2 Black Festival in Houston, TX. Rachel holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.

IAN Michael James is an actor, dramaturg, and playwright living and learning in Chicago. Ian graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Theater (Concentration - Acting) and a Minor in Playwriting. Favorite acting credits include Self-Defense, or death of some salesmen, All My Sons, and The Arsonists. Dramaturgy credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (No Stakes Theater Project), Rotpeter (Mercy Street), Travesties(asst., Remy Bumppo). Ian's one-act play BURN was recently produced by Mercy Street in Spring 2016. Ian proudly serves as Associate Artistic Director and Resident Dramaturg at No Stakes Theater Project.www.ianmichaeljames.com

SHANNON PRITCHARD has written several plays, including Kin & Kind, Traces, Practice Babies, and The County Hell. They've been produced and developed by Jackalope Theatre, TimeLine, Chicago Dramatists and Something Marvelous Theatre. Her short plays have been performed at A Red Orchid Theater, The Second City, Chicago Dramatists, and Playwrights Horizons Theater School. She is a two-time Eugene O'Neil Playwrighting Conference semi-finalist (2014 & 2015), a Humanitas nominee, and has received commissions from Next Theatre and the DePaul Theatre School. Shannon is a founding member of the Accidental Shakespeare Company and a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and Northwestern University's MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage.

ABOUT MERCY STREET THEATRE

Mercy Street Theatre (Julia Rohed, Artistic Director; Danielle Stack, Producing Director; Jake L. Fruend, Associate Artistic Director) is an ensemble driven theatre dedicated to telling stories that examine the modern myth; stories of everyday interaction with the epic, iconic and divine. Mercy Street seeks to produce work that transcends the familiar by bringing the spectacular to life on stage, and scrutinizes the orthodox by putting key ideas and events of our world on display. By providing stories from unfamiliar places, cultures and times, MSTC aims to cultivate unity. Finally, MSTC strives to bring the house down by presenting an entertaining theatrical experience. For more information, please visit http://www.mercystreettheatre.org/affair2016/.

Mercy Street Theatre kicks off its third season on October 10 with THE MERCY STREET AFFAIR: WITH WILD ABANDON, a classy cocktail party and festival of new short plays that will take place at The Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale Ave. at 7:00 pm. Cost of entry is a suggested donation of $15. To RSVP, please visit http://www.mercystreettheatre.org/affair2016/.