Photo Flash: First Look at Bailiwick Chicago's THE WILD PARTY, Now Playing Through 11/1

Bailiwick Chicago launches its 2014-15 season with the Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical THE WILD PARTY, with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa, book by LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, based on the 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March, directed and choreographed by Brenda Didier, with musical direction by Aaron Benham*. THE WILD PARTY will play through November 1, 2014 at the Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are currently on sale at www.victorygardens.org, by calling (773) 871-3000 or in-person at the Victory Gardens Box Office. The press opening is Sunday, October 5 at 7 pm.

THE WILD PARTY will feature Danni Smith* as Queenie, Matthew Keffer as Burrs and Danielle Brothers as Delores with Molly Coleman, Gilbert Domally, Patrick Falcon, Desmond Gray, Jason Grimm, Christina Hall, Sharriese Hamilton*, Ryan Lanning*, Steven Perkins*, Khaki Pixley, Jason Richards and Sasha Smith.

Manhattan decadence in the 1920s provides the backdrop for this tough musical fable. Queenie, a vaudeville chorus girl. hosts a titular blowout with her vicious lover Burrs, a blackface minstrel. The guests are a vivid collection of the unruly and the undone: Queenie's conniving rival, a cocaine-sniffing bisexual playboy, a washed-up boxer, a black "brother act," a diva of indeterminate age and infinite life experience, the fresh-off-the-farm ingénue whose naïveté quickly evaporates, a lesbian actress and her comatose girlfriend, and the bargain-basement heartthrob who catches Queenie's roving eye. The jazz- and gin-soaked party rages to a mounting sense of threat as artifice and illusion are stripped away. When midnight debauchery leads to tragedy at dawn, the high-flying characters land with a sobering thud, reminding us that no party lasts forever.

The production team for THE WILD PARTY includes Megan Truscott* (scenic designer), Theresa Ham (costume designer), Brian Hoehne (lighting designer), Patrick Bley (sound designer), Cameron Turner (assistant choreographer), Wil Deleguardia (technical director), Geoff Bleeker* (assistant director/dramaturg) and Mallory Bass (stage manager).

*Denotes Bailiwick Chicago Company Members/Associate Artists/Residents.

Photos by Michael Brosilow