Photo Flash: The Right Brain Theatre Presents Hesperia

The Right Brian Project (RBP) presents the world premiere drama "Hesperia," by Chicago playwright Randall Colburn, directed by Artistic Director Nathan Robbel. The second of three thematically-linked new dramas, "Hesperia" follows Claudia, a former porn star, as she takes a new name and a new faith in the Midwestern cornfields of Hesperia. Her fiancée Trick, an idealistic youth minister, shepherds her in her new life. But when Ian, her former partner-in-porn and childhood best friend, follows her, the whole community is affected, and Claudia must decide on whose terms she will be saved. "Hesperia" explores the complications of conversion and the depth of sacrifice necessary to become born-again. A gentle story of innocence and redemption, the RBP asks the audience to question the role sexual power plays in our relationships and in our own personal sense of identity. In addition to incorporating traditional hymn snippets from "It Is Well With My Soul," "Trust and Obey," and "Glorify Thy Name," Trevor Patrick Watkin (2010 Jeff Award for Original Incidental Music) has composed lyrical incidental music for piano and flute for this production. The show runs about 80 minutes with no intermission, and donations for Season of Concern will be accepted at each performance.

RBP has devoted the 2010 season to local writer Colburn and his three plays of innocence, sexuality and the drive to reinvent oneself on one's own terms, starting with "Pretty Penny" (the story of a model and a phone sex operator whose identities, sexual and otherwise, become interwoven, ran February 18-March 20, 2010), followed by "Hesperia," and concluding with "Halfshut" (description below, will run November 4-December 4, 2010), which was specifically created for and workshopped with the RBP ensemble. Robbel said, "Colburn's stories are of quiet desperation and an aching to become something different - to change one's self, or to run away. There is sadness coupled with nobility in his characters which makes them immediately relatable, and completely vulnerable - sometimes uncomfortably so. That ultimate communion between actor and audience in our intimate black box space is what is exciting to me, and with Randall's scripts, that comes naturally."

WHERE: RBP Rorschach Theatre, 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613
CTA - Irving Park Brown Line; Irving Park, Damen and Lincoln buses
Metra Ravenswood stop; street parking

WHEN: Opens Thursday, July 15, 2010, at 8 p.m. (press also invited to 7/14 preview)
Closes Saturday, August 14, 2010
Runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Preview on Wednesday, July 14, 8 p.m.
Added industry show on Monday, August 2, 8 p.m.
TICKETS: Publish this number: 773-750-2033, or contact tickets@therbp.org
$15 suggested donation for all shows
$12 per ticket for those in groups of ten or more

Photo by Tom McGrath.

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