Pride Films and Plays to Produce a Five-Play Summer Repertory

Pride Films and Plays will fill the three months between its 2017-18 season and its already announced 2018-19 season with a five-play summer repertory of fully staged plays, according to an announcement today by company Executive Director David Zak. The summer rep, called "PAC Pride Fest," will include a world premiere, a US premiere, a Chicago premiere, a British drama that made Laurence Olivier an American stage star, and a new production of Joe DiPietro's comedy-drama f-ing MEN.

The first play of the "PAC Pride Fest" will be the American premiere of PINK ORCHIDS, a British play in which five eloquently interwoven and often funny monologues explore the experience of living with a virus that attacks the emotions as well as the body. PINK ORCHIDS will begin performances on June 6 and be directed by Brennan T. Jones. It will be performed in the PAC'S Buena in repertory with THE GREEN BAY TREE, which will begin performances on June 11. In THE GREEN BAY TREE, a charming young man is forced to choose between the love of his fiancée, the lifestyle of his male mentor, and the prescription of his upbringing. 2018 is the 85th Anniversary year of THE GREEN BAY TREE, an infamous comedy of manipulation that in 1933 made a leading Broadway star of Laurence Olivier, opposite his then-wife Jill Esmond. It was a scandalous hit in the West End and on Broadway.

Joe DiPietro's f-ing MEN will begin a two-month run in the Broadway on July 1. In this present-day updating of Schnitzler's LA RONDE, ten men - a hustler, soldier, two college students, businessman and his husband, an adult film actor, a movie star, his agent and a playwright - all have physical and emotional desires to connect. For this 10th Anniversary production of f-ing MEN, to be directed by David Zak, DiPietro's scenes will be connected with sensual movement from choreographers Jake Ganzer, Daniel Hurst, James Mueller, and Katelyn Stoss. f-ing MEN will run through August 25.

Two more plays in the PAC Pride Series will be performed in repertory in the Broadway throughout August. Opening on August 3, after previews on August 1 and 2, will be HURRICANE DAMAGE, a world-premiere by the New York-based playwright Kevin Brofsky. HURRICANE DAMAGE concerns two long-time partners living on a Florida coast who are visited by a friend. The play will alternate on the Broadway stage with the Chicago premiere of HOLDING THE MAN, a hit gay-themed drama from Australia chronicling the 15-year relationship of a real-life gay couple. These final two plays of the PAC Pride Series will close on Sunday, August 26 - just days before previews begin for the first show of Pride Films and Plays's previously announced five-show subscription season.

Tickets for all events are on sale now at www.pridefilmsandplays.com or by phone at 866-411-4111 or 773-857-0222

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