Promethean Theatre Ensemble Sets 2016-17 Season

Promethean Ensemble Theatre will enter its second decade with three plays that view characters and stories of the past through the eyes of modern playwrights. Leading off the season in December will be Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, Moisés Kaufman's 1997 biographical play about playwright Oscar Wilde's 1895 trials and ultimate conviction for the crime of homosexuality. Promethean Theatre Ensemble Artistic Director Brian Pastor will direct.

In January 2017, Promethean ensemble member Nicole Hand will helm Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a look at the Greek myth of Orpheus through the eyes of his wife. The New York Times' Charles Isherwood, in reviewing the play's 2007 production at New York's Second Stage Theatre, called it "a weird and wonderful new play."

The season's final production, David Ives' modern, though written in verse, "translaptation" of Pierre Corneille's 1643 farce The Liar, will open in April in a production directed by Promethean Artistic Associate Ed Rutherford. The Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones said Ives' new script "is an uncommonly droll take on what was always a very smart and well-crafted play ...and full of genuinely funny puns, pronouncements and posturing."

Pastor says of the upcoming season, "This will be our first three-show season since Season 4, and I believe that it reflects the growth and maturity of our company. Each of the shows in our 11th Season examines classic stories or figures in a new light. This theme has become the heart of what Promethean is all about, while we continue to stretch and grow around it as artists, challenging ourselves with new forms, new aesthetics, and new voices. I'm confident our audiences will be intrigued by what they see!"

Casting, performance times and ticketing information will be announced at a later date.

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moisés Kaufman
directed by Artistic Director Brian Pastor
City Lit Theater
Dec 9 - 18, 2016

In three short months, Oscar Wilde went from celebrated author and playwright to humiliated and imprisoned pariah. Moisés Kaufman's Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde tracks this descent using a host of primary sources, from very public trial documents and newspaper articles, to the very private writings of the key players in this real-life drama.

Director Brian Pastor's gender-blind, minimalist production will explore how one man's search for justice ultimately became one man's cry for dignity. Staged in the shadow of the Presidential Election, Promethean's production will explore the individual effect of a nation's attempts to legislate morality and censor ideas that challenge conventional notions of tradition and propriety.

Brian Pastor has been Promethean's Artistic Director since the summer of 2014. He is the Founding Executive Director of PTE and has also served as Box Office Manager. In 2015, Brian became the Executive Director at Raven Theatre after serving 10 and a half years on staff at City Lit Theater, including nine as Managing Director. He is also a former board and company member of The Mime Company and a founding company member of Chicago dell'Arte. Brian is an experienced actor, adaptor and director in Chicago, having worked on over 50 productions with at least a dozen different production companies since his graduation from Northwestern University. For Promethean, Brian has acted in seven mainstage productions, most recently as Warwick in The Lark and as Dr. Watson in the Jeff-nominated A Study in Scarlet. He also directed The Winter's Tale (Broadway World Award Nomination- Best Director), Henry Vand The Dark Side of the Bard for PTE and their Jeff-Recommended production of The Lion in Winter in the spring.

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Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
directed by Ensemble Member Nicole Hand
Athenaeum Studio 1
January 6 - February 11, 2017

Sarah Ruhl's retelling of the Orpheus myth centers upon his doomed bride, Eurydice, a character whose voice is typically missing from her own story. Whisked down to the underworld on her wedding day, Eurydice tries to make sense of her memories and her passions, and poignantly reconnects with her long-dead father, even as her heartbroken groom seeks to wrench her back into the life she left behind. Ruhl's atmospheric play combines off-kilter, playful comedy with a wistful yearning for meaning and human connection.

Ensemble member Nicole Hand's mainstage directing debut will draw upon the nostalgia of the past, incorporating music and design elements from the mid-20th century, while developing an original vocabulary of movement and soundscape in collaboration with the play's ensemble.

Nicole Hand is a founding member of PTE and the company's Literary Manager. Last year she directed the company's Evening of Shakespeare: Broken Hearts and Twisted Love. Also with Promethean, she has assistant directed The Lion in Winter, The Lark and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. On stage, she has appeared in the company's productions ofCaucasian Chalk Circle, The Winter's Tale and the Evening of Shakespeare series. Nicole graduated twice from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Theatre and an M.S. Ed in Secondary Education and teaches Theatre and English in CPS.

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The Liar by David Ives
directed by Artistic Associate Ed Rutherford
Athenaeum Studio 2
April 21 - May 27, 2017

In his adaptation, David Ives has updated Corneille's language in a version that scintillates with comedic wit. The Liar tells the story of Dorante, a young man newly arrived in Paris who wastes no time beginning his search for love and adventure, primarily through the spinning of extremely tall tales. As his tangled web of deception gets more and more complex and difficult to maintain, Ives uses Corneille's text to explore the layers of seeming and identity that we weave around ourselves to get through the day. Promethean's production will be designed to get the engine of farce at the heart of the play humming along smoothly, with sharp and precise language and sincere but high stakes performances, so that the audience can sit back and revel in the joyful chaos of the play.

For Promethean, Ed Rutherford directed Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle, his own world premiere adaptation of the Peter S. Beagle fantasy novel The Last Unicorn, and the company's inaugural production of Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy. Recently, he also directed the Midwest Premiere of the musicalCoraline and the musical Goblin Market. Also an actor, Ed appeared in Promethean's productions of The Illusion and Six Characters in Search of an Author, and has worked with Drury Lane Oakbrook, Porchlight, Theater Wit and many others. He is currently pursuing his MBA at Kellogg.

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