SIX STORIES TALL, AUGUSTA AND NOBLE Featured in ASC's 2012-2013 Season

Adventure Stage Chicago (ASC) announces its 2012-2013 season, which consists of two plays new to the Chicagoland area-SIX STORIES TALL: a play about mermaids, monsters and spray paint, and AUGUSTA AND NOBLE, both directed by ASC Producing Artistic Director Tom Arvetis.

SIX STORIES TALL: a play about mermaids, monsters and spray paint
Written by Marco Ramirez
Directed by Tom Arvetis (ASC Producing Artistic Director)

Inspired by Hispanic folklore, Six Stories Tall is a storytelling spectacle incorporating a unique mix of narrative influences including comic books, video games, hip-hop music and mythology.  The six fantastical tales that comprise this play create a thrilling, heartfelt journey.

Six Stories Tall was commissioned by Washington D.C.'s The Kennedy Center, where it made its premiere in October 2008 under the title Mermaids, Monsters and the World Painted Purple and was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play. One of the short plays from Mermaids was subsequently presented at The Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival in 2010. The Adventure Stage Chicago production marks only the second time the play has been staged, and the first time under the new title Six Stories Tall: a play about mermaids, monsters and spray paint!

Marco Ramirez (playwright) is a two-time Latino Playwriting Award winner at the Kennedy Center's American College Theater Festival and has had plays produced at The Juilliard School, The Arsht Center, and Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays (where he's twice received the Heideman Award). TV writing credits include FX's "Sons of Anarchy." He trained at both NYU and The Juilliard School.

AUGUSTA AND NOBLE
Written by Carlos Murillo
Directed by Tom Arvetis (ASC Producing Artistic Director)

Embracing its place within a 121-year-old settlement house, Adventure Stage Chicago combines its award-winning theatrical aesthetic with a unique, community-based development process that utilizes true stories collected from residents of Chicago's West Town neighborhood. Told in both English and Spanish, Augusta and Noble features a young hero born of Latino immigrant parents who seeks to bridge her reality of home with theirs, despite what feels like a world of difference. While honoring the rich history and beautiful resilience of the many Chicago immigrants who call this city home, Augusta and Noble raises questions about our responsibility to each other as members of the same community.

ASC is a program of the Northwestern University Settlement House, the oldest continuously operating Settlement House in Chicago. Augusta and Noble (a Working Title that identifies the intersection where the Settlement resides) was first conceived in the Summer of 2011 through a series of story circles conducted with community members from the West Town neighborhood that the Settlement serves. These stories serve as inspiration for the play, which will continue development over the next several months with involvement from both the ASC ensemble and West Town residents. While ASC remains devoted to telling stories for families and young audiences, Augusta and Noble represents an important step in our organization's evolution toward more integration of social service delivery and artistic practice. Augusta and Noble will make its world premiere at Adventure Stage Chicago in the Spring of 2013.

Carlos Murillo (playwright) is an internationally produced playwright and director. Plays include Mayday Mayday Tuesday (commissioned by Playwrights Horizons), A Thick Description of Harry Smith (commissioned by Berkeley Rep), Diagram of a Paper Airplane (Sundance Lab, commissioned by the Goodman Theatre), dark play or stories for boys (Humana Festival and over 40 productions around the US), Unfinished American Highwayscape #9 & 32 (Theatre@Boston Court), Mimesophobia (SPF NYC, Theatre Seven of Chicago, Portland Center Stage Just Add Water), A Human Interest Story (Hangar Lab, Walkabout Theatre, Son of Semele in LA), Offspring of the Cold War (Walkabout Theatre), Schadenfreude (Circle X, Sundance, Bay Area Playwrights), and Subterraneans (Soho Rep). He co-wrote The Secret History of the Lower East Side, produced site-specifically by En Garde Arts in NY. dark play has been translated into German, Hungarian, and Polish and is in its second year at the Vigszinhaz in Budapest after premiering in Germany at Theatre der Stadt Aalen in 2009. His work has also been seen at the Public, NY Theatre Workshop, The Goodman, the Playwrights' Center, Portland Center Stage, and others. He was a Playwrights' Center Jerome Fellow and has received two Rockefeller grants, two National Latino Playwriting Awards, the Guernsey Award from the Inge Festival and the Ofner Prize from the Goodman. He heads the playwriting program at The Theatre School of DePaul and has taught at the Kennedy Center, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and the Miami Dade Playwriting Fellows program. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and Chicago Dramatists.

Adventure Stage Chicago creates dynamic and transformative theatre for young audiences that activates the imagination, inspires dialogue and strengthens community among families, educators and artists. We strive to become Chicago's premier destination for theatrical productions and programming designed for young people and the adults in their lives; we aim to be leaders in theatre education through professional development workshops, residencies and resources that offer innovative ways to infuse theatre into the classroom; and we seek to cultivate and create challenging new work as well as produce celebrated stories. This is Adventure Stage's ninth season.

Adventure Stage has received numerous honors since its inception in 2004, including:
Recipient of a prestigious Continuing Innovation Stage II grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Selected participant in EmcArts' Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts, a program generously funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Zeta Phi Eta WiniFred Ward Award for Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Two-time Finalist for the Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theater Award
Participant in the New Visions/New Voices Festival at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington D.C., Four-time Recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence Grant

Adventure Stage Chicago is a program of Northwestern University Settlement House, the oldest continually operating settlement house in Chicago. Throughout its 121-year history, the Settlement has remained committed to providing resources that empower neighbors to overcome the obstacles of poverty. Adventure Stage extends this mission by presenting Chicago's young audiences, educators and families with an affordable artistic experience rooted in performance. Last season, Adventure Stage served over 7,000 students from 85 schools throughout the Chicagoland area and over 1,700 audience members for our weekend performances.

Each Adventure Stage Chicago production presents weekday matinees primarily for school groups, as well as weekend performances for the general public. Every performance includes a post-show audience talkback with the cast. Out of respect for our actors and audience members, children under age 5 are not permitted in the theatre during a performance.

All shows are performed at Vittum Theater, 1012 N. Noble St., in the heart of Chicago's West Town neighborhood. Street parking is available, and the theater is close to the Noble St. stop on the #56 Milwaukee bus line and the Division stop on the CTA Blue Line. The theater is wheelchair accessible.  For more information, visit:  http://www.adventurestage.org/

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