Saint Sebastian Players Announce 38th Season

The Saint Sebastian Players (SSP) announce the company's 38th season: a musical mystery with multiple endings, a world premiere romance and a comic yet bittersweet look at women's relationships and wardrobes. Performances take place at SSP's home in the lower level of St. Bonaventure, 1625 W. Diversey (entrance on Marshfield), Chicago. Starting this season, SSP is changing its evening performance times to 7:30 p.m.

The season opens with the multiple Tony Award-winning musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood (orDROOD) with book, music and lyrics by Rupert Holmes. Based on Charles Dickens' final unfinished novel, this hilarious whodunit invites the audience to solve its mystery by choosing the identity of the murderer, potentially changing the show's ending at each performance. This tune-filled, fast-paced tale is presented as a show within a show, as the Music Hall Royale-a delightfully loony Victorian theatre company-presents Dickens' brooding mystery. Performances run October 26-November 18, 2018.

The world premiere Little Stones is SSP's third work by company member Leigh Johnson, who wrote this play expressly for SSP. In this romantic drama combining notions of reincarnation and fate, a young director and actress rehearsing different plays in adjacent classrooms of St. Bonaventure School in the autumn of 2018 find themselves inexplicably drawn to one another. Is it merely mutual attraction, or is it something deeper, more mysterious-a possible reconnection of old souls whose past lives were tragically cut short 100 years earlier? Combining neighborhood history with New Age sensibilities, Little Stones is a made-in-Chicago fable of karma, theatre and influenza. Performances are February 15-March 10, 2019.

Concluding the season is the humorous, touching Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Delia Ephron and Nora Ephron, based on the bestseller by Ilene Beckerman. This play of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory covers all the commonly important subjects-mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying first bras, mothers, hating purses and why women wear only black. Performances areApril 26-May 19, 2019.

SSP began producing theatre in 1982 at its original home, the St. Sebastian parish, located at the corner of Halsted Street and Wellington Avenue on Chicago's North Side. When the parish closed, SSP relocated to its current home, St. Bonaventure, at 1625 W. Diversey. During its history, the company has produced original and previously produced dramas, comedies and musicals; original audience-participation mysteries for special events; and the Monologue Matchup Competition, as well as provided support for smaller Sebastian Studio Projects produced by company members. For a complete production history, visit saintsebastianplayers.org/Production-History

Performances for each production take place Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.-a new time starting this season-and Sundays at 2 p.m. at St. Bonaventure, 1625 W. Diversey, at Marshfield just west of Ashland, in Chicago. Free parking is available in two lots. Subscription packages for the three-play season are $50 ($45 before July 1), $30 ($25 before July 1) for seniors. Full-priced single tickets are $25 for The Mystery of Edwin Drood and $20 for the two remaining plays; single tickets for seniors, students with valid ID and children younger than 12 are $15 for The Mystery of Edwin Drood and $12 for the remaining two plays. Group rates also are available.

All programming is subject to change. For information, call 773-404-7922 or visit saintsebastianplayers.org.

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