Step Up Opens 2nd Annual HOLIDAZE at Chicago Dramatists Tonight

'Tis the season! Step Up Productions is pleased to continue its 2014-15 season with the return of its wildly popular HoliDaze, a hilarious and heartwarming line-up of original holiday-themed short works by Kristiana Rae Colón, Dana Lynn Fromby, Aline Lathrop, Steven Peterson, Joshua Rollins and Steve Simoncic playing now through December 21, 2014 at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are currently available at www.stepupproductions.org or by calling (312) 316-8355. The press tonight is Tuesday, November 25 at 7:30 pm.

Due to popular demand, Step Up's popular holiday round up returns for its second year! This series of original one-acts showcases the crazy, zany, dysfunctional chaos of the holiday season. Twelve talented playwrights and directors put relationships, family and friends in the holiday pressure cooker for an unforgettable evening!

Throughout the run, Step Up Productions will be collecting donations of new hats, glove, coats and scarves for Make It Better Foundation's annual Warming Hearts & Hands program. Proceeds from HoliDaze will also help provide counseling for Seasonal Affective Disorder through Dr. Jacqueline Duke, PsyD, LLC. As part of its mission, Step Up Productions donates a portion of its proceeds to organizations in and around Chicago that support issues often highlighted in its productions.

The full HoliDaze 2014 line-up includes:

Perfect Space

By Joshua Rollins

Directed by Audrey Francis

Featuring Maria Margaglione and Conor Woods

Christmas Day. An alley outside a stage door. Daniel Radcliffe is inside rehearsing a play and two people are camped out waiting for him to appear. One's a fan who wants to thank him, the other is a boy wizard who wants to confront him for co-opting an identity that isn't his. A story of loneliness, identity, magic and finding your place in this world. And licorice.

Christmas Armaments

By Dana Lynn Formby

Directed by Kristen Johnson

Featuring Andy Lutz and Jessica Dean Turner

Clair and Nick have recently been reunited after Clair was released from a mental institution. She's still refusing to eat and not too keen on seeing her five-year-old daughter. Nick is ready to try and make this family work as he goes in "armed with Christmas," trying to convince Clair their family is worth living for.

Lunch Box Love

By Steven Simoncic

Directed by Kacie Smith

Featuring Alicia Ciuffini and Anthony Venturini

This is not a story about the youthful exuberance of falling in love... or the hard-boiled cynicism of falling out of it. It's a story about that everyday, punch-the-clock-and-pack-a-lunch kind of love... that imperfect, imprecise kind of love that still somehow manages to find a little glitter in the rubble.

Christmas at the Staples Center

By Aline Lathrop

Directed by Tara Branham

Featuring Samara Harris Anderson and Patrick Gannon

It's Christmas and Isabel has gone back to work - away from her husband and young daughter for first time. When she meets a seasoned trade show rep who shares secrets of carpet grades and makes her laugh, the real world seems to recede into the background of the Staples Convention Center and her purgatorial hotel room.

Gift Horse Grill

By Kristiana Rae Colón

Directed by Leonicia Bongorno

Featuring Jillian Burfete, Celeste Cooper, Luce Metrius, Tina Muñoz Pandya, Julian Parker and Curtis Powell

A squad of poetic millennials decide to ditch their families' Christmases for a very merry kickback at the homies' crib. But the holiday spades game and yuletide cipher are interrupted when Santa, in the form of a housing bureau agent, drops in just after midnight. He comes with a puzzling offer to reconcile America's oldest debt, sending the party spinning toward the racially absurd.

A Couple of Nobodies

By Steven Peterson

Directed by Patrick Thornton

Featuring Elizabeth Antonucci and Anthony Venturini

Party queen Justine has nothing in common with reclusive Stuart in the apartment down the hall. Until she loses her keys after partying too hard on New Year's Eve and turns to him for help. Can he?

The production team for HoliDaze includes: Eleanor Kahn (set design), Raquel Adorno (costume design), Becca Jeffords (lighting design), Jeffrey Levin (sound design), Dorthea Walstrom (makeup design), Colin Morgan (props design), Jacob Puralweski (technical director), Megan Snowder (master electrician), Tara Branham (curator) and Beth Zupec (production manager).