Steppenwolf NOW Virtual Stage Presents WALLY WORLD by Isaac Gómez

This holiday season Steppenwolf Theatre Company will present Wally World, the second of six productions debuting on its Steppenwolf NOW virtual stage. Written by acclaimed playwright Isaac Gómez (adaptor of Erika Sanchez's I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter) and co-directed by Gómez and Lili-Anne Brown (Animal Farm), the play will be presented as a two-act radio production, which begins streaming December 16, 2020. Take a break from the screen and enjoy a hilarious and moving story of the workers who make holiday shopping possible.

The stellar cast features ensemble members Cliff Chamberlain, Audrey Francis, Sandra Marquez and Karen Rodriguez with Danny Bernardo, Sydney Charles, Kevin Curtis, Leslie Sophia Perez, Marvin Quijada and Jacqueline Williams.

It's Christmas Eve and a group of Wally World employees are about to lose it. On the one day of the year the mega-department superstore is supposed to close its doors, tensions between co-workers threaten to destroy more than their holiday cheer. Their manager Andy is doing everything in her power to keep her store in line and her employees in check. But can she be everything at once: caring, efficient, protective, firm and kind? Wally World is a festive, poignant examination of finding magic in the mundane, as ten employees do all they can to find purpose in a place that has never seen purpose in them.

"This play is about my mom-over the past 25 years she has worked her way up from cashier to store manager at one of the largest focus Walmarts in the country, situated right off a border-crossing bridge in El Paso, Texas," shares playwright Isaac Gómez. "I grew up in Walmart and think there's something beautiful and meaningful about these everyday people who had, and have, lives that are deeper beyond our understanding. What brings them together is a profound loneliness that we all share, and what connects them is that they feel less lonely when they are together."

Isaac Gómez is an award-winning Chicago and LA-based playwright, originally from El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In 2018, Steppenwolf presented his critically acclaimed work, La Ruta directed by ensemble member Sandra Marquez and featuring ensemble member Karen Rodriguez alongside an all-female Latinx cast. Steppenwolf's sold-out run of Gómez's adaptation of Erika L. Sánchez's award-winning novel I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter had to be cut short this past March due to the pandemic. He is the recipient of the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award and the 2017 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award.