Walkabout Theater To Return To Chicago With POOR POOR LEAR

Walkabout Theater Company returns to producing in Chicago with the production that launched the company in 1999, Poor Poor Lear, written by Nina Sallinen and Katja Krohn, original direction by Katja Krohn with 2026 direction by Founding Artistic Director Kristan Schmidt, March 12 - 15 at Chopin Theatre.

Poor Poor Lear stars Nina Sallinen and a new mystery guest every night. In addition to the production of Poor Poor Lear, Walkabout Theater Company is pleased to announce Kristan Schmidt's return to the role of Walkabout's artistic director. After Schmidt's founding of the company in 1999, Walkabout has gone on to create and produce all new work for more than 25 years. The company enjoyed multiple periods of work led by different creative teams, including the branching off of the company's most recent ensemble to form a new entity called the Wender Collective.

This March, Kristan Schmidt and Nina Sallinen mark their return at Walkabout with an updated version of Walkabout's 1999 initial opening production, Poor Poor Lear. The total performance running time is two hours including intermission. Performances are Thursday, March 12 - Saturday, March 14 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 15 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $20 for general admission with $15 tickets for students and seniors. 

In this original dark comedy, 36-year-old actress Nina Sallinen, portrays a 90 year-old Grande Dame (also named Nina Sallinen) of the Scandinavian Theater.  The old actress has brazenly chosen Shakespeare's King Lear as the material for her final artistic farewell performance.  She has a special interest in the theme as she believes her own two daughters to be just as greedy and neglectful as King Lear's. The performance, which she stages in her own apartment, unintentionally highlights the artist's own life story, as she gradually becomes cognizant of the deeper parallels between her life and that of King Lear's.  Instead of shaking up her own daughters with her performance, the old diva shakes up herself.  Her priorities and past choices come into question.

Poor Poor Lear is the production that launched Walkabout Theater in Chicago in 1999 at The Breadline Theater. Since then the production has been performed in Los Angeles, San Diego, & Santa Barbara (California), Brooklyn (New York), Stockholm (Sweden), Verona (Italy), Gdansk (Poland), Bitola (Macedonia), Novi Sad (Serbia) and Helsinki (Finland).