World Premiere: Ken Urban's The Private Lives of Eskimos

The Mill premieres Ken Urban's The Private Lives of Eskimos (or 16 words for snow.) Eskimos opens Sunday January 11, 2009 at 8pm at Stage Left Theatre, 3408 N. Sheffield Ave. in Chicago.  Run time is approximately one hour and thirty minutes.

After the sudden death of his sister, Marvin can't find his cell phone. Enter a mysterious woman, a detective with a sketchy accent, and a chorus of spam speaking Eskimos.  Fans of Donny Darko will love Ken Urban's funny, poignant and unabashedly surreal exploration of loss and life after anti-depressants. Nytheatre.com calls Eskimos, "A taut and gripping contemporary techno-thriller, the kind of tale Hitchcock might spin were he alive in our electronic age." 

Eskimos will run Thursdays through Sundays at 8 PM until Saturday, February 7, 2009, with additional performances at 3pm on Saturday, January 31 and Saturday, February 7.  Preview performances will be held on 1/9 and 1/10 at 8 PM.  Opening night tickets on 1/11 are $30 and cover admission to the show, pre-show cocktails, and the reception following which includes a chance to mingle with the playwright, Ken Urban, the cast and crew.  Regular general admission tickets are $20.  Preview tickets are $15 (or $5 for industry members with resume/headshot/business card).  All students and senior tickets are $15 with ID. Groups of seven or more are $15 per ticket.  Industry tickets are offered for $10 every Thursday. Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets, Gold Star, or through HotTix Locations.  Media comps, photos, videos and interviews for Eskimos are available upon request from 312-388-7660 or themilltheatre@gmail.com. Mr. Urban is available immediately for advance interviews by phone and in person starting January 7.

Not just the World premiere of this play, this production is the debut of Urban's work in Chicago.  His plays have been produced around the county but are yet to been seen locally.  Urban came to Chicago to collaborate with The Mill on Eskimos.  He attended casting and the first week of rehearsal, rewriting portions of the play with the involvement of the artists staging this production.  From his home in Boston, the playwright continues to be engaged in the process of bringing his script to life.  "I am very excited that ESKIMOS will get its world premiere in Chicago. Though an earlier version of the play had a production in New York in 2007, the Mill's production is the first staging of the finished play. Chicago theatre audiences love new work that takes risks and grabs them by the (proverbial) balls. I'm excited to do some grabbing this January when ESKIMOS opens." Urban will be back in Chicago to work with the company during its final week of rehearsal and will attend the opening on January 11.

Biographies
Jaclyn Biskup (Director) founded The Mill in fall 2002 and currently serves as the company's Artistic Director.  She directed the company's critically acclaimed productions of A Dream Play, Venus, Big Love, The Bald Soprano, The Madman and the Nun, and both productions of Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief.  Biskup received her B.A. Theatre Comprehensive from Northern Illinois University. She expects to receive her MFA in Directing and a certificate in Gender Studies from Northwestern University in 2009.

Ken Urban's (playwright) plays have been produced at The Flea, Moving Arts, Target Margin, Theatre of NOTE, Rude Guerrilla, and The Chocolate Factory, among others. His work has been developed at The Huntington, Playwrights' Horizons, Son of Semele Ensemble, Urban Stages, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Soho Rep and Annex Theatre. Ken is the recipient of a 2007-2009 Huntington Playwriting Fellowship, a 2008 MacDowell Residency, a 2006 Tennessee Williams Fellowship at the Sewanee Writers Conference, and he is the winner of the 2004 Moving Arts Premiere One Act Competition. His play Sense of an Ending was recently named one of six finalists for the 2008 L. Arnold Weissberger Prize (nominated by the Huntington). In 2007, he was commissioned by Target Margin to adapt Aristophanes' The Wasps. His other plays include I  HEART KANT, Nibbler, Halo, The Absence of Weather, The Female Terrorist Project, and The Happy Sad, which was recently produced at New York's Flea Theatre for an extended two-month run. His work is published in the anthologies New York Theatre Review and Plays and Playwrights 2002. A number of his plays are available in acting editions from Original Works Publishing in Los Angeles and he is featured in numerous monologue and scene compilations. Ken is the Founding Artistic Director of The Committee, a New York-based theatre company that produces "catastrophic theatre." In addition to directing his own work, he has directed plays by Sarah Kane, Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams. He is a graduate of Bucknell University and holds a Ph.D in English Literature from Rutgers University. He currently teaches at Harvard University. Upcoming: a production of Nibbler (Theatre of NOTE, Los Angeles) and a reading of The Happy Sad (Playwrights Horizons, directed by Craig Lucas). He is currently working on two new stage plays and a screenplay. He was also recently asked by Methuen publishers to write the introductions to Sarah Kane's Blasted and 4.48 Psychosis, both coming out in new editions in 2009. Visit him at www.kenurban.org.

Cast and Crew

The cast for Eskimos features company member Megan Larmer (The Woman).  Guest artists include Adam Breske (Marvin), Alison Connelly (Therapist/Detective), Joel Ewing (Tom/The Cop), and Darci Nalepa (Christine).

The production staff includes The Mill company members Jaclyn Biskup (Director, Producer), and Mary Ellen Reick (Stage Manager).  Guest artists include Jessica Harpenau (Lighting Design), William Anderson (Scenic Design), Angela Burkhardt (Costume Design), Matt Test (Sound Design), and Sarah Stec (Graphic Design).

The Mill, a not for profit organization, is a member of the League of Chicago Theatres.  The Mill promotes progressive performance and theatrical risk taking. It produces artistically challenging work that is progressive in form and content. 

The Mill's 2008-09 season is partially supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, and the annual support of businesses and individuals.

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