HOLES IN THE SHAPE OF MY FATHER and More Set for The Tank Fall 2025 Programming

The Tank has revealed their Fall 2025 Core Productions. The fall season will begin in September with Holes in the Shape of My Father, written and performed by Savon Bartley (“Uncut Blues”) and directed by Adam Coy (What Else is True?), proceeded by The Maenads, by Stephen Foglia (The Dog Museum) and directed by Phillip Christian Smith (A Handbag is Not a Proper Mutha). The season will continue in October with Malapert Love by Siah Berlatsky (Galahad Manor) and directed by Julian Hester (The Pavilion). In December, The Tank will present Everything is Here by Peggy Stafford (Motel Cherry), directed by Artistic Director Meghan Finn, and choreographed by Lisa Fagan (1-800-3592-113592).
 
"After incredible spring and summer seasons, we're excited to move into Fall 2026 with four excellent pieces,” said Johnny Lloyd. “This mix of emerging artists and familiar voices are all creating essential works which will both challenge and entertain audiences."
 
The first three productions are on sale now and will be held at The Tank. Casting and additional creative team members plus additional on-sale dates will be announced at a later date.
 
The Tank's Core Production series serves companies and artists as they create new works for performance. Core Productions are central to The Tank’s mission to give emerging artists resources to build their careers and artistic voices. These productions receive institutional support in the form of financial assistance, performance and rehearsal space, press, marketing, and more, culminating in a world premiere production run. The Core Production series offers a way for emerging artists to fully realize their artistic vision in partnership with The Tank.
 
The Fall 2025 season will include the following:
 

HOLES IN THE SHAPE OF MY FATHER

Written and performed by Savon Bartley
Directed by Adam Coy
Performances begin September 4, 2025
Limited run through October 12, 2025
The Tank’s 56 Seat Theater
 
Holes in the Shape of My Father is a blues about boys becoming men. Written and performed by Savon Bartley, this solo show is told entirely in verse, where poetry, rhythm, and raw emotion collide. Developed at The Public Theater and featured at the Under the Radar Festival, this one-man play explores fatherhood, masculinity, and generational trauma with lyrical grace and unflinching vulnerability.
 

THE MAENADS

By Stephen Foglia
Directed by Phillip Christian Smith
Performances begin September 18, 2025
Limited run through October 12, 2025
The Tank’s 98 Seat Theater
 
The Maenads is a fast-paced, comedic thriller about five men who climb a mountain to cosplay as maenads — female followers of Dionysus — and free themselves from the prison of modern masculinity. But even a playful invocation of the God of Chaos has its consequences as the men soon find themselves stranded without food, water, or cell signals, drunk and tripping balls in an increasingly hostile environment. 
 
Desperate to survive but equally desperate not to leave the mountain unchanged, the men are forced to confront the lies and fears that drove them to this performance of ecstatic femininity in the first place.
 
“A deeply bizarre and altogether quite wonderful new play. It's corrosively funny and has a compelling, hypnotic pull [and] an internal, wholly idiosyncratic logic all its own." - Doug Wright, Playwright, winner of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize for I Am My Own Wife
 

MALAPERT LOVE

By Siah Berlatsky
Directed by Julian Hester
Performances begin October 16, 2025
Limited run through November 9, 2025
The Tank’s 56 Seat Theater
 
The Winner of Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, Malapert Love is a queer reimagining of Shakespeare's comedies from 21-year-old playwright Siah Berlatsky. Featuring the play's original cast from Chicago's award-winning Artistic Home theater company, Malapert Love takes audiences to a farcical, faraway kingdom where personas are concocted, plots are hatched, and paint thinner is sniffed – all for unrequited love!
 

EVERYTHING IS HERE