Ellen Maddow News

Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere production of Pulitzer Prize Finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere production of Pulitzer Prize Finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is now in rehearsals with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans. Steppenwolf's production features ensemble members Audrey Francis (The Moms/Vanessa), Tim Hopper (Dance Teacher Pat), Caroline Neff (Zuzu), and Karen Rodriguez (Amina) with Ariana Burks (Sofia), Adithi Chandrashekar (Connie), Shanésia Davis (Ashlee), Torrey Hanson (Luke) and Ellen Maddow (Maeve). A success-driven pre-teen dance troupe finds themselves trying to understand their ambition, insecurities, changing bodies, rivalries and friendships while exploring the desires, confusion and sometimes feral nature of adolescence.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is now in rehearsals with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans. Steppenwolf's production features ensemble members Audrey Francis (The Moms/Vanessa), Tim Hopper (Dance Teacher Pat), Caroline Neff (Zuzu), and Karen Rodriguez (Amina) with Ariana Burks (Sofia), Adithi Chandrashekar (Connie), Shanésia Davis (Ashlee), Torrey Hanson (Luke) and Ellen Maddow (Maeve). A success-driven pre-teen dance troupe finds themselves trying to understand their ambition, insecurities, changing bodies, rivalries and friendships while exploring the desires, confusion and sometimes feral nature of adolescence.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is now in rehearsals with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the bold Chicago premiere of Pulitzer Prize finalist Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans. Tickets are now on sale for this frank and fierce play that explores the untamed inner lives of pre-teen dancers with unflinching veracity and sharp-clawed humor.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company announces casting for the first four productions of the 2019/20 season featuring previously announced ensemble members Audrey Francis, Tim Hopper, Caroline Neff, Yasen Peyankov and Karen Rodriguez, and the return of Steppenwolf regulars including Michael Patrick Thornton, Cedric Young and Keith Kupferer, along with dozens of Chicago-based actors and an exciting debut by South African stage and screen star Nondumiso Tembe.

In the past few weeks, we've watched the nominations roll in. Today the final crop of nominees have been revealed, all leading to next week's ultimate announcement- the 2019 Tony nominations.

In the past few weeks, we've watched the nominations roll in. Today the final crop of nominees have been revealed, all leading to next week's ultimate announcement- the 2019 Tony nominations.

LA MAMA continues its 57th season this Winter and Spring with a roster of singular artists from around the globe as they present new works, both USA and World Premieres alike, on such topics as social inequality, immigration, racism and homophobia, it has been announced by Mia Yoo, La MaMa's Artistic Director.

La MaMa presents the world premiere of City of No Illusions, the newest work from seminal theater company Talking Band. Written and directed by four-time Obie winner Paul Zimet, City of No Illusions is a dark comedy set inside a funeral home that has become a refuge for two asylum seekers. Featuring original music by Ellen Maddow and an international cast of 12 performers, City of No Illusions is scheduled to run at La MaMa's Downstairs Theater (66 E 4th St) from February 8 through 24, with an opening night of February 13.

On the heels of having won the 2018 Regional Theater Tony Award, LA MAMA Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) announces its 57th season of productions, according to Mia Yoo, the company's artistic director. The season includes over 50 U.S., NYC and world premiere productions.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced a third and final extension for their acclaimed world premiere production of DANCE NATION, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning new play by Obie Award winner Clare Barron (You Got Older, I'll Never Love Again). Directed and choreographed by Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans (Caught, D Deb Debbie Deborah, A Beautiful Day in November…, [Porto]), the play is the fifth production of the theater company's 2017/2018 Season.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced a second extension for their acclaimed world premiere production of DANCE NATION, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning new play by Obie Award winner Clare Barron (You Got Older, I'll Never Love Again). Directed and choreographed by Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans (Caught, D Deb Debbie Deborah, A Beautiful Day in November…, [Porto]), the play is the fifth production of the theater company's 2017/2018 Season.

This edgy production about a cutthroat girls dance group isn't a MEAN GIRLS kind of play, but it does tackle the competitive drive that can consume a teen's life.

'How're you gonna cap off your prepubescent years?', a stony-faced teacher asks his competitive dance team members, shortly after winning a competition that saw one of their own suffer a season-ending injury.

Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they'll claw their way to the top at the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay. But in Clare Barron's raucous pageant of ambition and ferocity, these young dancers have more than choreography on their minds, because every plie and jete is a step toward finding themselves, and a fight to unleash their power.

Since 2004, director Mallory Catlett has worked across disciplines to expand the boundaries of theater. Through original works with her own company, Restless NYC, and collaborations with some of today's leading artists-composer Mika Karlsson (The Echo Drift), Dread Scott (Decision), Aaron Landsman (City Council Meeting & Perfect City)-Catlett creates theater that The New York Times calls "lurid, feverish and powerful." She has been called a "downtown treasure" by Time Out New York.

Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they'll claw their way to the top at the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay. But in Clare Barron's raucous pageant of ambition and ferocity, these young dancers have more than choreography on their minds, because every plie andjete is a step toward finding themselves, and a fight to unleash their power.  

En Garde Arts presents Asiimwe Deborah Kawe and Sean Christopher Lewis's Red Hills, returning the company to its trailblazing site-specific origins with a work that speaks "precisely to its time" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). This haunting two-person play follows an American and a Rwandan who, as teens during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, shared a chance encounter that changed them forever. En Garde, with director Katie Pearl, has adapted Red Hills to a New York-specific space: an empty floor in a downtown office building one block from Wall Street, where it will run from June 6-July 1.