Jay Españo News

PRIDEARTS will present A.R. Gurney’s LOVE LETTERS with same-sex couples on April 11-12 and 18-19 at the Center on Halsted. The production will feature four couples, two male and two female.

PrideArts has announced a return to a full four-show season for 2025–26, which will also mark the company’s first season in its new home at the Hoover-Leppen Theatre at Center on Halsted.

PrideArts has announced the cast and production team for the adult holiday panto THROBBIN WOOD, running from November 15 to December 15, 2024.

PrideArts is currently presenting the off-Broadway and Broadway hit musical [title of show] at Pride Arts Center through September 22, 2024. Check out production photos below!

PrideArts has announced it will present the off-Broadway and Broadway hit musical [title of show] to open its fall 2024-25 season from August 23 to September 22, 2024, directed by Jay Españo, with music direction by Robert Ollis.

 PrideArts has announced its full cast for its Chicago premiere of the musical GAY CARD. PrideArts’ artistic director Jay Españo will direct the musical, with Robert Ollis providing musical direction and conducting a five-piece band.

The season will open with the Chicago premiere of the hilarious romantic musical GAY CARD, return to the British tradition of holiday pantomimes with Tom Whalley's very adult SLEEPING WITH BEAUTY, and close with Joe Calarco's all-male present-day re-imagining of ROMEO AND JULIET, SHAKESPEARE'S R & J.

City Lit has announced the full cast and creative/production team for the closing production of the company’s 42nd season, the musical AZTEC HUMAN SACRIFICE, with music and lyrics by Kingsley Day and book by Philip LaZebnik and Kingsley Day.

The Board of Directors of PrideArts, the Uptown-based theatre company focused on presenting queer stories on live stages and virtual platforms, has appointed Amber Mandley as Managing Director, a new position.

Casting has been announced for PrideArts season opening production - the Chicago premiere of the musical GIRLFRIEND, by Todd Almond and Matthew Sweet, based on Sweet’s album of the same name. GIRLFRIEND will open to the press on Monday, August 29, 2022, following previews from August 25-28, and will play through September 25th.

TOMMY ON TOP is a laugh out loud bedroom farce about a closeted hunky actor, Tommy Miller, who is about to become the first gay actor to win an Oscar – if he plays his cards right and keeps his queerness at bay. TOMMY ON TOP is by the British playwright Chris Woodley, whose credits include scripts for the long-running BBC series EASTENDERS. PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo is stage director and set designer.

PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo has announced his cast for the Chicago premiere of TOMMY ON TOP – a comedy that premiered in London’s West End at the Above the Stag Theatre last summer.

PrideArts will conclude its 2021-22 season with the Chicago premiere of TOMMY ON TOP – a comedy that premiered in London’s West End at the Above the Stag Theatre last summer. PrideArts Artistic Director Jay Españo made the announcement today.

A special holiday cabaret called CHRISTMAS KAROL: A HOLIDAY INTERVENTION CABARET will play over two weekends: Thursday, December 9 through Sunday, December 12; and Thursday, December 16 through Sunday, December 19 at the Broadway Theatre, Pride Arts Center, 4139 N. Broadway.

Jay Españo will direct this comedy-drama by the author of the Judy Garland bio-play END OF THE RAINBOW, which was adapted as the Academy Award-winning film JUDY. In 4000 DAYS, Michael awakens from a three week-long coma that has affected his memory. He struggles to find the way back to his true self as a tug of war ensues between his pragmatic partner Paul and overbearing mother Carol.

PrideArts will reopen the Pride Arts Center with the American premiere of THE THINGS I NEVER COULD TELL STEVEN by Australian writer Jye Bryant. Bryant’s four-character musical introduces us to the mother, father, wife, and ex-boyfriend of a man named Steven. Each of them has a different idea of what they want from Steven and who they think he is.

An Australian musical, a comedy-drama from the writer whose play was adapted as the hit movie JUDY, an Uptown holiday celebration, a new Ruth Bader Ginsberg bio, and a fifth play to be announced, will comprise PrideArts' first season under newly appointed Artistic Director Jay Españo.

In 1998, Españo joined the prestigious Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company, where he trained with acclaimed director Nonon Padilla. He received a musical theater scholarship at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore in 2004, and after graduation worked extensively as an actor throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, doing TV, theater, and film.

Ghostlight Ensemble will present the penultimate play in its series on historically overlooked female playwrights, Warp and Woof. The play by the British novelist and playwright Edith Lyttelton scrutinizes the ethics of power, commerce and labor in a deeply unequal society.

Three Cat Productions presents the world premiere of the Dolores Diaz's play Man of the People at the Chicago Park District's Berger Park Coach House Theater at 6205 N. Sheridan Road (Edgewater by Granville el stop on Red Line).