Strange Heart Beating
Jul
9
to Jul 28
play

Strange Heart Beating

Teeny and Lena grew up together in a rural midwestern town, dreaming of leaving for the big city. But now Teeny is the town sheriff and Lena is a newly-single mother. When the body of Lena’s daughter is found near the lake outside of town, their friendship is stretched to the breaking point. Have girls been going missing for years? Why are the loons acting so strange? What has the town's lake witnessed? STRANGE HEART BEATING is a darkly fantastical look at the rural Midwest, the murky nature of justice, and the prejudices that lie just beneath the surface.

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The River
Jun
8
to Jun 28
play

The River

BoHo is excited to introduce Chicago to The River, Jez Butterworth’s haunting and complex new play that asks: when we find someone new, are we really just trying to recapture someone we once lost? On a moonless night in August when the sea trout are ready to run, a man brings his new girlfriend to the remote family cabin where he has come for fly-fishing since he was a boy. But she’s not the only woman he has brought here—or indeed the last. Part thriller, part ghost story, this haunting play is a poignant tale of love, loss, and patterns of pain acknowledged but nonetheless unbroken. The River was called “a magnetically eerie, luminously beautiful psychodrama” by Time Out London.

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Second Skin
Sep
14
to Oct 13

Second Skin

A world premiere by Kristen Idaszak

Directed by Jess Hutchinson 

Presented by WildClaw Theatre

at the Den Theatre 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622

On these nights, you hear footsteps behind you.
But when you turn around, nobody’s there.
There’s just the smell of salt.
That’s me.

When Quinn discovers her estranged mother is dying, she returns to a home she fled long ago. As she cares for her mother, Quinn wrestles with disturbing childhood memories. What is her mother’s secret? What do the bedtime stories of Selkies her mother once told her really mean? Told in three interconnected monologues, SECOND SKIN (winner of the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel and Jean Kennedy Smith awards) investigates the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and how one mistake can reverberate across generations.

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Insurrection: Holding History
Aug
28
to Aug 31

Insurrection: Holding History

Written by Robert O’Hara
Directed by Wardell Julius Clark

at Theater on the Lake, 2401 N. Lake Shore Drive

Admission: $20

Ron, a young, gay African-American graduate student, completing his thesis on Nat Turner’s slave rebellion, feels lost in his life and alienated from his family. When his 189-year-old great, great grandfather TJ takes him back in time to meet Turner, both men find answers they never expected. Insurrection deals with racial identity and sexuality, as Ron faces his ancestors’ history and his own identity. A wrenching story, Insurrection: Holding History will change how you see the past-and just maybe yourself as well.

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The Tempest
Apr
22
to May 1

The Tempest

Through movement, original music, and Shakespeare’s transcendent language, this 90 minute production re-imagines THE TEMPEST on a living, breathing island where its primal magic is conjured in the bodies and voices of a nine-actor ensemble. The omniscient Prospero stands apart, wielding the island’s power to manipulate monsters and spirits, kings and drunkards, a treacherous sibling and a daughter in love. But is Prospero’s ability to control the forces around him worth the isolation it brings?

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Feb
12
to Feb 28

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

  • Ethel M. Barber Theater (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Rome is flipped upside down when a quick-thinking slave named Pseudolus attempts to win freedom in a matchmaking scheme that sparks a vaudevillian romp of Grecian slaves, soldiers, and whores! Turning the ancient comedies of Plautus into a farce for the ages, House Theatre Company Member and Northwestern Theatre Adjunct Professor Matt Hawkins directs this satirical Tony Award-winning musical comedy with a reimagined take on gender stereotypes, social class, and the intersection of love and comedy.

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