Showbiz Spotlight: Interrobang ‘s Midwest Premiere Of STILL Through October 30 at The Athenaeum Theatre

Showbiz Spotlight: Interrobang 's Midwest Premiere Of STILL Through October 30 at The Athenaeum Theatre 1 Interrobang Theatre Project is pleased to open its 2016-17 Season, exploring “Flesh and Blood,” with the Midwest premiere drama STILL by Jen Silverman, directed by Co-Artistic Director Georgette Verdin*, playing September 29 – October 30, 2016 at The Athenaeum Theatre (Studio 2), 2936 N. Southport Ave. in Chicago. Winner of the 2013 Yale Drama Series Award, STILL is a profoundly oblique journey through womanhood, grief and the triumph of saying goodbye, Tickets are currently available at www.interrobangtheatre.org. 

Interrobang Theatre Project is pleased to open its 2016-17 Season, exploring “Flesh and Blood,” with the Midwest premiere drama STILL by Jen Silverman, directed by Co-Artistic Director Georgette Verdin*, playing September 29 – October 30, 2016 at The Athenaeum Theatre (Studio 2), 2936 N. Southport Ave. in Chicago. Winner of the 2013 Yale Drama Series Award, STILL is a profoundly oblique journey through womanhood, grief and the triumph of saying goodbye, Tickets are currently available at www.interrobangtheatre.org

STILL features Interrobang Theatre Project Company Members Laura Berner TaylorElana ElyceSarah Gise* and Matthew Nerber*.

Constantinople has been dead for two days, but that’s the least of his worries. He has to find his mother before it’s too late, and his already stiff body shuts down for good. As he searches an unfamiliar world filled with women he doesn’t understand, his mother, Morgan must learn to grieve the son she never knew.

Comments Director Georgette Verdin, “Still, at its core, is about the relentless bond between mother and child. Morgan and Constantinople long for each other; for the little they’ve shared and for everything they never will. In this unexpected dark comedy, Silverman blurs the lines between life and death, bringing voice to a topic rarely explored and proving that the relationship between ‘Flesh and Blood’ isn’t just for the living.”

The production team for STILL includes: Greg Pinsoneault  (scenic design), Noël Huntzinger (costume design), Emma Deane (lighting design), Morgan Lake (sound design), Tammer Boutros (properties design) Brynne Barnard (dramaturg), Emily Bragg* (asst. director), Lisa Giebler (technical director) and Victoria Fox (stage manager).  *Denotes Interrobang Theatre Project Company Member.

 

About the Creative Team

Jen Silverman’s (Playwright) work has been produced off-Broadway by the Playwrights Realm (Crane Story), by Clubbed Thumb (Phoebe in Winter), Actor’s Theatre of Louisville (The Roommate, Humana 2015; Wondrous Strange, Humana 2016), Yale Repertory Theatre (The Moors) and InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia (The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, Barrymore Award). She has developed plays as workshop-productions at the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (The Hunters, mentor Lynn Nottage), Juilliard Wild Blue and Still) and Playwrights Horizons Theatre School (That Poor Girl and How He Killed Her, a commission.) She is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and has developed work at the O’Neill, Playpenn, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, Boston Court Theatre in LA, The New Harmony Project, Fusion Theatre Co in New Mexico, Youngblood @ Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Royal Court in London among other places. She’s a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, a Leah Ryan Fellowship/ Lilly Award, the 2015 Helen Merrill Fund Award for emerging playwrights and the Yale Drama Series Award for Still. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard. More info: www.jensilverman.com

Georgette Verdin (Director) Along with working for Interrobang and being a freelance director, Georgette is also the founding theatre teacher at Polaris Charter Academy, an Expeditionary Learning School in West Humboldt Park. In addition to assistant directing Season five’s Really Really and Owners; she also directed ITP’s first and second shows of last season: Katrina: Mother-in-Law of ‘Em All and Jeff Recommended Recent Tragic Events. Most recently, she directed the ten-minute play Faking Glory, as part of Queeroism, a short play festival honoring queer pride. Georgette will also be directing as part of 20% Theatre Company’s Snapshots festival in August. She holds a Masters in Directing from Roosevelt University and a B.A. in Theatre Performance from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA.

About Interrobang Theatre Project

Now in its seventh season, Interrobang Theatre Project, under the artistic leadership of Georgette Verdin and James Yost, has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune as a “company to watch” and by Time Out Chicago as “one of Chicago’s most promising young theatre companies.” Productions have included the world premiere of Ibsen Is Dead (Jeff Recommended) and the Jeff Award Recommended The Pitchfork Disney, Terminus, Orange Flower Water, Really Really, Recent Tragic Events and The North Pool. The critically-acclaimed Hot ‘N’ Throbbing earned a 5-star review from Time Out Chicago which called the production a “scintillating revival” and Newcity Stage exclaimed, “Interrobang Theatre Project, guns ablaze, dives headfirst into the play’s challenging themes, and offers a rare production in which every element onstage is as robust and capable as every other.”

What’s an interrobang?

An interrobang is the combination of a question mark and an exclamation point, joining the Latin for “question” (interro) with a proofreading term for “exclamation” (bang). Through the plays we produce, Interrobang Theatre Project aims to pose worthwhile and exciting questions which challenge our understanding and assumptions of who we are and the world in which we live.

For more information, please visit www.interrobangtheatreproject.org.