SIDESHOW THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES FULL 2013/14 SEASON
Sideshow Theatre Company is pleased to announce its full 2013/14 Season, beginning this fall with the Chicago premiere of Bill Cain’s spellbinding drama 9 CIRCLES directed by Marti Lyons. This winter, Sideshow begins its residency at Victory Gardens Theater with the Chicago premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s THE GOLDEN DRAGON, translated by David Tushingham and directed by Artistic Director Jonathan L. Green and Marti Lyons. Sideshow’s critically acclaimed 2012 production of Schimmelpfennig’s Idomeneus
The 2013/14 Sideshow Theatre Company Season:
The Chicago Premiere of
9 CIRCLES
By Bill Cain, Directed by Marti Lyons
Presented in association with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
at DCASE Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph St., Chicago
August 29 – October 6, 2013
Featuring Artistic Associate Andy Luther with Andrew Goetten, Amanda Powell and Jude Roche
Private Daniel Reeves was never good at anything but being in the army. Now he stands accused of a horrific war crime and has been disowned by the nation that recruited him. As he sits in a cell and awaits his day of judgment, time seems to expand and contract around him, while a surreal progression of lawyers, clergy and his own memories carry him deeper and deeper into his crimes. Can he find any light to guide him out of the darkness, or will the weight of his own sin bind him down? Sideshow returns to its roots – examining Dante’s Inferno with a startling and searingly relevant Chicago premiere that provides a razor-sharp look at the search for life in a place that seems made to extinguish it.
The world premiere of Bill Cain’s How to Write a New Book for the Bible took place during the 2011-12 season at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. His previous two plays, Equivocation (which premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and subsequently played at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage) and 9 Circles (which was recently produced by the D.C. area’s Forum Theatre), both received the American Theater Critics’ Association/Steinberg Award, the first time ever that an author received the award in consecutive years. Stand-Up Tragedy was awarded best production honors in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. and the Joe A. Callaway Award for its Broadway production. Bill’s work for television (including the ABC series Nothing Sacred) has been honored with the George Foster Peabody, Humanitas and Writers’ Guild Awards. He is the founder of the Boston Shakespeare Company, where he was Artistic Director for seven seasons, directing most of the Shakespeare canon.
The Chicago Premiere of
THE GOLDEN DRAGON
By Roland Schimmelpfennig, Translated by David Tushingham
Directed by Jonathan L. Green and Marti Lyons
January 18 – February 23, 2014
at Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago
A warm summer evening at The Golden Dragon, where the staff serves Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine to strangers who pass through its doors. Next door, a convenience store and its curious proprietor. Upstairs, a warehouse containing an unspeakable secret. As the evening progresses, the stories of the Dragon’s patrons and staff slowly unravel and intertwine, with all the shock, intrigue and danger of the international city at their core. Sideshow once again teams with playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig (Idomeneus) to tell a fast-paced and sweeping fable of culture clash in modern life. A dynamic ensemble of five actors embodies nearly twenty characters, and their intersecting desire for power exposes the raw nerve at the center of a newly globalized world.
Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most produced European playwrights. His plays have been translated into over 20 languages and he made his U.S. debut in 2007 with a production of his play Arabian Nights, produced by NYC’s Play Company. He first worked as a freelance journalist and author in Istanbul before studying as a theatre director in Munich’s Otto Falkenberg School in 1990. He then became an assistant director and later a member of the artistic team at Munich’s Kammerspiele. Schimmelpfennig was then engaged as dramaturg and author at the Berlin Schaubühne for the 1999/2000 season and was resident playwright at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 2010, Schimmelpfennig was awarded the Mühlheimer Dramatists Award for his play The Golden Dragon. The play premiered at the Burgtheater Vienna last season and has since received more than 20 productions worldwide. He just finished a commission for the Tokyo National Theater and the Burgtheater in Vienna. Schimmelpfennig is the recipient of the highest Playwriting Award in Germany, the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Prize, to honor his entire Oeuvre.
The World Premiere of
TYRANT
By Artistic Associate Kathleen Akerley
May 24 – June 29, 2014
at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago
One year from right now, Congress solves the homeless problem. The recently passed Rectification Act gives disenfranchised citizens new lives as trained workers in the homes of the wealthy. But they are also forbidden from leaving the program to find a better future. Twenty years later, Leon and Regina are hired to work for well-meaning philanthropist Martin, who has become interested in new fields of psychiatric research and invites his workers to participate. But a simple gift begins a powerful series of events that will test the principles of the entire household. Searing questions of morality, possession and the crimes of the well-intentioned boil to the surface in this tense and provocative world premiere. Society has changed for the better, but how has it changed all of us?
Kathleen Akerley is a playwright, director, actor and teacher whose Theories of the Sun had its Midwest premiere with Sideshow. Other produced work as a playwright includes Goldfish Thinking, Something Past in Front of the Light (considered for the Steinberg ATCA Award), The Oogatz Man, 1,952 Miles, Feet, Out of Line, Maintenance is Death and Banquo’s Dead, Jim. Kathleen also adapted Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle for Longacre Lea in Washington, D.C., where she is the Artistic Director. Kathleen has acted and/or directed with Studio Theatre, WSC Avant Bard (formerly known as Washington Shakespeare Company), Catalyst Theatre, Theater Alliance, Rorschach Theatre, Scena Theatre, Forum Theatre, Washington Stage Guild and the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and has taught acting and directing at The Shakespeare Theatre (D.C.), Catholic University of America, Round House Theatre and Educational Theatre Company. Kathleen has served on the Advisory Board of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts as well as the TheatreWashington Board of Governors, and was the 2006 recipient of the Theater Lobby Mary Goldwater Award for acting and directing.
About Sideshow Theatre Company:
It is the mission of Sideshow Theatre Company to mine the collective unconscious of the world we live in with limitless curiosity, drawing inspiration from the familiar stories, memories and images we all share to spark new conversation and bring our audiences together as adventurers in a communal experience of exploration.
From its first production, 2008’s Dante Dies!! (and then things get weird), to its Jeff Award-winning productions of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Idomeneus (
Sideshow also produces the Chicago League of Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLLAW), a wildly-popular interactive fundraising event that benefits Sideshow Theatre Company and other local charities. CLLAW has been featured in The Washington Post, Time Out Chicago, Penthouse Magazine, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times and on WGN Morning News, ABC’s Windy City Live and CBS 2 Chicago. For more information about CLLAW, visit www.cllaw.org.
For additional information on Sideshow Theatre Company, visit www.sideshowtheatre.org.