2013 SEASON
The Almond and the Seahorse
Wales
March 17th
BY: Kaitie O’Reilly.
COLLABORATORS: Victory Gardens Access Project
DIRECTOR: Sandy Shinner
SYNOPSIS:
For Gwennan, it’s always 1985. The face in the mirror is unfamiliar and there’s a strange man at the door claiming to be her husband. Joe’s past is coming undone and his partner, Sarah, fears she will be forgotten. What happens when you’re ambushed by time – your memories deleting, relationships erasing? The play focuses on those who have survived Traumatic Brain Injury, informed by a Disability perspective.
Artsy, A Hipster Farce
Brazil
March 16th
BY: Felipe Sant’Angelo
TRANSLATOR: Marcelo Eid
COLLABORATORS: Chicago Theatre Sweatshop, Consulate-General of Brazil in Chicago
DIRECTOR: Mariana Leite & Mercedes Herrero
SYNOPSIS:
Beatriz, an actress, Gandharva, a singer, and Fred Fausto, a sculptor, are three young self-proclaimed artists who came to live in a big city, seeking success in their careers. The problem is they can’t even manage to afford the rent of the apartment where they live together. On the day when they are about to be finally kicked out by the landlady, they decide to make an artistic revolution that will change the world forever. However, planning this so called “revolution” turns out to be much more difficult than they would have imagined, and they have to face their own limitations as artists and human beings.
hamlet is dead. no gravity
Austria
March 15th
BY: Ewald Palmetshofer
TRANSLATOR: Neil Blackadder.
COLLABORATORS: Austrian Consulate General Chicago
DIRECTOR: Anna Bahow
SYNOPSIS:
Dani and Mani, brother and sister, come home for their grandma’s birthday. But they also attend a funeral, where they run into Bine and Oli, who are now married. Oli used to be interested in Dani, way back when they were all friends. Relationships among family and friends shift, morph and are never what they seem – inevitably, something is going to happen. In this play, Ewald Palmetshofer weaves language and rhythm into something comic and threatening that ultimately leaves just one question open: To resign or to act?
The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs
Canada
March 14th
BY: Carole Frechette
TRANSLATOR: John Murrell.
COLLABORATORS: Consulate General of Canada in Chicago, Vitalist Theatre, Alliance Francaise de Chicago, Quebec Government Office in Chicago
DIRECTOR: Elizabeth Metz
SYNOPSIS:
In The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs, Grace finds herself irresistibly drawn to a mysterious and forbidden room.
In Search of Said Abu Al-Naga
Egypt
March 10th
BY: Ahmed Hassan Al-Banna
TRANSLATOR: Mohammed Albakry and Rebekah Maggor
COLLABORATORS: Consulate General of Egypt in Chicago
DIRECTOR: Hassan Amejal
SYNOPSIS:
In Search of Said Abu Al-Naga, by emerging writer Ahmed Hassan Al-Banna, presents a story ofindividual awakening, from the perspective of a petty police officer who participated in killing protestors during the January Revolution. At first, the officer, Said Abu Al-Naga, who hails from provincial Upper Egypt, insists that he was merely following orders. But tormented by his sense of guilt and repudiated by his own family, he comes to recognize the repression of his own thoughts. This symbolic social realist play explores the theme of individual consciousness and freedom. It questions the roots of oppression and the struggle to overcome a longstanding culture of fear. In Search of Said Abu Al-Naga won first place in the 2012 Tawfiq al-Hakim Drama Contest.
Symptomes
France
March 9th
BY: Gabriella Maione
COLLABORATORS: Alliance Francaise de Chicago, Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago, Trap Door Theatre
DIRECTOR: Beata Pilch
SYNOPSIS:
Powerful and poetic, Symptômes, is a deeply moving threnody inspired by the horrific aftermath of 9/11. Adopting the heightened prose of epic Greek tragedy, the play inventively explores and deconstructs the ideologies underlying the 'war on terror' that we currently face. Shocking, heartbreaking and poignant, Symptomes is a parable of our times.
Noise in the Waters
Italy
March 8th
BY: Marco Martinelli
TRANSLATOR: Thomas Simpson
COLLABORATORS: Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago
DIRECTOR: Paola Coletto
SYNOPSIS:
Noise in the Waters is a translation into English of the theater piece Rumore di acque, created by Marco Martinelli and Teatro delle Albe, first presented in Ravenna, Italy in 2010. The piece consists of the relentless, embittered monologue of a military bureaucrat stationed underground in a mid-Mediterranean island, whose duty is to tally the dead who have perished attempting to make the crossing from Africa to Italy. In performance the monologue is interrupted at points by mournful traditional Sicilian songs performed by the Mancuso Brothers.
Dog Paddle
Switzerland
March 7th
BY: Reto Finger
TRANSLATOR: Lily Sykes
COLLABORATORS: Consulate General of Switzerland in Chicago, Swiss Benevolent Society of Chicago
DIRECTOR: Jonathan L. Green
SYNOPSIS:
When Robert and Charlotte suddenly end a long-term relationship, Robert moves down to the basement until he can find another place--and then he won't move out. Two years later, Charlotte is married to Johann and Robert has barricaded himself in. From Switzerland, a cringe-worthy dark comedy about the changing tide of emotion and the inelegant struggle against drowning.