16th Street Theater's 2020 Season Thirteen Announced

16th Street Theater announces Season Thirteen 2020: Redemption featuring two National New Play Network (NNPN) rolling world premieres by playwrights Maya Malan-Gonzalez and Audrey Cefaly, one world premiere by Julie Marie Myatt in collaboration with MC-10 Playwrights' Ensemble, one Chicago premiere by Lisa Langford co-produced with Pegasus Theatre Chicago with director Ilesa Duncan at the helm, and two true tales by Chicago writer/performers Steven Strafford and Debbie Baños.

Beginning in Dec 2019 with a modern Latinx A Christmas Carol, in our thirteenth season we will travel our American landscape to explore REDEMPTION. First up we are visited by three ghosts in a Latina-owned urban bar in Maya Malan-Gonzalez' A XMAS CUENTO REMIX (Nov 29 - Dec 29, 2019) directed by Miguel Nuñez with composition & arrangements by Emiliano Valdez & Daniel Valdez. From there we travel to rural Alabama to explore the topography of scars in Audrey Cefaly's ALABASTER (Jan 30 - Mar 1, 2020) directed by Artistic Director Ann Filmer. We then spend many hilarious and harrowing nights in Steven Stafford's Gay Chicago in his true story METHTACULAR! (Mar 19 - Apr 4, 2020) directed by Adam Fitzgerald, before visiting Debbie Baños' Salvadoran-American family living in Arkansas in the 90s while taking on the immigration system in Baños' AMERICAN SIDE EFECTOS (April 9 - May 2, 2020) directed by Esteban Arévalo Ibáñez. In the summer of 2020 we move through four decades of women's rights in our nation's capital by way of a strange coma in Julie Marie Myatt's WAKE UP, MRS. MOORE (July 9 - August 9, 2020) directed by Ann Filmer. Our Season of Redemption ends in current-day Cleveland where we find "post-racial" friendships and Black robots before going way back in time and down south to Georgia in Lisa Langford's RASTUS AND HATTIE directed by Ilesa Duncan

Artistic Director Ann Filmer states: "With talking goats, cowboy immigration lawyers, Black robots, and musical numbers, this season will be almost as crazy as our world is right now. We will confront pain and tragedy head on with humor. Lots of humor. In order to make it through with hope and renewed purpose."

Here are the plays:

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A XMAS CUENTO REMIX

by Maya Malan-Gonzalez
Directed by Miguel Nuñez
with Composition & Arrangements by Emiliano Valdez & Daniel Valdez
Nov 29 - Dec 29, 2019
A modern-day take on Dicken's classic A Christmas Carol. To Dolores who runs D's Pub, Christmas is a scam and charity is for suckers. So when her niece Anita faces eviction, Dolores turns her away into the cold. Can three sassy spirits turn this female Scrooge from bad to good? Celebrating Latinx culture and modern music, this is an exciting and joyous new Christmas cuento for today! A NNPN rolling world premiere with Milagro in Portland and Cleveland Public.

ALABASTER

by Audrey Cefaly
Directed by Ann Filmer
Jan 30 - March 1, 2020
Alice is a noted photographer who sets out to explore the topography of scars landing her on a small farm in North Alabama where she meets June, an undiscovered folk artist hiding away from the world. June's sarcastic goat Weezy keeps things real while Alice and June fumble in their attempt to rediscover healing and love. A NNPN rolling world premiere with ten theatres across the USA.

METHTACULAR!

ritten and performed by Steven Strafford
Directed by Adam Fitzgerald
March 19 - April 4, 2020
Steven Strafford's hilarious (no, really!) and harrowing autobiographical account of his three years as a crystal meth addict in Chicago. Through comedy, songs and plenty of honest storytelling, Strafford brings audiences on a journey through the chemical highs, devastating lows, and ultimately, redemption from his drug addled, sex crazed life.

AMERICAN SIDE EFECTOS

Written and performed by Debbie Baños
Directed by Esteban Arévalo Ibáñez
April 9 - May 2, 2020
The Fourth of July has always been Debbie Baños' second-favorite holiday, right after Christmas. In a world full of fireworks, love, and patriotism, this Salvadoran-American family endures cows, chicken coops, cowboy immigration lawyers, and church ladies while fighting for Mami to become a U.S. Citizen. All while waiting for the next compact disc to arrive from Columbia House! Debbie's humorous, personal story takes us into the immigration system in Arkansas through the eyes of a 12-year old. This world premiere was developed through 16th Street's 2019 Pop Up Play Reading Series.

WAKE UP, MRS. MOORE

by Julie Marie Myatt, MC-10 playwright
Directed by Ann Filmer
July 9 - August 9, 2020
It is 1970 and Virginia Moore is in love with Glenn, and she is ready to change the future by marching against the war in Vietnam, and for Equal Rights for Women. After being knocked unconscious by a beer bottle at a rally, she lapses into a coma. As her husband and sister visit, forty tumultuous years pass. While they share all she is missing, Virginia experiences an entire life for herself in Paris, and travels the world. When she miraculously awakes, Virginia, and the world, has transformed. Or has it? The first MC-10 Playwrights' Collective production.

RASTUS AND HATTIE

by Lisa Langford
Directed by Ilesa Duncan
Sept 3 - October 4, 2020
Needra and Marlene enjoy a perfect post-racial friendship until two problematic robots walk into their christening celebration. These automatons, based on Westinghouse's 1930 brown-skinned robots, and a glitch in the time-space continuum place them at opposite ends of society in an alternate past. This hilarious comedy moves swiftly from the outrageous to the profound as it delves into our traumatic legacy and explores new ideas about how to move forward. A co-production with Pegasus Theatre Chicago.

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