A WONDER IN MY SOUL World Premiere Extends at Victory Gardens

Artistic Director Chay Yew and Managing Director Erica Daniels announce a one-week extension to the World Premiere, hit production of A Wonder In My Soul, written by ensemble playwright Marcus Gardley and directed by Chay Yew, with music direction by Jaret Landon. A Wonder In My Soul will now run through March 19, 2017 at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue.

Longtime hair salon owners Bell and Birdie grapple with the decision to remain in their beloved Southside neighborhood or relocate under the pressures of gentrification and crime. Featuring music, poetry and dance, A Wonder in My Soul looks at one neighborhood's evolution through the eyes of two women and their lifetime of friendship. From the artistic team that brought you The House That Will Not Stand, The Gospel of Lovingkindness, and An Issue of Blood, director Chay Yew and playwright Marcus Gardley now explore Chicago history, beauty, and friendship.

"It's always exciting when a show like A Wonder in My Soul resonates so profoundly with Chicago audiences that we're able to offer it for an extended period of time. Marcus' ability to capture the stories of Chicagoans through his poeticism and rich storytelling is a gift to this city, and we couldn't be more thrilled," comments Chay Yew.

The cast for A Wonder In My Soul includes Linda Bright Clay (First Lady), Donica Lynn (Paulina, Young Bell), Greta Oglesby (Aberdeen Calumet), Jeffery Owen Freelon, Jr. (Lafayette), Camille Robinson (Normal Beverly, Young Birdie) and Jacqueline Williams (Bell Grand Lake).

Starting March 7, LaNisa Renee Frederick will play the role of Aberdeen Calumet and starting on March 15, Sheldon Brown will play the role of Lafayette.

The creative team includes Kurtis Boetcher (Scenic Design), Izumi Inaba (Costume Design), Lee Fiskness (Lighting Design), Mikhail Fiksel (Sound Design), Jaret Landon (Original Music), Alec Long and Mealah Heidenreich (Properties Design), Liviu Pasare (Projection Design), Ameenah Kaplan (Assistant Director) and Isaac Gomez (Dramaturgy). The Production Stage Manager is Amanda Davis.

Performances run through March 19, 2017: Tuesday-Friday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 3pm and 7:30pm; Sunday at 3:00pm. Tickets are $15-$60.

Performances are at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. For tickets and information, call the Victory Gardens Box Office, 773.871.3000, email tickets@victorygardens.org, or visit www.victorygardens.org. Ask the Box Office about student tickets ($15), senior, and Access. For group discounts, call 872.817.9087. Accessible Performances: A Word for Word (open caption) performance will be available March 1 at 2:00pm; An Audio Description performance will be Sunday, March 5 at 3:00pm (Touch tour at 1:30pm).

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:

Public Programs is an event series designed to enhance your experience by exploring themes and issues within Victory Gardens Theater's productions. Connecting our theater to the world beyond the stage and rehearsal room, Public Programs bridge ideas, provoke dialogue, and deepen the relationship between our audiences and our productions

A full and updated schedule of special events, post-show discussions and presentations centered on performances of A Wonder in My Soul is available at www.victorygardens.org . All events are free unless otherwise noted. For more information, call 773.871.3000 or visit the Victory Gardens website.

AFTERWORDS

After every performance of A WONDER IN MY SOUL (unless otherwise noted)

Join us for one of our intimate post-show conversations. Led by members from the Victory Gardens community-artistic affiliates, subscribers, Artistic staff, Teen Arts Council members, The Council of Community Leaders, and community partners- reflect on what you've seen and share your response.

COLLEGE NIGHT: A WONDROUS SIGHT

Post-Show Performance

March 2, 2017 | Following the evening performance of A Wonder in My Soul

In Marcus Gardley's A Wonder in My Soul, expectations are shattered as characters are forced to stand their ground fervently in what they believe. To what lengths are we willing to stand our ground and at what expense? Join us for a pre­-show reception in the lobby featuring delicious drink specials & free pizza. Then, stick around for A Wonder in My Soul and stay for post-­show performances featuring short scenes written by, directed by, and performed by college artists around the city.

OUR Miss Brooks 100

Pre-Show Celebration & Post-Show Conversation

March 5, 2017

Reception begins at 6:30pm in the Victory Gardens lobby

Post-Show conversation to follow the evening performance of A Wonder in My Soul

"Every day there is something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that's going on, how could I stop?" This year marks the centennial celebration of the life and literary legacy of the late, great Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American author to receive a Pulitzer Prize. How do the works of Miss Brooks connect to the world of Birdie and Bell? How do they continue to illuminate the lives of Black Chicagoans? Experience music inspired by the works of Gwendolyn Brooks while enjoying complimentary light refreshments. Join us after the performance of A Wonder in My Soul for a panel discussion, featuring poets who studied under Miss Brooks, as well as the poet's very own daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely.

THE ART OF ACTIVISM

Pre-Show Spoken Word

March 10, 2017 | 7:00pm in the Victory Gardens lobby

Much like in many of Marcus' plays, the intersection between art and activism is a recipe for social change. This recipe is potent but often comes with a cost. How do artists resist and protest with their art? Come hear Chicago spoken word and performance poets slay the mic in this special pre-­show event. Then, stick around for free refreshments before enjoying Marcus Gardley's A Wonder in My Soul.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Marcus Gardley (Playwright) is a poet playwright who is the current recipient of the 2015 Glickman Award. He was the 2013 James Baldwin Fellow and the 2011 PEN Laura Pels award winner for Mid-Career Playwright. The New Yorker describes Gardley as "the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams." His play The House That Will Not Stand was commissioned and produced by Berkeley Rep and has had subsequent productions at Yale Rep, the Tricycle Theater in London and Victory Gardens Theater. He is an ensemble playwright at Victory Gardens Theater where his play The Gospel of Lovingkindness was produced in March of 2014 and where he won the 2015 BTAA award for best play. In 2014, his saga The Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry about the migration of Black Seminoles (a tribe of African American and First Nations People) from Florida to Oklahoma had a national tour. He has had several productions, some of which include: Every Tongue Confesses at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad, and On The Levee which premiered in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theater 3. He is the recipient of the 2011 Aetna New Voice Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the HEllen Merrill Award, a Kellsering Honor and the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Gardley is a professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Brown University.

Chay Yew (Director) is the Artistic Director at Victory Gardens Theater. Chay joined Victory Gardens in July 2011. Victory Gardens Theater: Roz and Ray, The House That Will Not Stand, Hillary and Clinton, Death and the Maiden, An Issue of Blood, The Gospel of Lovingkindness, Mojada, Oedipus el Rey, Universes' Ameriville. Chicago: Dartmoor Prison, Black N Blue Boys/Broken Men (Goodman Theatre); Where Did We Sit On The Bus? (Teatro Vista/Victory Gardens, Boise Contemporary Theatre); Po Boy Tango (Northlight Theatre); work at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, The Playwrights Realm, New York Theatre Workshop, National Asian American Theatre Company, Ma-Yi Theatre Company. Regional: Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Kennedy Center; Mark Taper Forum, American Conservatory Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Denver Center Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Empty Space Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Cornerstone Theatre Company, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Boston Court, East West Players amongst others. His opera credits include world premieres of Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang's Ainadamar (co-production with the Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic); and Rob Zuidam's Rage of d'Amours (Tanglewood Music Center). Chay is a recipient of the Obie Award and DramaLogue Award for Direction. As a playwright, his plays include Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, Red, A Beautiful Country, Wonderland, Question 27 Question 28, A Distant Shore, 17, and Visible Cities. His other work includes adaptions of A Winter People (based on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard) and Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, and a musical Long Season. His performance works include Viven and Her Shadows and Home: Places between Asia and America. His plays have been produced at The Public Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Manhattan Theatre Club, Long Wharf Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, Wilma Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Portland Center Stage, amongst many others. Overseas, his plays have been produced by The Royal Court Theatre (London), Fattore K and Napoli Teatro Festival (Naples, Italy), La Mama (Melbourne, Australia), Four Arts (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), Singapore Repertory Theatre, Toy Factory, Checkpoint Theatre, and Theatre-Works (Singapore). He is also the recipient of the London Fringe Award for Best Playwright and Best Play, George and Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award, GLAAD Media Award, Made in America Award, AEA/SAG/AFTRA Diversity Honor, and Robert Chesley Award. His plays Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, and The Hyphenated American Plays are published by Grove Press. He recently edited Version 3.0: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Plays for TCG Publications. He was the founding director of the Taper's Asian Theatre Workshop and producer of Taper, Too. Chay is also an alumnus of New Dramatists and serves on the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events' Cultural Advisory Council.

Jaret Landon (Musical Direction) is a composer/arranger and music educator. He has composed and arranged music for film, musicals and recorded albums. Theater credits include Nativity, Sanctified (Congo Square Theatre); Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Ain't Misbehavin (Porchlight Music Theatre); The Gospel of Lovingkindness (Victory Gardens Theater); Crowns (Goodman Theatre); Gem of The Ocean (Court Theatre); Jabari Dreams of Freedom (Chicago Children's Theatre); The Christians (Steppenwolf Theatre); Black Odyssey (Denver Theatre Center); and First Wives Club (Pre-Broadway). Jaret was the Assistant Orchestrator for American Idol-Seasons 14 and 15.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew and Managing Director Erica Daniels, Victory Gardens is dedicated to artistic excellence while creating a vital, contemporary American Theater that is accessible and relevant to all people through productions of challenging new plays and musicals. Victory Gardens Theater is committed to the development, production and support of new plays that has been the mission of the theater since its founding, set forth by Dennis Za?ek, Marcelle McVay, and the original founders of Victory Gardens Theater.

Victory Gardens Theater is a leader in developing and producing new theater work and cultivating an inclusive Chicago theater community. Victory Gardens' core strengths are nurturing and producing dynamic and inspiring new plays, reflecting the diversity of our city's and nation's culture through engaging diverse communities, and in partnership with Chicago Public Schools, bringing art and culture to our city's active student population.

Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Victory Gardens Biograph Theater includes the Za?ek-McVay Theater, a state-of-the-art 259-seat mainstage and the 109-seat studio theater on the second floor, named the Richard Christiansen Theater.

Victory Gardens Ensemble Playwrights include Luis Alfaro, Philip Dawkins, Marcus Gardley, Ike Holter, Samuel D. Hunter, Naomi Iizuka, Tanya Saracho and Laura Schellhardt. Each playwright has a seven-year residency at Victory Gardens Theater.

The Playwrights Ensemble Alumni includes Claudia Allen, Lonnie Carter, Steve Carter, Gloria Bond Clunie, Dean Corrin, Nilo Cruz, Joel Drake Johnson, John Logan, Nicholas Patricca, Douglas Post, James Sherman, Charles Smith, Jeffrey Sweet and Kristine Thatcher.

For more information about Victory Gardens, visit www.victorygardens.org. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/victorygardens, Twitter @VictoryGardens and Instagram at instagram.com/victorygardenstheater.

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