AMERICAN IDIOT, 'UNNAMED LOVE-SUICIDE', ADDING MACHINE and More Set for The Hypocrites' 2015-16 Season
By: BWW News Desk Mar. 27, 2015
The Hypocrites are pleased to announce their 2015-16 Season, featuring an unprecedented seven productions for Chicago audiences! The season kicks off this summer with the triumphant return engagement of the critically acclaimed ALL OUR TRAGIC, an unparalleled twelve-hour theatrical adaptation that combines all 32 surviving Greek tragedies into a single epic narrative, adapted and directed by Artistic Director Sean Graney and featuring most of the original cast.
In the fall, The Hypocrites present the Chicago premiere of the smash Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT, featuring music by Grammy Award-winning punk rock band Green Day. With a book by Green Day frontman/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer and lyrics by Armstrong, this powerful coming-of-age story will be directed by Steven Wilson with musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and choreography by Katie Spelman.
The newly-announced cast for AMERICAN IDIOT includes: Luke Linsteadt as Johnny, Jay Cullen as Will, Alex Madda as Heather, Becca Brown as Extraordinary Girl, Drew Tildon as Whatsername, Steven Perkins as Favorite Son and Malic White as St. Jimmy with Isa Arciniegas, Elisa Carlson, Dakota Hughes, Michael Kurowski, Aubrey McGrath, Janelle Villas and Alexander Zukoff. Additional casting to be announced.
Also this fall, The Hypocrites collaborate with students from Senn Arts Magnet High School for a production of Sean Graney's touching drama THE 4TH GRADERS PRESENT AN UNNAMED LOVE-SUICIDE, co-directed by Joel Ewing and Mechelle Moe.
For the holidays, The Hypocrites produce the return of The Ruffians' critically acclaimed hit, BURNING BLUEBEARD by Jay Torrence, directed by Halena Kays and featuring most of the original cast and creative team. This fantastical tale inspired by Chicago's 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire has been an annual Chicago holiday favorite for two years running.
Next winter, director/actor Hans Fleischmann will re-imagine his groundbreaking conception of Tennessee Williams' classic drama, THE GLASS MENAGERIE. Fleischmann's original production and subsequent remount with Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. enjoyed critical praise and sold-out houses. Now for Hypocrites audiences, Fleischmann will push his own vision further and redefine his inventive and magical touch on this American classic. The production will feature Fleischmann himself as Tom, Joanne Dubach as Laura, Walter Briggs as the Gentleman Caller and Donna McGough as Amanda.
In spring 2016, The Hypocrites brings the award winning, off-Broadway musical hit ADDING MACHINE: A Musical back to Chicago to where it first premiered. Directed by Geoff Button, this heartbreaking musical adaptation of Elmer Rice's play The Adding Machine features music by Joshua Schmidt and book and Lyrics by Jason Loewith and Schmidt.
Finally, the season will also include a yet-to-be-announced short-run production in late spring 2016 directed by Artistic Director Sean Graney.
Season subscriptions for The Hypocrites' 2015-16 Season are currently on sale at www.the-hypocrites.com. Single tickets are available for ALL OUR TRAGIC and AMERICAN IDIOT. All 2015-16 Season productions will be presented at The Hypocrites new home, The Den Theatre Mainstage, 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.
The Hypocrites are also thrilled to announce its critically acclaimed Gilbert & Sullivan musicals, adapted and directed by Artistic Director Sean Graney, will travel the country this season with presentations at Actors Theater of Louisville (H.M.S PINAFORE), Berkeley Rep in Berkeley, California (THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE) and Olney Theatre Center near Washington, D.C. (THE MIKADO, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE).
Comments Artistic Director Sean Graney, "Look at all these great plays slated for our 19th season! I am thrilled to return as Artistic Director of the Hypocrites and for my first full season back I have been working with our community to create a wonderful season for our patrons and artists. We will be producing some amazing plays from Chicago's recent history: Burning Bluebeard, a beautiful holiday alternative, Hans Fleischmann's stunning re-imagining of The Glass Menagerie with expanded design and the chamber musical version of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine, which blew me away when I saw it debut at Next Theatre several years ago. We are also thrilled to present the Chicago premiere of Green Day's rock musical American Idiot, a show I have wanted to produce since hearing about its development. You may notice there will be no in-town runs of our Gilbert & Sullivan celebrations - the reason being that we are taking the productions on the road to share The Hypocrites' inventive work with audiences across the country! Finally, part of our 19th Season is the return of last year's crazy unexpected hit, All Our Tragic - back for an improved experience featuring a tighter story and better food. I am so excited to sit in the audience with you and watch all of these wonderful plays unfold."
The Hypocrites 2015-16 Season Includes:
June 20 - August 9, 2015
ALL OUR TRAGIC
Adapted and Directed by Sean Graney
Featuring Erin Barlow, Ryan Bourque, Walter Briggs, Geoff Button, Kate Carson-Groner, Emily Casey, Tien Doman, Lindsey Gavel, Danny Goodman, Maximillian Lapine, Luce Metrius, Erin Myers, Dana Omar, Christine Stulik, Zeke Sulkes, John Taflan and Lauren Vogel.
From the most popular titles to the most rarely produced, experience the 32 surviving Greek tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in one breathtaking and unforgettable theatrical event. Blended with humor and set against a contemporary backdrop. ALL OUR TRAGIC is designed to create a contemporary Festival of Dionysus, the ancient gatherings for which these tragedies were originally crafted - to bring together a daily community to bond, eat food, drink wine and discuss complicated topics of society that we have been wrestling with since the creation of civilization. A daylong stream of meals and snacks is included in ticket prices, with multiple intermissions and meal breaks. A cash bar is also available.
August 28 - October 25, 2015
AMERICAN IDIOT - Chicago Premiere!
Book by Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer
Music by Green Day, Lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong
Directed by Steven Wilson
Music Direction by Andra Velis Simon
Choreography by Katie Spelman
Featuring Isa Arciniegas, Becca Brown, Elisa Carlson, Jay Cullen, Dakota Hughes, Michael Kurowski, Luke Linsteadt, Alex Madda, Aubrey McGrath, Steven Perkins, Drew Tildon, Janelle Villas, Malic White and Alexander Zukoff. Additional casting to be announced.
Based on punk rock band Green Day's Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum album of the same name, AMERICAN IDIOT follows three lifelong friends, forced to choose between their dreams and the safety of suburbia in a post 9/11 world. The musical features hits including "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "21 Guns," "Wake Me Up When September Ends," "Holiday" and the blockbuster title track, "American Idiot." A critical smash on Broadway and in London, AMERICAN IDIOT received a 2010 Tony Award nomination for Best Musical and won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.
October 30 - 31, November 6 - 7, 2015
THE 4TH GRADERS PRESENT AN UNNAMED LOVE-SUICIDE
By Sean Graney
Co-Directed by Joel Ewing and Mechelle Moe
Featuring students from Senn Arts Magnet High School
Fourth grader Johnny shoots himself, leaving behind a play as a suicide note that the kids in his class are forced to perform as a memorial. As friends and bullies assume the roles of Johnny and his classmates, a heartbreaking, darkly curious story emerges, offering a glimpse into the motivation behind Johnny's actions.
Presented in a special artistic collaboration with students from the Senn Arts Magnet School High School Theatre Arts Department, 4TH GRADERS originally premiered at the side project in 2004.
November 22, 2015 - January 3, 2016
BURNING BLUEBEARD
By Jay Torrence
Directed by Halena Kays
Inspired by the true story of Chicago's 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire, The Ruffians' BURNING BLUEBEARD is the story of six singed clown performers who emerge from the burnt remains of history attempting to perform their spectacular Christmas Pantomime once and for all. But this time, they hope to finally reach the true happy ending of their second act and avoid the fateful fire that killed 600 of its audience members. BURNING BLUEBEARD is a whimsical romp with a sensitive heart, a joyful eulogy with a sharp irreverent wit including music, clowning, tumbling, acrobatics and dance. Each performance is a vaudevillian delight with a story that excavates the poetic and poignant remains of a piece of Chicago's rich history. The production will include performances on Wednesday, December 30, 2016 - the 112th anniversary of the actual Iroquois Theatre fire.
January 22 - March 6, 2016
THE GLASS MENAGERIE+
Re-imagined and Directed by Hans Fleischmann
Featuring Joanne Dubach, Hans Fleischmann, Donna McGough and Walter Briggs
Beautiful and heart-wrenching, THE GLASS MENAGERIE focuses on a man obsessed with regrets from his past. Living on the streets, he navigates an audience through the gritty back-alleys of his imagination. Truth and delusion collide in director Hans Fleishmann's newest re-imagining of Tennessee Williams' classic memory play.
March 18 - May 15, 2016
ADDING MACHINE: A Musical
Adapted from the play The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice
Music by Joshua Schmidt, Book and Lyrics by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt
Directed by Geoff Button
Choreography by Katie Spelman
ADDING MACHINE: A Musical tells the story of Mr. Zero, a modern-day everyman. He hates his wife, he hates his job, he hates his lot in life. After a lifetime spent adding figures for the same company, he comes to work one day only to find he's been replaced by a machine. THE ADDING MACHINE: A Musical is an expressionistic story of murder, salvation, and internalized oppression.
About The Hypocrites - Artistic Director Sean Graney created The Hypocrites in 1997. The Hypocrites, one of Chicago's premier off-Loop theater companies, specializes in startling and thoroughly entertaining adaptations of classic plays and stories, mounting bold productions that challenge preconceptions and redefining the role of the audience through unusual staging (such as promenade and in-the-round) and direct engagement. The mission is to explore recognizable stories-mixing the familiar and the strange-to make theater that thrills and provokes, defying expectations with humor, staging, and surprise. The company has a reputation in Chicago for creating exciting, surprising, and deeply engaging theater as it re-interprets well-known works for contemporary audiences, reveling in the absurd while revealing the core of what makes classics classic.
The company has grown significantly in the past few years, receiving acclaim for productions at the Steppenwolf Garage, Goodman Theatre, Museum of Contemporary Art, DCASE Storefront and Chopin Theater. The company's smash-hit production of Our Town, directed by David Cromer, transferred in 2009 to Off-Broadway, Los Angeles and Boston. The Pirates of Penzance has appeared at Actors Theater of Louisville and American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.). A.R.T. has also brought Romeo Juliet, 12 Nights and The Mikado (forthcoming). The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Tony Awards, presented The Hypocrites with one of the 2013 National Theatre Company awards in 2013. The critically acclaimed fall 2013 production of All Our Tragic is being brought back by popular demand in June 2015. For more information, visit www.the-hypocrites.com.
+This production is based on an original re-imagining of The Glass Menagerie that was first staged for nine weeks with Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. in Chicago at Angel Island under the direction of Hans Fleischmann. The Mary-Arrchie production later moved to Theater Wit facility in Chicago for an additional 16-weeks again, under the direction of Hans Fleishmann.
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