About Face Theater Closes WHAT ONCE WE FELT, 2/12-3/6

Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar has announced the Midwestern premiere of Ann Marie Healy's new play WHAT ONCE WE FELT directed by Krissy Vanderwarker. The press opening is Friday, February 12th at 7:30pm at the Center On Halsted. The cast for WHAT ONCE WE FELT includes Charin Alvarez, Laura Fisher, Patricia Kane, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Ana Sferruzza, and Rebecca Sohn.

What kind of future would there be if women ran the world? asks Metzgar. Playwright Ann Marie Healy knits a thrilling tale that reminds us how impossible it is to predict the course of future events. As we all know, even the best-intentioned change can turn into a runaway train.

The Sara Lee Foundation is proud to be the Exclusive Corporate Sponsor of WHAT ONCE WE FELT, said Judy E. Schaefer, director of the Sara Lee Foundation. Sara Lee sponsors highly visible and diverse cultural programs that drive, celebrate and reflect the diversity present in the community. Diversity and Inclusion are core values, integral to each of the Foundation's program areas, addressing communities of color, gender and sexual orientation.

WHAT ONCE WE FELT runs from February 3 through March 6, 2010 at Center on Halsted, located at 3656 N. Halsted. Shows are Wednesday - Saturday at 7:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 3pm. For tickets, visit aboutfacetheatre.com or call (866) 811-4111.

A playwright based in New York, Healy was born and raised in the Midwest. So much of who I am came from growing up in the Midwest, says Healy. Seeing this play in front of a Chicago audience is a dream come true.

This long anticipated Chicago production had its world premiere at Lincoln Center this fall. It takes place in a city by the river where society divides along the lines of imperfect DNA, trashy bestsellers and downloadable babies. Macy O. Blonsky, author of the last print published novel ever, must navigate a world in which only women exist, and the whole of humanity is being honed and whittled by unseen hands.

This play explores what it takes to publish a book in a world where the printed word is no longer valued, says director Krissy Vanderwarker. «How far would you go to tell your story and at what cost?

WHAT ONCE WE FELT has recently been published by PLAY: A JOURNAL OF PLAYS, which is an annual collection of new plays by cutting edge writers edited by Sally Oswald and JorDan Harrison. Copies of PLAY: A JOURNAL OF PLAYS will be available for sale at all performances of WHAT ONCE WE FELT.

PUNKPLAY, by Gregory S. Moss, which will be produced by Pavement Group as part of the Garage Rep at Steppenwolf, is also included in this volume of PLAY: A JOURNAL OF PLAYS. To promote adventurous new plays, About Face and Pavement Group have teamed up to encourage theatergoers to attend both shows and read PLAY: A JOURNAL OF PLAYS for a discount. More information is at www.aboutfacetheatre.com.

Ann Marie Healy (Writer) was a recent finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. Other plays include Have You Seen Steven (Sundance & 13P), The Legend of Minnie Willet (O'Neill National Playwrights Conference), Now That's What I Call A Storm (MCC Development Fellowship and Edge Theater), and Dearest Eugenia Haggis (Cape Cod Theatre Project and Clubbed Thumb). Her plays are published through Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts, The Kenyon Review and Play: A Journal of Plays. Ann Marie has been awarded commissions from Yale Rep, Playwrights Horizons, NYSCA/Clubbed Thumb and the Sloan Foundation. Member of 13P, MCC Playwrights Coalition, affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, and a recent graduate oF Brown's MFA program.

Krissy Vanderwarker (Director) is a founder and the Artistic Director of Dog & Pony Theatre Company. For Dog & Pony, she has directed God's Ear, As Told by the Vivian Girls, Mr. Marmalade, Ape, Osama the Hero, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake) and As Much As You Can. Other credits include: CLEAR (Joe's Pub), Tabou (10x10 Festival, American Theatre Company) and As Much As You Can (Hendel Productions West at LA's Celebration Theater and NY Fringe Fest). She holds a BA in Religion and Art History from Northwestern University, where she founded Sit and Spin Productions, and is in the process of procuring her MFA in Directing at The Theatre School of DePaul University.

In February 2009, battling the ravages of the economic downturn, About Face Theatre launched Face the Future, a highly successful fundraising campaign to stabilize the theatre. Leveraging both conventional outreach methods, online video appeals and social networking Web sites, About Face has raised nearly $300,000 and to date is officially debt free.

About Face Theatre is one of Chicago's most acclaimed theatre companies, and is a national leader in the development of new work exploring gender and sexual identity. Since its founding by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen in 1995, the company has premiered more than 30 new plays by writers and directors who have been recognized with several Tony Awards, The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The MacArthur Fellowship and dozens of Joseph Jefferson Awards.

Landmark world premieres include Doug Wright's Pulitzer and Tony-winning I Am My Own Wife; Moisés Kaufman's production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm (a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project); Mary Zimmerman's M. Proust, and, with Lookingglass Theatre, the famed Eleven Rooms of Proust; Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty's Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein (a co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Original Cast Album recorded by Jay Records); the multi-award winning musical Winesburg, Ohio by Eric Rosen, Andre Pluess, Ben Sussman and Jessica Thebus; and the cult hit Pulp by Patricia Kane.

In addition to its award-winning mainstage performances, About Face is known nationally for its ground-breaking Youth Theatre, which creates critically acclaimed new work by and about LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Youth Theatre has performed on major stages across the country, and, through its outreach tour, changes the lives of thousands of young people each year. Building on the success of The Youth Theatre model, About Face recently launched its corporate outreach program to provide diversity training and onsite workshops to the corporate community. About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world.

To post a comment, you must register and login.