AstonRep Theatre Company Will Present its 11th annual WRITER'S SERIES

AstonRep Theatre Company will present its 11th annual WRITER'S SERIES, an afternoon of staged readings of new works by local writers. This year's series will showcase two productions by Jasmine Sharma and Ellen Wiese on Saturday, November 23, 2019 from 2 pm - 6 pm at The Edge Theater (Off Broadway stage), 1133 W. Catalpa Ave. in Chicago. Patrons are invited to attend individual readings - or stay for the entire afternoon. Readings are free but donations will be accepted. No reservations required. For additional information, visit www.astonrep.com or call (773) 828-9129.

The 2019 WRITER'S SERIES Line-Up includes:

2 pm

LEAVING WONDERLAND

By Jasmine Sharma

Featuring Roberto Jay, Sean William Kelly, Phoebe Moore, Erin O'Brien and Kirra Silver

LEAVING WONDERLAND is a 2018 adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland), the 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. This adaptation explores Alice's encounter with sexual assault, and the space in which she looks for control in the #metoo era.

4 pm

TWO-LEGGED GHOSTS

By Ellen Wiese

Featuring Lynne Baker, Ada Grey, Malia Hu, Rian Jairell, Julie Partyka, Mary Mikva and Jennifer Mohr

As a brutal snowstorm descends, three generations of women return to the family home in rural Massachusetts. After the death of her granddaughter ten years before, matriarch Kit has been preoccupied with folk tales and the paranormal; meanwhile, the rest of the family has done their best to move on. While they reckon with a power outage, a mimicking voice in the wall and an uncanny family history, a spectral moose arrives to collect on a promise Kit made to her a decade ago. Sitting in the dark, the family encounters their own folk tale of loneliness, storytelling, and what it means to not come home.

Jasmine Sharma (Leaving Wonderland) is a junior Theatre major in the Music Theatre Certificate at Northwestern University. She has been lucky enough to perform as well as to see her work produced on various stages from New York City and Los Angles to Valdez, Alaska. Jasmine is an American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Competition Semi-Finalist 2019, an ALAP 2018 Diversity Fellow, NJ Governor's Award (2016, 2017), and National Gold Medal Recipient for Dramatic Writing in the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards. She also has held literary internships that further new work, among them Playwrights Horizons NYC, Writers Theatre of New Jersey, and Access Theater. At Northwestern, Jasmine is part of student groups including: Vertigo, The Titanic Players and Mee-Ow.

Ellen Wiese (Two-Legged Ghosts) is a Chicago-based writer and theater artist. She has developed short and full-length plays with Trap Door Theatre and Chimera Ensemble, and her prose has been recognized by Glimmer Train and published in Wigleaf and Lost Balloon under her pen name Ellen Ellis. She received the Margaret C. Annan Memorial Prize and SCBWI Student Writer Scholarship and holds a Master's in Creative Writing from the University of Chicago. Ellen worked at STAGE Labs at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, creating and developing new theatre work inspired by science and technology. She was the 2017-2018 Literary Apprentice at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and has worked as a dramaturg, script supervisor, and research associate with playwrights including Tracy Letts, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, and Aziza Barnes.

AstonRep Theatre Company was formed in the summer of 2008. Since then, the company has produced 25 full-length productions and ten annual Writers' Series. AstonRep Theatre Company is an ensemble of artists committed to creating exciting, intimate theatrical experiences that go beyond the front door to challenge audiences and spark discussion where the show is not the end of the experience: it is just the beginning.

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