Collaboraction Extends CRIME SCENE Through 4/7

Collaboraction Theatre Company has announced a four-week extension of their hit world premiere play, Crime Scene: A Chicago Anthology, adding 17 more performances for a new closing date of April 7.

Crime Scene: A Chicago Anthology is a timely new theatrical reaction to Chicago's history of violent crime and a call to discover what it might take to create lasting change in our city. The show, a Collaboraction world premiere conceived and directed by Anthony Moseley, couples nonfiction source material such as interviews, articles, and online comments with three true Chicago crimes to raise critical questions surrounding segregation, poverty, the news media, popular culture, and our numbness to it all.

Since opening in mid-February, the play has been universally lauded by the local press, receiving 3 ½ stars from the Chicago Tribune, a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED rating from the Chicago Sun-Times, a video profile on WTTW-TV Chicago Tonight, and national feature coverage in the March issue of American Theatre Magazine.

Crime Scene is a live docu-drama featuring immersive staging, audience participation and stylized dramatizations of three real Chicago crimes:

The 2000 mistaken identity killing of Orlando Patterson, a 12 year old boy playing ball in front of his house in the 6900 block of South Perry Avenue
Joseph Coleman aka Lil Jojo's murder at age 17 over an alleged gang beef fueled by Youtube videos and Twitter posts
The savage beating of Stacy Jurich and Natasha McShane just blocks from Collaboraction in Wicker Park in 2010

Every performance is followed by a facilitated conversation with the audience about what we as Chicagoans can do about the prevalence of violent crime in our city. Representatives from our Community Partner organizations serve as co-facilitators, helping to guide the discussions alongside the cast and crew. To date, the vast majority of audience members have stayed for the conversations. Through meeting other concerned community members, learning about the many great nonprofits that are working to stem the violence, and openly discussing many conflicting perspectives of the epidemic, these conversations provide our audiences a bright spark of hope within this dark subject matter.

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