Cor Theatre Brings LOVE & HUMAN REMAINS Back to Chicago Tonight

Chicago's summer theater season promises to heat up considerably when Brad Fraser's ground-breaking play, Love and Human Remains, a bawdy, carnal, modern day tale of Chicago thirtysomethings on the hunt for love, sex and acceptance while a serial killer is in their midst, returns to Chicago after a 20+ year absence in a daring new production from Cor Theatre, directed by Ernie Nolan.

Cor Theatre will present Love and Human Remains tonight, June 4-July 11, 2015 at Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge Ave., in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. Previews are tonight and Friday, June 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. Soft Opening is Saturday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Preview and Soft Opening tickets are $10. Press opening is Sunday, June 7 at 5 p.m. Regular performances continue through July 11: Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 5 p.m. Performances are $25; $10 students and industry. For tickets and information, visit CorTheatre.org or call (866) 811-4111. Note: This production contains explicit content, violence and sex. Mature audiences only.

Originally titled Unidentified Human Remains and the Nature of True Love, Fraser's controversial play had its American premiere in Chicago in 1991 in the now-defunct Halsted Theatre Centre. That production, a follow-up to the play's 1989 debut in Fraser's native Canada, was an out-of-town commercial tryout preparing for its New York debut.

Immediately deemed controversial for its violence, nudity, frank dialogue and sexual explicitness, Remains ran for over a year and left a huge impact on local audiences. After its Chicago run, the play continued to New York where it was wildly celebrated and named one of the Top 10 Plays of the Year by TIME Magazine. It has only been produced locally one time since, in 1995 at Circle Theatre.

The play revolves around David, an actor/waiter with a short-lived career on TV, who has captured the adoration of a young busboy named Kane. His two friends, Bernie, a brawny straight-mate who experiences late night drinking binges that lead to homoerotic tendencies, and Candy, David's roommate who is obsessed with finding the perfect mate - male or female, round out the principal cast. But as young women across Chicago are found brutalized and mutilated, the trio realize that relationships take deadly shapes in the shadow of a serial killer.

Cor's new take on Love and Human Remains, updated and set in Chicago, promises to set ablaze preconceptions about love, devotion and companionship, thanks to Fraser's crackling dialogue and a sizzling hot roster of Chicago's freshest talent.

Cor's cast features Kate Black-Spence (Candy), Tosha Fowler (Benita), Andrew Goetten (David), Sam Guinan-Nyhart (Bernie), Lauren Sivak (Jerri), Eric Staves (Robert) and Ethan Warren (Kane).

Cor's Love and Human Remains production team includes Ernie Nolan (director), Nick Sandys (violence), Navid Afshar (set), Alarie Hammock (costumes), Claire Chrzan (lights), Chris LaPorte (sound), Stefin Steberl (props), Adam Gutkin (technical director), Catherine Miller (dramaturg) and Alison McLeod (production stage manager).

Best known of late as an award-winning director and writer of children's plays, Ernie Nolan (director) looks forward to staging his first "adult play" in several years. "Human sexuality and personal happiness are certainly not issues confined to the 1990s, and I'm looking forward to wrestling with the more existential questions Brad so fearlessly asks in Love and Human Remains. Questions still relevant today about human nature, about the way society expects us to act as humans, about how we are expected to suppress our innate, animal impulses."

Nolan is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at The Theatre School at DePaul University, Vice-President of Theatre for Young Audiences USA, and Artistic Director of Chicago's Emerald City Theatre, where his most recent projects include the critically acclaimed Charlotte's Web, the American premiere of The Three Little Pigs and the box office hit The Teddy Bears' Picnic. His playwriting has been featured at such theatres as The Coterie, First Stage, Walnut Street, Orlando Rep, and Children's Theatre of Charlotte. Nolan made his Off-Broadway debut in 2012 as a choreographer with Lucky Duck at the New Victory Theatre. He is a recipient of the Illinois Theatre Association's 2014 award for Excellence in Theatre for Young Audiences. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan (BFA Musical Theatre) and The Theatre School at DePaul University (MFA Directing).

Brad Fraser (playwright) first came to his prominence with the 1989 debut of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love at the Alberta Theatre Projects' playRites. While Chicago and New York stagings, as well as productions in Milan, Sydney, Berlin, Tokyo and London to name a few, attracted significant attention, Fraser did not direct his career toward New York. Instead, his next script, Poor Super Man, had its premiere in Cincinnati. Coming three years after the 1991 Robert Mapplethorpe controversy there, Poor Super Man inspired headlines when Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati temporarily canceled the production because of its anticipated obscenity. After a public outcry, the production was reinstated, Poor Super Man opened without incident, and it too was named one of the 10 Best Plays of the Year by Time. Fraser also wrote the film versions of his plays Love and Human Remains, which starred Thomas Gibson (Greg from Dharma and Greg), and Leaving Metropolis. He has also written for the television series Queer as Folk, was host of his own Toronto-based TV talk show, Jawbreaker, and wrote a column for the Canadian gay magazine fab. Fun fact: Keanu Reeves had his first acting role in the Toronto production of Fraser's play Wolfboy in 1985 at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, Ontario.

Cor Theatre (CorTheatre.org) is a professional theatre company committed to producing stories about courage and exploring the hidden hero within us all. The company named itself Cor Theatre, deriving its name from the Latin root of courage - meaning heart. The company believes that there are certain intrinsic values that connect people at the core of their being. Cor Theatre seeks to expose those values.

Cor first made its mark with a memorable production of Gary Henderson's Skin Tight at A Red Orchid Theatre in 2012, and returned in January 2015 with the edgy Midwest premiere of Erin Courtney's A Map of Virtue.

Today, Cor is a new and ambitious Chicago professional theatre company with strong experience behind it, committed to producing works that provide an environment in which its audiences can explore the unexplored and expect the unexpected.

Company members include Tosha Fowler, Artistic Director, Navid Afshar, Managing Director, and Chris Brickhouse, Elyse Cowles, Brian Crawford, Claire Meyers, Stefin Steberl and Will Von Vogt.

For more information, visit CorTheatre.org, call (866) 811-4111, like Cor Theatre on Facebook, follow the company on Twitter, @CorTheatre, and for Love and Human Remains, use the hashtag #CorLHR.

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