Eclipse Theatre Announces Their 2011 Season

Chicago's Eclipse Theatre Company, the only theatre company in the Midwest to focus on a single playwright each season, will feature the works of American playwright and poet Naomi Wallace in the 2011 Season. After their critically acclaimed and commercially successful 2010 Arthur Miller Season, Eclipse will next explore the powerfully theatrical, emotional and political writing of Naomi Wallace with three fully-staged productions, readings, and public events with the playwright.

"There is a conversation happening in communities around the country and the world right now," said Eclipse Artistic Director Nathaniel Swift, "as people struggle to confront the political forces that are shaping their world. As we become more accustomed to having immediate access to social networks, political discourse, and public opinion, we must re-examine the nature and purpose of theatre in both message and medium to serve as a platform to express those views. Naomi Wallace does this like no other writer working today.

"Her plays and poetry dig deeply into the human experience, proudly unleash their political discourse through a voice of dark humor, and soar beautifully through her expressionistic vision and passion that can only be achieved in the theater."
In the 2011 Naomi Wallace Season, Eclipse will produce some of Ms. Wallace's most well-known and rarely explored works, including:

One Flea Spare
Directed by Eclipse Ensemble Member Anish Jethmalani
April 7-May 22, 2011 (Opening Night April 10).
The 2011 Naomi Wallace season begins with one of her most captivating plays. Set in plague-ravaged 17th Century London, a wealthy couple is preparing to flee their home when a mysterious sailor and a young girl sneak into their boarded up house. Now, quarantined together for 30 days, the only thing these strangers fear more than the plague is each other. The definition of morality is up for grabs and surviVal May take many forms in this fiercely intense and humorous play from Wallace. Winner of the 1996 Obie Award and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Ensemble member and former Artistic Director Anish Jethmalani will direct this award-winning piece. Jethmalani has previously directed the critically acclaimed and award winning productions of Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter in 2006 and Blue Surge in 2009 for Eclipse in addition to the 2005 Jeff Award winning production of The Masrayana for Rasaka Theatre Company.

The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek
Directed by Jonathan Berry
July 21-September 4, 2011 (Opening Night July 24).

High atop a railroad trestle that spans a bone dry creek, two teenagers plan to race across the bridge against an oncoming locomotive. At first their scheme adds excitement to their life in a small factory town during the Great Depression, but dawning sexuality and confusion awakens dangerous passions in an era of stifled ambitions. With theatrical flourish, humor, and lyrical finesse, Wallace delves into a world where people struggle to change lives that bear down upon them.

Guest artist and renowned director Jonathan Berry makes his directorial debut with Eclipse. Berry recently directed the critically acclaimed production of Suicide Incorporated for The Gift Theatre Company and is currently directing the upcoming Griffin Theatre revival of Company.

The Fever Chart: four visions of the Middle East
Co-directed by Robin Witt and Ensemble Member Sarah Moeller
September 15-October 30, 2011 (Opening Night September 18).

The 2011 Naomi Wallace season concludes with the Chicago premiere of four multi-faceted works exploring the urgency and complexity of the Middle East's political landscape, through the voices and experiences of the people who inhabit it. In A State of Innocence, an Israeli soldier encounters a mysterious Palestinian woman in a dreamscape of the Rafah Zoo. Between this Breath and You takes place in a clinic in West Jerusalem, where a grieving Palestinian father makes a connection with a young Israeli woman with whom he shares more than either thought. In The Retreating World, an Iraqi bird collector tells of his conscription into Saddam's army and life in the aftermath of the surrender to US forces. No Such Cold Thing explores the American war in Afghanistan in human terms through the story of two Afghan teenage sisters divided by conflict, and the US serviceman who finds an intimately human connection to their tragedy.

Guest artist Robin Witt (Assistant Professor of Directing, UNC/Charlotte) makes her directorial debut with Eclipse, having recently directed the critically acclaimed Harper Regan at Steep Theatre. Witt will be joined by Eclipse ensemble member Sarah Moeller, who last directed Eclipse's production of Pearl Cleage's Jeff-nominated A Song for Coretta.

All productions will be staged at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 North Lincoln. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm; Sundays at 2:30pm.

In addition to the three main productions, Eclipse will also explore Ms. Wallace's works through a year-long series of free intimate readings and discussions: The Playwright Scholar Series. Details are still being discussed for these special events; possible events include:
• Symposium with Naomi Wallace
• The Inland Sea
• Slaughter City
• Selections from prose writing, essays and criticism

Additional details, including cast and crew for readings and productions, are still being solidified.

Naomi Wallace's plays have been produced all over the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Her major plays include One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Things of Dry Hours and The Fever Chart: Three Short Visions of the Middle East. Her work has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Kesselring Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award and an Obie. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.

Wallace's award-winning film Lawn Dogs is available on DVD along with The War Boys (co-written with Bruce Mcleod). With Mcleod, she is currently working on a new film project entitled Cross My Mind. Wallace obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College and did graduate studies at the University of Iowa. Ms. Wallace divides her time between Kentucky and the Yorkshire Dales, UK.

In order to dissect the body politic, Naomi Wallace writes plays about the politics of the body. Her work emerged in the 1990s, first in England and later in the United States, establishing her as a poet-turned-playwright with a fierce commitment to examining identity--in terms of race, gender, class, nationality, and sexual preference--as a social rather than a psychological construct.

"I want to challenge the smug notion that there is political and non-political theater," Wallace has said. "One usually gets called a 'political' writer when one's politics do not coincide with the mainstream. When we think of political theater, we think of something dry about ideas. I love ideas, but I like trying to put issues of the heart onstage and seeing how those issues are affected by the world around us."

Wallace's plays are more poetic than rhetorical in structure, contrived to develop compound metaphors that are both tough and lyrical and to occasion moments of striking but tender eroticism.

Artistic Director Swift added, "With Eclipse's long tradition of exploring a playwright's vision simply, honestly and completely, we are very excited to invite audiences to join us in a year-long exploration of the work of Naomi Wallace, whose sense of humor, political passion and personal fearlessness are desperately needed in this country and throughout the world."

Eclipse Theatre Company has received wide critical acclaim, awards, and nominations for its productions since its inception in 1992, including most recently the 2009 Jeff Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor, Nathaniel Swift for Blue Surge; Outstanding Actress, Laura Coover, for Blue Surge; the 2007 Jeff Award for Outstanding Production, Blues for an Alabama Sky; and the 2007 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Actress, TayLar, for Blues for an Alabama Sky.

The current Eclipse ensemble is Cecil Averett, Cheri Chenoweth, Chris Corwin, Stephen Dale, Julie Daley, Steven Fedoruk, Nora Fiffer, Anish Jethmalani, CeCe Klinger, Sarah Moeller, Nina O'Keefe, J.P. Pierson, Rebecca Prescott, Steve Scott, TayLar, and Katie Vandehey. The Artistic Director is Nathaniel Swift and the Managing Director is Kevin Scott.

Eclipse Theatre Company presents the work of one playwright each season. The company offers the audience an opportunity, unique in the midwest, to journey with us through the playwright's works. Join us in exploring the breadth and depth of a playwright's artistic worlds. One playwright, one season, one illuminating journey.
Playwrights whose work have been featured with full seasons at Eclipse include Jean Cocteau (1998); Tennessee Williams (1999); Lillian Hellman (2000); Romulus Linney (2001); John Guare (2002); Neil Simon (2003); Keith Reddin (2004); Lanford Wilson (2005); Rebecca Gilman (2006); Pearl Cleage (2007); and Arthur Miller (2010).
For more information, visit www.eclipsetheatre.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.