Grippo Stage Company Presents The World Premiere Of SHAW VS. TUNNEY By Playwright Douglas Post

Grippo Stage Company presents the world premiere of Shaw vs. Tunney, written by Douglas Post and directed by Nick Sandys, based on the book "The Prizefighter and The Playwright" by Jay R. Tunney, May 25 - July 8, at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.

Shaw vs. Tunney introduces audiences to the deep, enduring and unexpected relationship that developed between George Bernard Shaw, the celebrated Irish playwright, and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Gene Tunney. The play begins with their first meeting in London and culminates on an island in the Adriatic where Tunney and Polly Lauder Tunney spent their honeymoon. It is there that Shaw and the Tunneys experience an extraordinary event that changes their lives forever. The play is an adaptation of the book "The Prizefighter and The Playwright," written by Jay R. Tunney, the son of Tunney.

The cast for Shaw vs. Tunney will be announced at a later date.

Douglas Post's plays, which include Howards End, Bloodshot, Forty-Two Stories, Earth and Sky and Murder in Green Meadows, and musicals, which include God and Country, The Real Life Story of Johnny de Facto and The Wind in the Willows, have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Canada, England, Wales, Germany, Austria, Russia, China and South Africa. He has also been commissioned to write screenplays for Warner Bros. and NBC, teleplays for WMAQ-TV, and several radio adaptations of his scripts. On three occasions, he has been selected to develop his work at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and once at the O'Neill National Music Theater Conference. He has received the L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Award, the Midwestern Playwrights Festival Award, the Cunningham Commission Award, the Blue Ink Playwriting Award and three Playwriting Fellowship Awards from the Illinois Arts Council, and has been nominated for three Jeff Awards and an Emmy Award. Post lives in Chicago where he is a founding member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble, teaches playwriting at the University of Chicago Graham School and serves on three committees for the Dramatists Guild of America.

Nick Sandys is an award-winning director, actor, fight choreographer, producer and educator, having received 21 Joseph Jefferson nominations for his work, as well as a 2011 Meier Foundation Award and a 2018 Audie nomination for his audiobook narration. He was the producing artistic director for Remy Bumppo Theatre Company from 2012-2021 as well as an ensemble member since 2002, producing 29 shows (five Jeff nominations for Outstanding Production, winning twice) and directing Howards End (another world premiere by Douglas Post), Puff: Believe It Or Not, Great Expectations, Pirandello's Enrico IV, Life of Galileo, Travesties, Our Class and Albee's Seascape, receiving three Jeff nominations for Outstanding Direction. Other recent directing assignments include Elektra (Lyric Opera Of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and Dallas Opera in 2024), Future Perfect (a world premiere for Bellissima Opera in Forest Park), and Merry Wives Of Windsor and Romeo & Juliet (First Folio Theatre-artistic associate). Sandys is a resident fight director at Chicago's Lyric Opera, as well as adjunct faculty at The Theatre School at DePaul since 1995 and his violence design has been seen all over Chicagoland, as well as on Broadway, and at New York City's Metropolitan Opera.

Jay R. Tunney has had two careers: first, after graduating from Stanford in 1962, as an entrepreneur businessman in Asia, where he explored for oil in Burma, owned a cargo ship in Hong Kong and founded the first premium ice-cream restaurant chain in South Korea. Tunney described his unique pioneering experiences in Asia in articles for The Wall Street Journal Asia, The New York Times Business Magazine and dozens of other Asian and United States publications. His second career has been as a writer and lecturer about his father, Gene Tunney, the heavyweight boxing champion (1926-1928). In 2000, he co-wrote and presented a BBC worldwide radio program describing the friendship between his father and Nobel laureate playwright George Bernard Shaw that aired to millions of people. This was followed by the publication of "The Prizefighter and The Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw," which received excellent reviews internationally, notably in The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, The Irish Times and the Associated Press. Tunney is also a past vice-president and an honorary advisory committee member of the International Shaw Society. http://tunney-shaw.com/

Grippo Stage Company, a 501 (c) (3) public charity, produces new plays and revivals of classic works of theater in the Chicago metropolitan area. Previous productions include Chagall in School (world premiere and recipient of two Jeff Award nominations) by James Sherman, The Ben Hecht Show (world premiere) written and performed by James Sherman; Confessions of a P.I.M. P. (co-production with Dennis Zacek), written and performed by Tony Award-winning actor Andre De Shields and The God of Issac (Chicago revival) by James Sherman. Grippo Stage currently partners with pianist/actor/author Hershey Felder to present streaming shows from Florence, Italy.

Preview performances are Thursday, May 25 at 7 p.m. and Friday, May 26 at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 27 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday, May 28 at 2 p.m. with press opening on Tuesday, May 30 at 7 p.m. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $38-$40 and are currently on sale. To purchase tickets or for more information, please visit www.theatrewit.org.

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