Haven Theatre Company to Present WE'RE GONNA DIE This Spring

Haven Theatre Company announces We're Gonne Die, the final production in its fourth season, written by Young Jean Lee and directed by Josh Sobel, at the company's home, The Janet Bookspan Theatre at the Den Theatre, 1335 Milwaukee Ave., May 4 - June 4.

Previews are Thursday, May 4 - Saturday, May 6 at 8 p.m. Opening night is Sunday, May 7 at 7 p.m. The regular performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Previews are Pay-What-You-Can, and regular run tickets are $18. You may purchase tickets and get more information at www.haventheatrechicago.com.

A singer takes the stage, backed by her rock-band compatriots, to share Young Jean Lee's life-affirming show about the one thing we all have in common: "we're gonna die." Drawing from true stories of people's experiences with tragedy, despair and loneliness, this personal and rejuvenating play with live music reminds us that in our darkest, most isolated moments, we are not alone.

Cast for We're Gonna Die includes: Isa Arciniegas (singers), Sarah Giovannetti (band), JorDan Harris (band), Elle Walker (band), Spencer Meeks (band) and Kamille Dawkins (singer u/s). The production team for We're Gonna Die includes: Josh Sobel (director), Abhi Shrestha (assistant director), Julie Leghorn (stage manager), Krista Mickelson (production manager), Spencer Meeks (music director), Claire Chrzan (light designer), Izumi Inaba (costume designer), Mike Mroch (scenic designer), and Jon Martinez (choreographer).

Young Jean Lee has been called "hands down, the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation" by The New York Times and "one of the best experimental playwrights in America" by Time Out New York. She has written and directed nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and toured her work to over thirty cities around the world. Her plays have been published by TCG (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays, The Shipment and Lear) and by Samuel French (Three Plays by Young Jean Lee). She is currently under commission from Plan B/Paramount Pictures, Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P, and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. She has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Creative Capital, NYFA, NEA, NYSCA, the Jerome Foundation, The Fox Samuels Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Rockefeller MAP Foundation. She is also the recipient of two OBIE Awards, the Festival Prize of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award.

Josh Sobel is artistic director of Haven Theatre Company, as well as a former ensemble member and literary manager with Strawdog Theatre Company. Recent directing credits include Bobbie Clearly at Steep Theatre, The Long Christmas Ride Home along with the world premieres of The Hunting of the Snark (also Chicago's "Night Out In The Parks" and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland), Best Beloved: The Just So Stories and The Pied Piper at Strawdog Theatre, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre. Additional credits include work at Chicago Dramatists, A Red Orchid Theatre, Victory Gardens, LiveWire, Collaboraction's Sketchbook, WildClaw, The Ruckus, Tympanic Theatre, Polarity Ensemble Theatre, The Fine Print Theatre Company, the side project, The Greenhouse Theater Center, Abbie-Fest and New Leaf Theatre. From 2010 - 2013 he served as associate director of the National Theater Institute summer "Theatermakers" program at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Sobel is the recipient of a Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC) Observership on Hamlet at Writers' Theatre and is an associate member of SDC.

Haven Theatre Company is one of Chicago's fastest rising companies. In 2015, Haven's sold-out run of Arlene Hutton's Last Train to Nibroc received a coveted four-star review from Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune, who proclaimed the production "deserves to be the sleeper hit of the summer." Nibroc also received three Joseph Jefferson Award nominations (the company's first Jeff-eligible production) and received the prize for Best Principal Actress in a Play. Also in 2015, Haven launched "The Director's Haven," a unique initiative built to better support the career development and community visibility of directors at the very earliest stages of their professional journeys. Additionally, Haven has produced highly lauded productions of Idris Goodwin's How We Got On, Deborah Bruce's The Distance (U.S. Premiere), Theresa Rebeck's Seminar (Chicago Premiere), Catherine Treischmann's Hot Georgia Sunday (Chicago Premiere), Stephen Belber's Don't Go Gentle (Chicago Premiere) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

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