Kia Corthron Will Be Featured Playwright for Eclipse's 25th Anniversary Season

Chicago's Eclipse Theatre Company, the only theatre company in the Midwest to focus on a single playwright each season, announces contemporary American playwright Kia Corthron as the featured playwright for its 2017 Season.

Eclipse will explore the range of Corthron's canon with three full productions, plus readings and public events focused on the playwright and her works.

"As Eclipse celebrates our 25th anniversary season, the ensemble is excited to present the works of an essential voice in contemporary American theatre," said Eclipse's Artistic Director Nathaniel Swift. "Kia Corthron's plays are personal and political, and her stories resonate with a powerful vision of our country. Her plays are crucial for this American moment as we continue to wrestle with questions of race, gender, power and violence."

"Eclipse plans to showcase a wide range of Corthron's writing, including award-winning dramas and a world premiere," Swift added. "The 2017 Kia Corthron Seasonwill be an entertaining and thought-provoking theatrical experience for artists and audiences alike." All productions will be presented at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, IL.

The 2017 Kia Corthron Season will include:

Force Continuum, directed by Michael Pogue in his Eclipse directorial debut

April 13 - May 21, 2017

Opening Nights April 16 at 3 p.m., April 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.

An African-American police officer struggles with the contradictions of his race and profession while confronting the Black community he is bound to protect and being haunted by his cop father's violent death. A jagged, precarious journey whereby all gradually grasp that understanding comes not only through seeing others but also by hearing.

Megastasis (World Premiere), directed by Aaron Todd Douglas

July 13 - August 20, 2017

Opening Nights July 16 at 3 p.m., July 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Nineteen-year-old Tray loves his grandfather and caring for his infant daughter, and hopes to marry the baby's mother one day. But in the war on drugs, a marijuana joint at a party becomes a major military provocation, and Tray unwittingly falls into a black hole that rearranges his life plans. This world premiere was workshopped through New Works Brooklyn at Brooklyn College and New York Theatre Workshop.

Final Production TBA

November 2 - December 17, 2017 (no show Thanksgiving, November 23)

Opening Nights November 5 at 3 p.m., November 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.

In addition to the three main productions, Eclipse will also explore additional Kia Corthron works through The Playwright Scholar Series, a yearlong free series of readings and discussions with details to be announced once confirmed. Production casts and crews will also be confirmed closer to production dates.

In 2016, Seven Stories Press released Kia Corthron's novel The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter. She was born and raised in Cumberland, Maryland, a valley in the Appalachians on the banks of the Potomac facing West Virginia. Her mother, Shirley Beckwith Corthron, also born in Cumberland, was a homemaker and school volunteer. Her father James was born and raised on a Virginia farm, and worked at the local paper mill planning shipments. She attended state schools for her undergraduate degree (Frostburg State College and the University of Maryland, College Park), then relocated to New York City in 1988 to earn her Theatre Arts masters at Columbia University. She has lived in Harlem since 1995.

Corthron has taught playwriting in prisons for youth and for adults, and at universities and conservatories for undergraduate and graduate students. She has frequently contributed short plays to theatrical evenings curated to address specific current issues, such as the suffering of Iraqis under U.S. sanctions, the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, and as a benefit to aid Haitian earthquake victims. She traveled to the West Bank and Gaza as part of a six-playwright contingent led by Naomi Wallace to meet with Palestinian theatres, and she spent two weeks in Liberia as the country was beginning to transition out of its civil war and wrote a play inspired by the experience. In early 2016 she was part of a six-member delegation to South Africa, a reading tour sponsored by the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, and met with South African writers and students.

As a playwright, Corthron has received numerous awards, including the Windham Campbell Prize for Drama, the United States Artists Jane Addams Fellowship, the Simon Great Plains Playwright Award, and the Lee Reynolds Award. In addition, she won the Edgar and Writers Guild Outstanding Series awards for The Wire. Theatres that have premiered her plays include Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre Mark Taper Forum, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Children's Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Royal Court Theatre, and Donmar Warehouse.

Eclipse Theatre Company presents the work of one playwright each season: one playwright, one season, one illuminating journey. Playwrights whose work has been featured with full Eclipse seasons 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), Arthur Miller (2010), Naomi Wallace (2011), Eugene O'Neill (2012), Sir Alan Ayckbourn (2013), Lynn Nottage (2014), Terrence McNally (2015), and Stephen Adly Guirgis (2016).

The current Eclipse ensemble is Zachery Alexander, Zach Bloomfield, Ashley Bowman, Anthony Conway, Celeste M. Cooper, Stephen Dale, Kathleen Dickinson, Kevin Hagan, Michael Allen Harris, Ashley Hicks, Phil Higgins, Anish Jethmalani, Joe McCauley, Sarah Moeller, J.P. Pierson, Rebecca Prescott, Rebecca Ross, Steve Scott, BrittneyLove Smith, TayLar, Matt Thinnes, Vanessa Thomas, and Katie Vandehey. The Artistic Director is Nathaniel Swift and the Managing Director is Kevin Scott.

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