Next Theatre Ends Run of Extended RETURN TO HAIFA 3/21

Evanston's Next Theatre Company will end its production of Return to Haifa by Evanston-based playwright M.E.H. Lewis which is directed by Next's Artistic Director, Jason Southerland, on March 21.

Return to Haifa tells the story of Sarah and Jakob, a young Jewish couple newly arrived in Haifa following liberation from Auschwitz and the long journey to Palestine. Simultaneously we meet Safiyeh and Ishmail, recently married and awaiting the birth of their first child while settling into their new home in Haifa. But the lives of all four are soon changed forever as the Battle for Haifa in April 1948 forces Safiyeh and Ishmail to flee to Ramallah and, through a cruel twist of fate, leave their newborn child behind to face certain doom. Sarah and Jakob are given the house in Haifa and the baby to raise as they embark on a new life of their own. Nearly 20 years later as Ramallah becomes part of the Occupied Territories and the borders to Israel are once again opened, Safiyeh and Ishmail return to Haifa driven by a haunting curiosity and a need for closure. Once there however, they are faced with a realization more agonizing than the death of their son all those years before...his survival. Return to Haifa is an intensely intimate story about how we draw the lines of home, family and identity across time and politics. The Chicago Tribune says: Return to Haifa "will ignite some controversy, for sure. Good. That's one of Next's jobs. And the audience at this long-lived theater of substance is used to hard-hitting, political work. Last Sunday afternoon, nobody moved a muscle during this gutsy, powerfully acted show."

"I'm thrilled that I am able to bring this moving and complex story to life and to share it with audiences as our first World Premiere during my stewardship of Next," says Southerland. "It's an ideal first in my mind in that although the story is poignantly set against the backdrop of the birth of the Jewish state, the parabolic metaphors of displacement, identity, family, and loss will assuredly resonate with Chicagoland audiences and beyond."

The production is a first for Next in that it pairs a local playwright along with a resident director to produce a show for the home stage at Evanston's Noyes Arts Center.

CAST: Daniel Cantor as Jakob, Miguel Cohen as Khaldun/Moishe, Todd Garcia as Khalid, Anish Jethmalani as Ishmail, Saren Nofs-Snyder as Sarah and Diana Simonzadeh as Safiyeh

PRODUCTION TEAM: includes Set Designer Tom Burch, Costume Designer Whitney McBride, Lighting Designer JaRed Moore, Sound Designer Nick Keenan,Properties Designer Sally Weiss and Stage Manager Nancy Steiger.

The theater is wheelchair accessible and climate-controlled.

About the Artists
Director Jason Southerland is an award-winning director and producer who joined Next Theatre Company in December 2008 after a decade as the founding Artistic Director of Boston Theatre Works. He directed the Chicagoland premiere of boom in September 2009 as well as a reading of another play by M.E.H. Lewis at Chicago Dramatists. During his time at BTW, the company produced twelve world premieres and developed over sixty scripts through commissions, development agreements and BTW Unbound, an annual festival of new plays. As a director, Jason has staged several award-winning productions for BTW including the New England premieres of Homebody/Kabul, Not About Nightingales, Angels in America: Parts I & II, I Am My Own Wife and The Laramie Project. Jason also spent five years in New York City, where he worked with BACA Downtown, Circle Rep Laboratory, Lehman/Engel BMI Workshop, Alice's Fourth Floor and the Sanford Meisner Theatre. Additionally, he directed the world premiere of Love Kills, by frequent collaborator Kyle Jarrow, at the 45th Street Theater in New York in September, 2007. Regional work includes Gloucester Stage Company, Foothills Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Moxie Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Albuquerque CLO and the University of Kent at Canterbury. Jason studied directing at The American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University. He has served as production assistant and/or assistant director for Julianne Boyd, Jerry Zaks, Hal Prince, Des McAnuff, Oskar Eustis, Christopher Ashley and many others. He holds a B.A. cum laude in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a two-time winner of the Joe Hardy Directing Fellowship, received a Drama League Fellowship, was honored with an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction for his 2008 production of Angels in America and was chosen by Boston magazine as #4 on their list of the "40 Bostonians to Watch."
Playwright M.E.H. Lewis previously collaborated with Next Theatre on the Next Communities outreach program in 2008. For that project, she wrote Secret Language, a play surrounding issues of race in Evanston and Rogers Park based on discussions and conversations with community members. Ms. Lewis is a two-time Illinois Arts Council Fellow whose plays have been produced at theaters around the world, including The New Theatre in Melbourne, Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles and Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. Stage Left's critically acclaimed production of Ms. Lewis's play Fellow Travellers won a Joseph Jefferson award for best new work, and their production of Burying the Bones was nominated for three Jeff Awards. Infusion Theatre's production of Creole was nominated for five Black Theatre Awards. Ms. Lewis has won the Julie Harris Award, the PEN Transatlantic Award, the Dayton Playhouse Outstanding Playwright Award and a Tremain Fellowship. She is an ensemble member at Stage Left Theatre and Infamous Commonwealth Theatre, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a founding member of the Stone Soup Collective, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. Her play Here Where It's Safe is also premiering this February at Stage Left Theatre.

Now in its 29th year, Next Theatre Company continues to thrill audiences with its risky brand of socially provocative, artistically adventurous work. A winner of over 30 Joseph Jefferson Awards - including an unprecedented string of Best Ensemble Awards for four years running - the Next has become a destination for artists and audiences who share the belief that theater can promote awareness and provoke change with more power than any other medium of expression.

Next Theatre is located inside the Noyes Cultural Arts Center at Noyes and Ridge in Evanston, right next to the Noyes street stop on the Evanston "el." Free parking is available in the lot adjacent to the theatre and the Evanston Civic Center.

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