Actress and comedian Nora Dunn will debut her new one-woman show Mythical Proportions at Chicago's Theater Wit later this year, Artistic Director Jeremy Wechsler confirmed today.
Previews begin August 16, 2013. Press opening is August 19. Tickets will go on sale and the full performance schedule will be announced in March.
Theater Wit is located in the heart of Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood at 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. For tickets and information, visit TheaterWit.org or call 773.975.8150.
Mythical Proportions, which plays 70 minutes, includes monologues performed in character, Dunn's signature forte, and stories she tells in her own persona. The play emerges from the memories of a mythical 87-year-old Hollywood doyenne who discovered the greatest stars of the 50's, the musings of a seven-year old girl who is mystified by the small world of MR. Rogers' Neighborhood and the life of the inmates in a TV series called Lockdown, a 65-year-old woman, Mrs. Williams, who chronicles a family history tainted by racism yet grounded in love, and a dreamy middle-agEd English bookkeeper who's ill fated vacation to Southern California ends in tragedy. Dunn's personal stories from her childhood in Chicago's West Side collide with the tales of the rich and powerful players in show business. For more information, visit mythologicalproportions.com.
Says Dunn, "If comedy is worth anything, it has to be dark at its core; maybe not always deeply dark but at least dusk. What we need to laugh at is always something that is, on some level, tragic."
Dunn has been writing and performing the stories and characters that make up
Mythical Proportions in small spaces in Chicago, including Paper Machete, Center Portion, and in the comedy showcases iO and The Second City, since 2010. She performed at the salon Chana Zelig stages in her elegant Andersonville apartment and at the Hilton/Asmus Gallery on Wells Street. The show played at The Bartlett Theater in Madison, Wisconsin and The Acorn Theater in Three Oaks Michigan before it had a three-week run at The Road Theater in North Hollywood. Dunn then felt confident it was ready to open legitimately in her hometown, Chicago. Her hope was that Theater Wit would stage the world premiere of the one-woman piece, and she is very pleased to announce that it is doing just that.
"Not only are we looking forward to welcoming the immensely talented Nora Dunn to Theater Wit," said Artistic Director Jeremy Wechsler, "but we are very excited to get an early start on Chicago's fall theater season with a fresh, hilarious and poignant one-woman show that will unquestionably be one of Chicago's must-see comedy and theatrical events of 2013."
Mythical Proportions is presented by Theater Wit in association with 1113 Productions.
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