Oak Park Festival Theatre Presents Mrs. Coney 11/19-21

Oak Park Festival Theatre in alliance with the Oak Park-River Forest Walk-In Ministry presents Mrs. Coney: A Tale at Christmas for the fourth year in a row. The two performances of Mrs. Coney will be in the newly restored sanctuary of the landmark Unity Temple, Lake St. and Kenilworth Ave. in downtown Oak Park, on November 19 and 21 at 7:00 p.m.

Mrs. Coney: A Tale at Christmas is an annual presentation, designed to draw together and benefit the Theatre, the Ministry, and the local community. The production is a Kennedy Center Award winning play by local playwright and director Belinda Bremner. In this heart-warming and humorous memory play with music set at Christmas, a writer (Tony Dobrowolski) recalls his boyhood and the Oklahoma homestead his family lost to the dust bowl. They spent the hard-scrabble winter of 1935 in Kentucky with an elderly aunt and uncle. When the boy Jamie (Miranda Theis), who appears with the adult writer James, learns to release what he has lost and hold fast to who he is, miracles happen for everyone.

Bremner again directs the cast of professional (Actors' Equity Association) performers led by Barbara Zahora as the mysterious title character. Jamie's parents in the play are Miranda's real life parents, Sara Nichols and Kevin Theis. Theis starred last summer in OPFT's Jeff Nominated Of Mice and Men, directed by Bremner, and will direct Henry V next summer in Austin Gardens. Sara Nichols is a veteran Chicago actress and Miranda Theis is in 5th grade at Irving Elementary. Gwendolyn Theis, who is in the 2nd grade at Irving Elementary school, joins her family in the music which begins and accompanies the performance. Completing the cast as Jamie's aunt and Uncle are Susan Gosdick and Jack Hickey (director of OPFT's 2010 Love's Labour's Lost and soon to appear as Falstaff in next summer's The History of King Henry the Fourth.)

The evening begins with a family style concert in which the audience is encouraged to sing along. Lyric sheets are provided. The concert master is Mike Casey. Heather Walters plays mandolin while OPRF HS student Scott Goldberg Daniel and 2010 OPFT actor Skyler Schrempp are the fiddlers.

Following the performance, guests are invited to step across the hallway to the magnificent and welcoming Unity House where cider and a delicious array of homemade desserts await beside the glowing hearth. The reception is presented by the Oak Park-River Forest Walk-In Ministry with whom Festival Theatre shares the proceeds of the benefit evenings.

Playwright and director Belinda Bremner is a Jefferson award winner and was a founding member of both ShawChicago and the Body Politic Ensemble and has worked with such theatres as the Goodman, Court, Northlight, Stories on Stage, and St. Nicholas. She is a proud member of AEA, SAG, and AFTRA. Additionally she is a director, a Kennedy Center Award-winning playwright, dramaturg, and dialect coach, and has taught at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University for more than twenty years.

Mrs. Coney runs November 19 and 21 only at 7:00 p.m. at Unity Temple, Lake St. and Kenilworth Ave. in Oak Park. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. Please see http://www.oakparkfestival.com for more information and to purchase tickets. This performance is suitable for ages 10 and up.

Oak Park Festival Theatre-Oak Park's only Equity theatre and the Midwest's oldest professional theatre performing the classics outdoors-is proud to present its 37th year of theatrical excellence and to provide Chicagoland with the greatest classical plays ever written. Since 1975, the greatest playwrights have illumined our stage and enlightened our audiences. Oak Park Festival Theatre now performs year-round, with productions at the former Village Players Theatre during the colder months, in addition to plays in Austin Gardens in the summer. More information on Oak Park Festival Theatre is available at http://oakparkfestival.com or by calling (708) 445-4440.

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