Photo Flash: First Look at Strange Tree's THE HALF-BROTHERS MENDELSSOHN, Opening Tonight

The Strange Tree Group presents the world premiere of the elaborate time travel comedy THE HALF-BROTHERS MENDELSSOHN by Elizabeth Bagby, directed by Thrisa Hodits, playing June 18 - July 20, 2013 at Signal Ensemble Theatre, 1802 W. Berenice Ave. in Chicago. The production features Strange Tree Ensemble members Cory Aiello, Kate Nawrocki, Stuart Ritter and Jenifer Starewich with Audrey Flegel, Andy Hager, Brandon Ruiter and Joe Stearns. Tickets for THE HALF-BROTHERS MENDELSSOHN are on sale at www.strangetree.org. Check out a first look below!

Change the past. Alter the future. Find true love. Bring back the dead. Theo Mendelssohn believes he can achieve all of these by building a working time machine to blast twenty years into the past and stop his mother from abandoning the family in 1908. But, by doing so will he also prevent his father's second marriage and the birth of his doubly doomed half-brother, Nicholas? Not if Nicholas has anything to say about it! Join The Strange Tree Group as we tumble back through time to set right what once went wrong, fall in love with other people's mothers, cause calamitous train accidents and try desperately to get the piano tuned in Elizabeth Bagby's, THE HALF-BROTHER'S MENDELSSOHN.

Lively, inventive, and completely original, for the past 9 years Chicago's Strange Tree Group has playfully toyed with the entire notion of storytelling, featuring a hand-made "twigs and twine" aesthetic replete with bright bursts of magical realism in highly detailed, audience-interactive environments.

The production team for THE HALF-BROTHERS MENDELSSOHN includes: Emily Schwartz and Kate Nawrocki (scenic design), Delia Baseman (costume design), Becca Jeffords (lighting design), Michael Huey (sound design), Wes Clark (violence choreography), Ben Dawson (technical director), John Kelly (master electrician) and Becky Bishop (stage manager).

Photos by Emily Schwartz