Prop Thtr Stages Naomi Wallace's SLAUGHTER CITY, Now thru 7/14

Playwright Naomi Wallace's Slaughter City comes to Prop Thtr this summer. Karen Fort directs.

Temperatures rise as Roach, Maggot and Brandon, who work in a slaughterhouse, confront Cod, a mysterious new scab who crossed the picket line. Cod joins the workers to become entangled in a world of union politics, racial tensions and transgressive sexuality.

Up to their elbows in carcasses and hard labor, the group strives to navigate their flawed relationships while their white boss gropes them, pits them against each other and manipulates a black supervisor trying to work his way up.

The divides between union and scab, black and white, male and female, and past and present begin to melt, as the Sausage Man turns his grinder. The imagined Slaughter City is found in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory of 1911, the Fischer's meat packing plant of 1993, the 2013 garment factory fire in Dhaka, and we can all smell something burning.

The cast features featuring Linsey Falls, Sharon Göpfert, Nick Leininger, Kyra Morris, Lee Peters, Sarah Rush, Mitch Salm, Stephanie Sullivan and Julie Williams. The production is created with assistance from Claire Shavzin (Stage Manager), Ginny Trover (Assistant Director), Joe Bunke (Technical Director), Diane Hamm (Costume Designer), Graham Ives (Assistant Stage Manager), Janet Taylor (Dramaturg), Sid Branca (Projection Designer), Stefan Brün (Artistic Director), Libby Bayreis (Combat), Delia Ford (Combat), Keith Fort (Sound Designer), Shannon Evans (Props Designer), Leah Otto (Props Assistant), Jenny Kim (Props Assistant), Scott Vehill (Artistic Director), Jim Lichon (Props Consultant) and Jamie Scheid (Lighting Designer).

Slaughter City runs from tonight, June 9 through Sunday, July 14 on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm. Previews are June 7 and 8 and there are no performances on July 4 and July 11. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the door, by calling Prop Thtr at 773-539-7838 or visiting www.propthtr.org. *NOTE: Members of unions receive $5 off tickets at the door with union cards.

Prop Thtr is a Chicago storefront theater focused on original or newly adapted theatrical works based in literary traditions. Prop was established in 1981 by Scott Vehill, Stefan Brun and other passionate Chicago artists, making it one of the oldest surviving non-equity theaters in Chicago. Prop has been home to hundreds of performances, many of them world premieres. Prop Thtr attempts to inform the present and the future by examining and learning from the past, while endeavoring to expose audiences to new ideas through new works. Prop has drawn on a rich collection of literature as fodder for new plays, including the works of Algren, Bradbury, Brecht, Bukowski, Burroughs, Dick, Dostoyevsky, Hecht, Nabokov, Nin, and Salinger, among many others. Prop Thtr fosters new work through innovative productions, the creation of the National New Play Network, and its yearly festival of new work.

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