Shattered Globe Theatre's 25th Anniversary Season to Include ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER & More

Shattered Globe Theatre has announced its 25th season, kicking off this fall with a 25th anniversary production of MARVIN'S ROOM, Chicago playwright Scott McPherson's award-winning dark and mordantly funny comedy about putting family first, directed by Producing Artistic Director Sandy Shinner. This winter, SGT presents Pulitzer Prize-winner Rajiv Joseph's uncommon love story ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER, a vibrant and nuanced peek into the creative process that shapes three lives, directed by Devon de Mayo. The season concludes next spring with John Ball's gripping, racially charged mystery IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, adapted by Matt Pelfrey and directed by Louis Contey. The full 2015-16 Season will be presented at Shattered Globe's resident home, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. in Chicago. Tickets will go on sale at a future date at www.shatteredglobe.org, by calling (773) 975-8150 or in person at the Theater Wit Box Office.

Shattered Globe is also pleased to announce partial casting for MARVIN'S ROOM, which will feature Ensemble Members Rebecca Jordan and Linda Reiter and SGT Protégé Program graduate Nate Santana with Deanna Dunagan, Kyle Klein II, Deanna Reed-Foster and Don Tieri. Additional casting will be announced.

"I am particularly excited to open the Shattered Globe's 25th anniversary season with Scott McPherson's play Marvin's Room, also celebrating its 25th anniversary," comments Producing Artistic Director Sandy Shinner. "Marvin's Room's generous spirit and its reminder of the rewards of caring for others seems like healing balm when the theater community is still reeling from recent profound losses. As the original dramaturg on the play, and a friend of Scott's, I had always hoped to spend a little more time in his witty, loving world. But there is also another side to Marvin's Room; and all three plays in the season reveal people coming together while falling apart. In Marvin's Room and Animals Out of Paper, the characters struggle with the difficulties of intimacy, friendship and loneliness - one kind of 'segregation.' The racially motivated police brutality of In the Heat of the Night explores these same themes at the level of race. I am also thrilled that Lou Contey, a former SGT artistic director, is part of our anniversary season, and happy to welcome Devon de Mayo who is directing her first SGT show," adds Shinner.

Shattered Globe Theatre's 25th Season includes:

October 1 - November 14, 2015

MARVIN'S ROOM

By Scott McPherson

Directed by Producing Artistic Director Sandy Shinner

Press opening: Sunday, October 4 at 3 pm

Winner of the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Drama Desk Award for New Play, MARVIN'S ROOM has been rapturously praised by audiences and critics alike since its world premiere at Chicago's Goodman Theater in 1990. Bessie devotes her life to caring for her elderly father and aunt and so her own diagnosis of leukemia plummets their world into a tailspin. In need of a bone marrow transplant, Bessie reaches out to her estranged sister Lee and her two nephews. If they are to be of any help, then old wounds must be opened. MARVIN'S ROOM is about finding family and the timeless concerns of living, dying and caring for others told with McPherson's signature humor.

During the play's Chicago debut, the Chicago Tribune's Richard Christiansen wrote, "From the everyday environment of a suburban home to the fantasy land of Disney World, McPherson found the exact scene, the perfect dialogue and the precise image to express his American tragicomedy." The Chicago Sun-Times' Hedy Weiss said "it is McPherson's great and original gift to make his characters and their fates seem almost shamefully comical and absolutely honest at every moment" and The New York Times called the play "one of the funniest plays of the year as well as one of the wisest and most moving." The Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones wrote during a later production in 2009, "time has withered neither its power nor its wisdom."

January 14 - February 27, 2016

ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER

By Rajiv Joseph

Directed by Devon de Mayo

Press opening: Sunday, January 17 at 3 pm

In Rajiv Joseph's ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER, Andy, a calculus teacher and avid fan, pressures a reclusive Ilana, a world famous origami artist, into becoming an unwitting mentor to a troubled teenage prodigy, Suresh. These three intriguingly flawed characters begin to reshape and mold each other's lives in much the same way they fold and crease their origami art. During a production at New York's Second Stage Theater, The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Joseph's observant, pitch-perfect script seems modest at first but is really quite ambitious, dealing ruthlessly...with the fragility of happiness, the tragedy of impulsiveness and the tenuousness of hope."

April 21 - June 4, 2016

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

Based on the novel by John Ball

Adapted by Matt Pelfrey, directed by Louis Contey

Press opening: Sunday, April 24 at 3 pm

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT recounts the classic, highly charged story of an African American police officer asked to investigate a murder in a racially hostile southern town. It's a torrid night in 1965 Argo, Alabama when a dead white man is found. The local police, desperately searching for a motive and a suspect, arrest a black man passing through town. The police soon discover that their suspect is an expert homicide detective from LA and they must confront their personal prejudices as they are forced to work side by side to solve the crime. The award winning film version starring Sidney Poitier remains emblematic of our country in the 1960s. Fifty years later, Pelfry's new adaptation of the novel leaves room for the evolution of these attitudes. But watching the nightly news - how far have we come?

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