SimonSays Entertainment Joins Producing Team of 5 LESBIANS EATING A QUICHE, Now Playing the Chopin Theatre

SimonSays Entertainment, helmed by Ron Simons, a three-time Tony Award nominee and a two-time Tony Award winner, has joined the producing team of "5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche." SimonSays Entertainment is a production company which develops projects of underrepresented communities for film, television, and live theatre, has joined lead producers Chicago Commercial Collective and Pinckard Production Partners. The show having previously run to rave reviews in Chicago and New York City opened today at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago.

Ron Simons notes "We are proud to be a part of this production, the outstanding humor it brings and how it furthers SimonSays' mission to Tell Every Story.

About the Pinckard Production Partners: John Arthur Pinckard is a Tony Award winning producer of theatre and film, most recently represented on Broadway by Clybourne Park which won the Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other current and recent productions include the international tour of Green Day's American Idiot, and the long running Off Broadway hit Silence! The Musical!, which he originated at the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival. John is an inaugural recipient of Hal Prince's T. Edward Hambleton Fellowship for creative producers.

About the Chicago Commercial Collective:

BRIAN LOEVNER is a theatre manager, producer, production manager, and arts educator. From 2004-2013, Brian served as the Managing Director of Chicago Dramatists. In addition, he was a founder and the Managing Director of Theatre Conspiracy in Washington D.C. for four seasons. In 1998, he co-founded TriArts, Inc., where he created programming partnerships with the Chicago Park District, Gallery 37, and the Department of Aging. Brian has also produced and production managed over 90 shows with companies such as Famous Door Theatre, Timeline Theatre, Collaboraction, Chicago Dramatists and The Actor's Gymnasium. Further, he has worked as a business consultant, assisting sole proprietors and small companies in setting up accounting and office systems. He attended Virginia Tech University and George Mason University where he majored in Theatre Arts with a focus on Arts Management.

AURÉLIA F. COHEN is a theater producer and consultant to non-profit administrators. She received a Master of Fine Arts in theater management from Yale School of Drama. Since her move to Chicago, Aurélia has worked with About Face Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, The Music Theatre Company, OnStage in America, American Theater Company, and Lifeline Theater. While at Yale, she worked as the Managing Director for the Yale Cabaret, producing 20 shows in 28 weeks. Prior to her time at Yale, she was the Technical Archivist at The Metropolitan Opera in New York City. During her time in New York City, Aurélia founded Pig Brooch, an ensemble theatre company. Aurélia is a member of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network.

BENJAMIN BROWNSON has been working as a Chicago producer, director, playwright, dramaturg, actor, and arts administrator for over five years. Since earning his MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago he has worked with a variety of organizations, including Court Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, Theatre Seven of Chicago, Waltzing Mechanics, and Broken Nose Theatre, where he is the founding Artistic Director. BNT highlights include their inaugural hit My First Time, the "surprise musical hit of summer," (Hedy Weiss) ROOMS a rock romance, and Bechdel Fest, a short play festival featuring 50 artists and an all-female cast. His play Beautiful Broken received its world premiere with BNT after developmental readings at Chicago Dramatists', the Greenhouse Theater Center, and the Park Theater in Holland, Michigan. He served as dramaturg for Mortar Theatre's Corazon de Manzana and Theatre Seven's We Live Here, which earned a Jeff Nomination for New Work, and has performed across the country on three national theater tours. In addition to his role with the Collective, Benjamin is the General Manager of the Greenhouse Theater Center, where he runs the day to day operations and oversees the Trellis Artist Development Program.

KEATON WOODEN is an Emmy-nominated producer, writer, and director living in Chicago. Studying at Ball State University and the University of Oxford, Wooden was a Rhodes, Fullbright, and Marshall Scholarship nominee before moving to Chicago to produce theater and film. Wooden's background in science led him to join a ground-breaking writing team to create an original play about the women who built the atomic bomb, the screenplay of the same story was also a finalist for the Sundance Festival's Alfred P Sloan Commissioning Grant. Wooden's favorite theater credits include directing"The Promise" in Indiana and remounted at The Side Project Theater as well as "In the Jungle" at the Brown Elephant for AIDS research. He went on to produce "A Map of our Country" for the Samuel French Off Off Broadway festival and Irvine Welsh's world-premiere adaptation of his famous novel titled "Trainspotting USA." Film projects include the award-winning web series "Box Boys," the Emmy-nominated "Vibrations: A Documentary" for PBS, "NightLights" starring Shawna Waldron, and "Calumet" starring Steppenwolf ensemble member Austin Pendleton. Wooden has given presentations on his experience in entertainment and the humanities at the University of Oxford.

CREATIVE TEAM:

SARAH GITENSTEIN (Director) is a company member at The New Colony and Collaboraction Theater in Chicago. Sarah is both and actor and director. Acting credits include work at Bohemian Theater, Curious Theater, Infusion Theater, Pavement Group, Teatro Vista, Theater Seven and Timeline Theater. She was the casting director at Collaboraction for four years where she worked on such plays as The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Jon and Sketchbook 7, 8, and 9. Sarah has directed for various theaters in the Chicago area, including Curious Theater, American Theater Company, Pavement Group, and Victory Gardens Theater. She is a native of Washington, DC, and earned her bachelor's degree in theater from Kenyon College

ANDREW HOBGOOD (Co-Playwright) is the founding artistic director for The New Colony, with which he has directed Amelia Earhart: Jungle Princess, FRAT and Hearts Full of Blood, which went on to the New York International Fringe Festival and was featured in its Encore Series. He has served as co-­?writer on many of The New Colony's original works, including That Sordid Little Story and Tupperware: An American Musical Fable, which he also directed. Most recently he directed and co-­?wrote lyrics for The New Colony's latest musical, Rise of the Numberless. Outside of The New Colony, Andrew won a 2006 FringeNYC award for 58!, a comedy about bike messengering. Andrew is an adjunct professor of theater at the University of Chicago.

EVAN LINDER (Co-Playwright) is The New Colony's associate artistic director. A playwright and actor in Chicago, Evan has worked with Victory Gardens Theatre, About Face Theatre, the side project, Promethean Theatre Ensemble, Collaboraction and Bohemian Theatre Ensemble. For The New Colony, Evan has written FRAT, The Warriors, 11:11, Rise of the Numberless, and The Bearsuit of Happiness, which will premiere as part of The New Colony's 2013 season. He will also be developing a world premiere work with the University of Chicago this winter, where he is an adjunct professor of theater.

Synopsis: It is 1956 Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein's annual quiche breakfast. The normally idyllic gathering, where the motto is "no men, no meat, all manners," is upended when the Society's matriarchs must confront the startling revelation that an atom bomb may be falling on their fair city. As fears are confronted and confessions fly, the chipper ladies stay firm in their commitment that the quiche is a mighty thing and that one must "respect the egg."

Following the upward trajectory from its debut as a short play presented at Collaboraction's Sketchbook Festival in 2010 to a full production during The New Colony's 2011 season, "5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche" enjoyed a meteoric rise with audiences and critics. Reviewing for the Chicago Tribune, Kerry Reid said, "The New Colony's show dishes up high-spirited theatrical comfort food with a bit of a saucy kick." After wowing Chicago where Time Out Chicago called it "smart, sharp and hysterically funny," the comedy went on to play a sold-out engagement at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival, winning a "Best Overall Production" award. This was soon followed by a successful off-Broadway run at New York's SoHo Playhouse.

About SimonSays Entertainment: Founded in 2009 with the mission to "Tell Every Story", SimonSays Entertainment was founded by Ron Simons, a working actor and producer, whose multi-faceted background includes business and the arts. The company develops projects that represent indigenous and underrepresented cultures from all reaches of the globe. SimonSays Entertainment seeks to work with writers, directors, and storytellers who bring their lives and communities to light.

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