Strawdog Theatre Company Opens Season with NEIGHBORHOOD 3 Tonight, 10/7

Strawdog Theatre Company opens their 25th anniversary season with the Chicago premiere of Jennifer Haley's Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, directed by Joanie Schultz, tonight, October 7 – November 10 at the Strawdog Theatre, 3829 North Broadway Street. The performance schedule is Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Preview performance tickets are $15 with performances Thursday, Oct. 4 and Friday, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. There is a benefit preview performance, Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m., $50 tickets include access to post-performance reception. Opening/Press Night is Sunday, Oct. 7 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $28 with group, senior and student discounts available. Thursday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. is an industry performance where available tickets are $10 for people presenting resumes or headshots. Tickets may be ordered online at strawdog.org or by calling OvationTix toll-free: 866-811-4111.

Parents have been noticing their children have become addicted to the latest video game, Neighborhood 3. The game is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) where the goal is to kill zombies and escape a setting that looks like their own neighborhood. But as the line blurs between virtual and reality, both parents and players realize that fear has a life of its own. Four actors play a variety of characters on a faceless suburban street in a nameless town in this gripping, yet comic, horror story. Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, the recipient of the 2009 Primus Citations from the American Theatre Critics Association, may be inappropriate for children. It contains violence, language, adult situations ... and zombies.

Joanie Schultz, in her Strawdog debut as director of Neighborhood 3, said, "Neighborhood 3 emphasizes the chasm that technology has created between parents and their children, and how being pacified by this technology creates a danger from things being unspoken. It is a play for our times."

The cast features Strawdog Ensemble Member Mike Dailey (Father Type) as well as Kendra Thulin (Mother Type), Leah Karpel (Daughter Type) and Sam Hubbard (Son Type).
The production team features Strawdog Ensemble Members Mike Mroch (scenic design), Jordan Kardasz (light design), Joanna Melville (costume design), Kyle Hamman (projections design), Brandon Bruce (fight choreography) with guest production members Lindsey Miller (stage manager), Patrick Fries (production manager), Thomas Dixon (sound design), Mary O'Dowd (props designer), Matt Buettner (technical director) and Dan Laushman (master electrician).

Jennifer Haley is the winner of the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, The Nether, which will see a world premiere by Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Spring 2013. Her other plays include Froggy, which was developed at the Sundance Theatre Institute and The Banff Centre and will premiere at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco in 2013, and Breadcrumbs, which premiered at the 2010 Contemporary American Theatre Festival.??Haley's plays have been developed at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Lark Play Development Center, Summer Play Festival in New York, PlayPenn Playwrights Conference, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and the Page 73 Productions Summer Residency at Yale, among other venues. She is a former fellow of the MacDowell Colony and Millay Colony for the Arts. She earned an MFA in playwriting at Brown University. Haley lives in Los Angeles, where she founded The Playwrights Union, a network of theater artists in Los Angeles writing for stage, television and film.

Joanie Schultz received her B.A. in theater directing from Columbia College, where she studied with David Cromer, Sheldon Patinkin and Henry Godinez, among other artists. After her studies, she arrived on the Chicago theater scene as artistic director and co-founder of Flush Puppy Productions. She received her M.F.A. from Northwestern University in 2007, where she was mentored by Anna D. Shapiro, and also studied with great directors such as Frank Galati, Mary Zimmerman, Amy Morton and Jessica Thebus. Since 2007, Schultz has been busy in both theater and opera as a freelance director, assistant director and directing teacher. She has worked in Chicago, nationally and abroad. In the fall of 2007 she was awarded a directing fellowship with the Drama League in New York that allowed her to direct her off-Broadway debut. She was awarded The Goodman Theatre's Michael Maggio Directing Fellowship for 2009-10, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation's Denham Fellowship for 2009-10, and was a 2008 member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. She is currently on faculty at Columbia College Chicago, and is an artistic associate with Steep Theatre.

Since its founding in 1988, Strawdog Theatre Company has offered Chicagoland the premiere storefront theatre experience and garnered numerous Non-Equity Jeff Awards with its commitment to ensemble acting and an immersive design approach. The celebrated Company develops new work, re-imagines the classics, melds music with theatre, asks provocative questions and delivers their audience the unexpected.

The current Strawdog ensemble includes Jennifer Avery, Hank Boland, Michael Dailey, Anita Deely, Paul Fagen, John Ferrick, Mikhail Fiksel, Kyle Gibson, Sarah Goeden, Aly Greaves Amidei, Carmine Grisolia, Christopher Hainsworth, Kyle Hamman, Erik Hellman, Tom Hickey, Shannon Hoag, Jordan Kardasz, Anderson Lawfer, Sean Mallary, Kat McDonnell, Joanna Melville, Gregor Mortis, Mike Mroch, Michaela Petro, Mike Przygoda, John Henry Roberts, Justine C. Turner, and Jamie Vann. Strawdog's Artistic Director is Brandon Bruce, Managing Director is Patrick Rybarczyk and General Manager is Cortney Hurley. Notable Strawdog alums include Elizabeth Auman (TimeLine), Alexandra Billings (actress, cabaret star), Nancy Bishop (casting director), Chrisanne Blankenship (director), Becca Cardo (voice-over artist), Kristin Caskey (Fox Theatricals), Scott Cummins (actor, director) and James Denton (Desperate Housewives).

All productions, plus ongoing late night offerings, are presented at Strawdog's space in the heart of Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, 3829 N. Broadway Street. Tickets are available at .773.528.9696 or www.strawdog.org.

The neighborhood has limited paid parking and is easily accessible by public transportation (via the Red Line Sheridan stop, plus 36-Broadway, 80-Irving Park, and 151-Sheridan buses).

Strawdog Theatre presents the Chicago premiere of Jennifer Haley's Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, directed by Joanie Schultz, October 7 – November 10 at the Strawdog Theatre, 3829 North Broadway Street. The performance schedule is Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Preview performance tickets are $15 with performances Thursday, Oct. 4 and Friday, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. There is a benefit preview performance, Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m., $50 tickets include access to post-performance reception. Opening/Press Night is Sunday, Oct. 7 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $28 with group, senior and student discounts available. Thursday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. is an industry performance where available tickets are $10 for people presenting resumes or headshots. Tickets may be ordered

Strawdog Theatre Company is supported in part by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Illinois Arts Council (a state agency) and the annual support of businesses and individuals.

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