Strawdog Theatre Company to Present CHARLES IVE TAKE ME HOME, 5/9-6/21

Strawdog Theatre Company and Interim Artistic Director Hank Boland are proud to announce the final production to their 2013 - 2014 season, Jessica Dickey's Charles Ives Take Me Home, May 9 - June 21, direction by Keira Fromm with music direction by Strawdog Theatre Company Member Mike Przygoda and original music composition by Christopher Kriz, at Strawdog Theatre Company, 3829 N. Broadway Street. Preview performance tickets are $15 with performances Friday, May 9, Saturday May 10, Thursday, May 15 and Friday, May 16 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m. There is a Board Preview performance, Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m., with $50 tickets that include access to a post-performance reception. Opening/press night is Monday, May 19 at 8 p.m. Industry night is Monday, June 2 at 8 p.m. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Single tickets are $28 and are currently on sale. Subscriptions, group, senior and student discounts are also available. Tickets may be ordered online at strawdog.org or by calling OvationTix toll-free: 866-811-4111.

Strawdog concludes its 26th season with their fourth production, Charles Ives Take Me Home. When a father's love of music clashes with his daughter's passion for basketball, long-dead modernist composer Charles Ives is the perfect referee. Featuring Ives pieces performed by Dave Belden including "Variations On America," "The Unanswered Question," "Things Our Fathers Loved (from 114 Songs)," "Sonata for violin and piano no. 4," and "The Concord Sonata." Charles Ives Take Me Home is a comic and poignant story of dissonance, defense and devotion.

"In the show we will be deconstructing some of these compositions to demonstrate the use of traditional musical concepts as filtered through more modern sensibilities. David plays solo violin versions of many of these compositions giving the audience a chance to hear the components that make up the music of Ives and how it relates to the conflict on stage." said Music Director Przygoda.

Charles Ives Take Me Home was nominated for the prestigious Susan Blackburn Prize and was first produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in NYC in June 2012 and was met with praise from audiences and critics alike. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote "Charles Ives Take Me Home suggests she [Dickey] is a talent to watch: her writing has freshness, economy, an occasional cheeky vulgarity and a fine measure of poetic insight" andThe New Yorker described the play as "honest, vulgar, funny and smart...Like an Ives sonata -- sometimes jagged, sometimes lyrical-- the play is an accomplished, affecting composition."

The cast includes Strawdog ensemble member Jamie Vann with guest artists Dave Belden and Samantha Chavara.

The production team also includes Strawdog Company members Mike Mroch, co-production manager and set design; John Kelly, light designer; Brittany Dee Bodley, costume design; Sam Hubbard, fight choreographer; Josh Sobel, dramaturg; Carmine Grisolia, technical director with guest artists Christopher Kriz, sound designer; Jamie Karas, props designer; Lindsey Miller, stage manager; Sarah Jackson, assistant director; Danielle Whaley, co-production manager and Kristoff Janezic, master electrician.

Jessica Dickey is an actor and playwright and is most well known for her one-woman show The Amish Project, which started at the New York International Fringe Festival, premiered at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and was produced at the American Theater Company in 2011. Her new play Row After Row, also nominated for a Susan Blackburn Prize, a comedy about Civil War re-enactors, opened at the City Center in NYC with the Women's Project in January 2014. As an actor Dickey was most recently seen in Hit The Wall at Barrow Street Theatre in NYC, Proof at McCarter, the Broadway production of Wit at Manhattan Theatre Club, Miss Lilly Gets Boned with the Ice Factory/Studio 42, and television shows "The Big C," "Law & Order," and the Lifetime movie Amish Grace.

Keira Fromm is a Jeff-award nominated director for Lobby Hero at Redtwist Theater, Recent directing credits include: The How and the Why for TimeLine Theatre Company, Broadsword for The Gift Theatre, Fallow for Steep Theatre Company, Enfrascada for 16th Street Theater; staged readings at TimeLine, Steep, About Face, Route 66, Chicago Dramatists, American Theatre Company, and Red Tape Theatre. While living in New York City, Fromm served as the resident director of the popular off-Broadway shows The Donkey Show and The Karaoke Show. She was also the audience casting coordinator for the original Broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Fromm received her MFA in Directing from DePaul University. She is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and an ensemble member of the New York based theater company, Stage 13.

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