The New Colony Announces 2018-19 Season At The Den Theatre

The New Colony, under the new artistic direction of Fin Coe* and Stephanie Shum*, is pleased to announce the full line-up for its 2018-19 season, to presented at its resident home, The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

The season kicks off this fall with the world premiere of FUN HARMLESS WARMACHINE, a kinetic journey down the rabbit hole of online masculinity cults, written by Co-Artistic Director Fin Coe* and directed by James Fleming.

Next winter, the season continues with the world premiere of SMALL WORLD, a twisted comedy in the happiest place on earth, co-written by Jillian Leff and Joe Lino and directed by Andrew Hobgood*.

The season concludes next summer with The New Colony UNCHARTED Festival, a two-week showcase of plays at different points in their journeys to production. Tickets will go on sale at a later date. For additional information, visit www.thenewcolony.org.

"We're immensely proud to bring these exciting world premieres to life in The New Colony's tenth and our first season as Co-Artistic Directors," comment Fin Coe and Stephanie Shum. "As we head into the next decade, we're reflecting on our past traditions of experimentation and excellence, as well as our vision for new projects with new artists for new audiences. Fun Harmless Warmachine, developed through our Writers' Room education program, and Small World, created through our company's unique new plays process, promises to add to the company's storied tradition of bold new work that speaks to the world we live in and how we choose to survive within it."

Additionally, The New Colony's sell-out 2018 hit THE LIGHT returns this summer for a special engagement August 21 - 24, 2018 at Theater on the Lake, 2401 N. Lake Shore Drive (Fullerton & Lake Michigan) in Chicago. For tickets and additional information, visit www.thenewcolony.org or call (312) 742-7994.

The New Colony is also pleased to welcome its newest staff members: Michael Peters* (Associate Artistic Director), Laura Stephenson (Managing Director), James Fleming (Director of New Work), Elyse Dolan (Director of Education), Kristi Parker-Barnhart* (Education Liaison) and Zoe Benditt (Grant Writer).

*Denotes The New Colony Ensemble Member.

The New Colony's 2018-19 Season includes:

October 3 - November 4, 2018

FUN HARMLESS WARMACHINE - World Premiere!

Written by Co-Artistic Director Fin Coe*

Directed by James Fleming

By day, Tom works a dead end job for the man and can't get a date. But by night, he's top of the leader board, a master gamer. Othered and lonely, Tom is sucked into the Order of the Sword, an online community that seems to promise him his digital personal in real life. Developed through The New Colony's Writers' Room and inspired by Gamergate and online hate movements, FUN HARMLESS WARMACHINE is a cautionary tale of the power of fear and the seductive pull of the alt right.

March 27 - May 5, 2019

SMALL WORLD - World Premiere!
Written by Jillian Leff and Joe Lino

Directed by Andrew Hobgood*

It's the end of the world...maybe? There's no way to confirm for the three "cast members" trapped inside the Small World ride in Disney World. The music won't stop, there's a body in the moat and one of the group is impaled under a smiling animatronic. Can they force their way off the ride? And what waits for them on the other side? It's a world of hopes, it's a world of fears. It's a small world, after all.

July 11 - 21, 2019

The New Colony UNCHARTED Festival

Full line-up to be announced

UNCHARTED is a two week festival showcasing bold new works from Chicago playwrights developed, incubated and curated by The New Colony. This festival highlights plays at different points in their journeys toward production and aims to demystify the creative process for audiences. We provide Chicago playwrights with support from professional directors, actors and designers to help them take the next step in the creation of a new work. UNCHARTED was founded in recognition and celebration of the Chicago community's passion for creating and producing new American plays, and aims to connect audiences and theatrical producers with today's stories and tomorrow's playwrights.

Comments TNC's Director of New Work James Fleming, "In the spirit of risk and adventure, the UNCHARTED festival serves to encourage playwrights to further develop their works and think about the three dimensional life of a play to expand their vision from page to stage. Our audiences are an essential part of our development and we invite the community to be a part of these new play's 'first breath.' It is our sincere hope that audiences will see every play in UNCHARTED have a continued life on stages in Chicago and across the country."

About The Artists

Fin Coe (Playwright, Fun Harmless Warmachine) is a Chicago-based theatre artist and the Co-Artistic Director of The New Colony. A native of Silicon Valley and a graduate of Case Western Reserve University, his past writing credits include Pretty/Windy Theatre Company, Scribble Bibble, A-Squared Theatre, the Sketch Review, and others. Fun Harmless Warmachine is his first full-length play to be produced.

James Fleming (Director, Fun Harmless Warmachine) is a Chicago-based director, Director of New Works at The New Colony and Associate Artistic Director at Redtwist Theatre. At Redtwist, he has directed Our Town by Thornton Wilder and Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman. He has also directed readings, workshops and events for Goodman Theatre, Route 66 Theatre, Broken Nose Theatre, arc theatre and The New Colony. He's had the pleasure of assistant directing at Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre and Greenhouse Theatre Center. He worked as part of a collaborative team with Peca Stefan, Tamilla Woodard and Ana Margineanu of PopUp Theatrics, producing the Chicago story for #THENEWOLDHOME, which premiered at CLB Berlin in January 2018. He has served on the literary panels for the National New Play Network's Annual Showcase of New Plays, Route 66's TEST DRIVE and Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Play Festival. James was a participant in the Chicago Directors Lab and a recipient of an SDC Foundation Observership. Upcoming projects: Herland by Grace McLeod for Redtwist Theatre.

Jillian Leff (Playwright, Small World) is a Chicago based playwright and actor. She's excited to be back at The New Colony after being the script supervisor and fight choreographer for Scapegoat and developing her play The Mark with The Writers Room. Her writing has been seen around the city with Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (Fly on the Wall), Ghostlight Theatre Ensemble (Forgetting) and Nothing Special Productions' Fight Night (The Mother-Load). Her short play Real Talk was a finalist for the 2015 City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting and was published in The City Theatre Anthology 2015. Her play Missed Opportunities will be receiving its world premiere this winter with The Cuckoo's Theater Project, where she is a company member. She is also currently working on developing The Private Life of Private Molly, a play about Deborah Sampson, with EDGE Theatre.

Joe Lino (Playwright, Small World) is making his playwriting debut with Small World. He's mainly focused on acting, and in Chicago he has worked with Steppenwolf, Goodman, Victory Gardens, Interrobang Theatre, Teatro Vista, Drury Lane, The New Colony, The Cuckoos Theater Project and The Agency Theatre Collective, where he can be seen next in the world premier of Tres Bandidos. Regionally, he has credits with Actors Theatre of Louisville in shows such as Dracula, A Christmas Carol and That High Lonesome Sound, which premiered at the Humana Festival. He has also performed Off-Broadway at the BAM Harvey Theatre in Charles Mee's world premier of The Glory of the World. He is a proud alumni of Ball State University where he received a BFA in Acting.

Andrew Hobgood (Director, Small World) is the Founding Artistic Director of The New Colony and led the organization for its first 10 years. He has been a working playwright, director and actor in Chicago for the last 15 years. His play, 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, won Outstanding Production at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival before opening Off-Broadway in a production Ben Brantley of the New York Times called "raw and magnetic dementia...destined to attract a cult following." 5 Lesbians is published with Samuel French and has been translated into over 15 languages and produced throughout the world. Hobgood's other work with The New Colony includes writing and directing the new musicals Tupperware: An American Musical Fable, That Sordid Little Story, Rise of The Numberless and Plastic Revolution. His play reWILDing Genius was commissioned by the University of Chicago and premiered as part of Steppenwolf Theater's Garage Rep series. Directing credits for The New Colony include Amelia Earhart: Jungle Princess, the original and commercial productions of FRAT, Hearts Full of Blood, which won Outstanding Script at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival, B-Side Studio, produced in collaboration with The Inconvenience and the University of Chicago TAPS program, Orville and Wilbur Did It!, and MERGE. Recent acting credits include The Bear Suit of Happiness, The Terrible and Kinfolk. In 2010, Newcity Magazine named him one of the 50 People Who Really Perform for Chicago; in 2011, he and The New Colony were honored with the Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theater Award; and in 2013 he and Evan Linder were two of six people on Chicago Magazine's Cultural Power List of Theater Scene Stealers. Most recently, he authored Surviving Collaboration, a manual that teaches writers, directors and actors how to create new works using The Process, the development methodology used by The New Colony.

About The New Colony

The New Colony develops New Art and New Artists in order to educate and build New Audiences.

Now in its tenth year, The New Colony has established itself as "one of Chicago's essential off-Loop companies" (Chicago Tribune). Through the premiere of now thirty premiere plays and musicals, The New Colony has cultivated a diverse audience of theatergoers eager to have a voice in the storytelling. Conversation, collaboration and innovation remain at the heart of everything they produce. The New Colony's work has been honored with five non-Equity Jeff Awards, Broadway In Chicago's 2011 Emerging Theatre Award and Best Overall Production at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival. The New Colony's 2018/19 Season marks their fourth year as a resident company in the Upstairs Mainstage of The Den Theatre in Wicker Park.

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