Victory Gardens Theater Presents THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY, Runs 10/7-11/1

Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago's #1 producer of new plays, is planning a bold launch for its 2009-2010 season with Ignition, the company's first-ever national festival of new plays by America's top emerging writers of color under 40 years old.

Victory Gardens' most daring new play development projects in 36 years, Ignition boasts overlapping world premieres of a pair of fresh new plays by two of America's fastest rising playwrights: Year Zero by Michael Golamco (currently playing in Victory Gardens' new studio), and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz.

Ignition actually began in spring 2008, when 120 writers of color under 40 answered Victory Gardens' nationwide call to submit new scripts for the first phase of the festival. The top six plays were selected, workshopped, and presented as staged readings in an incredibly well received, weeklong festival last summer, curated by Victory Gardens Associate Artistic Director Sandy Shinner.

About The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

Macedonio Guerra is a middle-rank pro wrestler who may have discovered his ticket to the big time: an impossibly charismatic, hip-hop-influenced Indian kid from Brooklyn. Their boss has the perfect concept: team them in the ring as terrorists.

Diaz' smart, comic look at pro wrestling, geopolitics, and refrigerator crispers is a theatrical smackdown of dazzling hip-hop language, presented with a fresh, funny, high-octane flair. Set in the world of professional wrestling, Chad also raises pertinent questions about racial identity and pop culture in our society.

Kristoffer Diaz is a playwright and educator, currently living and working in Minneapolis, where he is a 2009-2010 Jerome Fellow. In addition to generating major buzz at Ignition, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity was a finalist for the 2008 O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and subsequently won Arizona Theater Company's National Latino Playwriting Award. His full-length plays also include Chad, Welcome to Arroyo's and Guernica, which have been produced and developed at Victory Gardens, American Theatre Company, The Orchard Project, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Lark, Summer Play Festival, Donmar Warehouse, and South Coast Repertory. Diaz also was one of the creators of Brink!, the apprentice anthology show at the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays. He is a new playwright-in-residence at Teatro Vista. For more information, visit www.kristofferdiaz.com <http://www.kristofferdiaz.com/> .

Edward Torres (director) is a Co-Founder and current Artistic Director of Teatro Vista...Theatre With a View. Most recently, he appeared in the Goodman's production of Luis Alfaro's Electricidad. He also appeared in Victory Gardens' critically acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize winning play Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz. Directorial credits for Teatro Vista include The Show Host, co-produced with Victory Gardens Theater (also at Theater on the Lake), Ambrosio, Broken Eggs (Theater on the Lake), The Boiler Room co-produced with Steppenwolf Theatre for their Student Exchange Program (also at Theater on the Lake) and the critically acclaimed production of Aurora's Motive (also at Theater on the Lake).

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity stars Usman Ally (Vigneshwar Padujar, aka VP), Kamal Angelo Bolden (Chad Deity), Desmin Borges (Macedonio Guerra, aka The Mace), James Krag (Everett K. Olsen, aka EKO, Ring Announcer), and Christian Litke (Joe Jabroni). Designers include Brian Sidney Bembridge, set; Christine Pascual, costumes; Jesse Klug, lights; Mikhail Fiksel, sound; John Boesche, projections; D.J. Reed, props; and David Woolley, SAFD, fight director. Production stage manager is Tina M. Jach.

Previews of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity are September 25-October 4: Tuesday through Thursday at 7:3 pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm. Previews are $30 - $37. Press opening is Monday, October 5 at 7:30 pm. Regular performances are October 7-November 1: Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 pm; Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 5 pm and 8:30 pm; Sunday at 3 pm. Performances are $37-$48. Added matinees are Wednesday, 21 and 28 at 2 pm. No evening performance Tuesday, October 6 or October 13. Ask the box office about student, senior, Access, rush and "$20 Ringside Seats" discount offers.

The Victory Gardens Biograph Theater is located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Single tickets for both Ignition world premieres are on sale now, for $20-$48. Five-play subscriptions to Victory Gardens' 2009-2010 season start at only $80, and can include one or both Ignition plays. To inquire about tickets or subscriptions, call the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater box office, 773.871.3000 or visit victorygardens.org.

 

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