Fall Festival at Artemisia Theatre

CHICAGO, IL. Pick your next theatrical adventure at Artemisia Fall Festival 2017, featuring six groundbreaking new plays with dynamic female characters seeking full production. Don’t miss these outstanding new works all written by women playwrights. Each night a new play is staged as a reading by Chicago’s excellent pool of talent and is free to the public.  From this thrilling lineup, the audience chooses Artemisia’s next premiere production.  Artemisia is a proud Actors’ Equity Association Theatre producing female-driven plays (new works with “women at the core.”) All performances are at the beautiful Edge Theatre, 5451 North Broadway, in Edgewater. Curtain is at 7:30 pm – Doors and Box Office open at 7:00 pm.  Admission is Free; reservations and donations are encouraged.  Visit artemisiatheatre.org to get your tickets now. Artemisia VIP Pass Members* can reserve seats by emailing artemisiaboxoffice@gmail.com.  

This year’s six plays span centuries and follow fascinating female characters all on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Artemisia is thrilled to present the deeply-compelling work of six remarkable women playwrights: THE RUG DEALER, by Riti Sachdeva, JARRED, by Eileen Campbell, RUSH, by Callie Kimball, THE MALTA PLAY, by Kirsten Ebsen, REAP THE GROVE, by Caity-Shea Violette, and PARTS OF SPEECH, by Janet Burroway. Attend four readings and receive a digital voting ballot at the end of the festival to choose Artemisia’s next premiere production. For a complete listing of plays and performance times and for more information visit artemisiatheatre.org.

Talkbacks focused on empowerment, inclusion and diversity will follow each reading. Join us for unforgettable discussions about women’s identities, histories, relationships and humanity. Be sure to attend four readings so you can rock the vote at the end of the festival. Celebrate on October 4^th with Artemisia’s talent and leadership at a party directly following the program. See one of Chicago’s most groundbreaking theatre events created by women theatre artists. Make your reservations now at artemisiatheatre.org and pick Artemisia’s next hit show.

ABOUT RITI SACHDEVA, playwright, THE RUG DEALER

Born in India, Riti Sachdeva has been creating, watching, listening, and thinking about art in some shape, form, or rhythm for twenty-five years. Sachdeva was a Time Warner fellow with the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater and the Women’s Project Theater. Her plays have been developed by The Civilians, PlayWrights Center, National New Play Network, Manhattan Theatre Works, U of Hawaii, Working Theater, American Theater Company, Poetic Theater, Centerstage Baltimore, and Lincoln Center Director’s Lab. She is a recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Quest for Peace award for her play Parts of Parts & Stitches and her play The Rug Dealer made The Kilroys’ 2016 List.

ABOUT EILEEN CAMPBELL, playwright, JARRED

Originally from Wayne, IL, Eileen Campbell is a junior studying Theatre Arts and Spanish at the University of Iowa. She divides her time between writing and acting, but is looking to pursue playwriting as a career. Her work has been produced/read at the university (Clockwork, Jarred, Release), Horizon Theatre in Atlanta (Salt), Coneman Running Productions in Houston (Salt), ABC Theatre in New York (Salt), and 20% Theatre in Chicago (Jarred). She will spend the coming year in Seville, Spain studying Spanish and writing her first play in another language. Eileen is incredibly thrilled to be a part of the festival--much love and thanks!

ABOUT CALLIE KIMBALL, playwright, RUSH

Callie Kimball earned her MFA under Tina Howe at Hunter College, where she won the Rita & Burton Goldberg Playwriting Award two years in a row. Her plays have been produced and developed at the Kennedy Center, Portland Stage Company, Lark Play Development Center, Halcyon Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Echo Theatre, The Drama League, and at many other theatres, colleges and festivals across the country. Callie won a Ludwig Vogelstein grant to research her play Sofonisba, which won the Clauder Gold Prize, was a finalist for the O'Neill, a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award, and was included on The Kilroys' 2016 List.

ABOUT KIRSTEN EBSEN, playwright, THE MALTA PLAY

Kirsten Ebsen writes about ordinary women living extraordinary lives. She studied theatre and drama at York University and the Banff School of Fine Arts and worked several seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Kirsten received a grant to participate in the International Theatre Training Congress, where she worked with such luminaries as Joseph Chaikin and Michelle George, among others. Kirsten’s plays include Johanna's Story, Even In Our Sleep, The Roosters, The Betrayal, and The Malta Play. She received an Eva Koch Scholarship at Woodbrooke College in Birmingham, UK, to research her historical play Margaret of Swarthmoor, which received a public reading in Oxford, UK, directed by Ian Flintoff.

ABOUT CAITY-SHEA VIOLETTE, playwright, REAP THE GROVE

Caity-Shea Violette is a Chicago-based playwright and actress and she is passionate about exploring trauma, invisible disabilities, and gender-based violence by creating new plays for women. Her award-winning work has been seen in numerous cities across the country. She holds a BFA in Theatre from the University of Minnesota, Duluth and is a graduate of the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Her awards include: The Kennedy Center's National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award (Winner), Shakespeare's Sister Playwriting Fellowship (National Semi-Finalist), and Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Playwriting Contest (National Finalist), among others. She was recently named part of ADA 25 Advancing Leadership's 2017 Fellows Class and serves as the Manager of Marketing and Communications at Thresholds, a nonprofit that serves over 15,000 people with mental illnesses each year in Illinois. www.caitysheaviolette.com

ABOUT JANET BURROWAY, playwright, PARTS OF SPEECH

JANET BURROWAY won the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing by the Florida Humanities Council and is a novelist, essayist and playwright. Her plays Sweepstakes, Division of Property, and Media With Child (Reva Shiner award, Bloomington Playwrights Project, 1996; Sideshow, 2009) have been performed in New York, London, San Francisco, Hollywood, and Chicago. Parts of Speech won the 1015 Brink! Development prize of Renaissance Theatreworks, Milwaukee; and Boomerang won Sideshow Theatre Company’s Freshness award in 2015. Her memoir Losing Tim appeared in 2014, and a play loosely based on that memoir, Headshots, is in development at Chicago Dramatists and Pulse Ensemble Theatre in New York. She is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Florida State University, and a Network Playwright at Chicago Dramatists.

ABOUT ARTEMISIA

Artemisia produces plays that empower women, gives playwrights career-altering opportunities and brings groundbreaking new theatre to Chicago audiences, who are engaged as a vital part of Artemisia’s play selection process.

ARTEMISIA VIP PASS*

Artemisia offers a VIP Pass for $25. The VIP Pass allows audiences reserved seating to all performances, including Sweet Texas Reckoning and Artemisia Fall Festival 2017, half-priced tickets to Sweet Texas Reckoning, invitations to post-show receptions, seminars taught by Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot and more. VIP Passes are available to purchase at ArtemisiaTheatre.org.

SPONSORSHIP

Sponsorship of Artemisia gives you unique marketing opportunities, direct and personal contact with our audience and talent, and powerful, value-based branding. For sponsorship opportunities contact Artemisia Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot at julie@artemisiatheatre.org.