Halcyon Theatre announces a New Season

Oct 6, 2010
Halcyon Theatre

Halcyon Theatre announces its Fifth Season and a new mission statement: "We are fiercely committed to making the stage as diverse as the city of Chicago; presenting new voices from inadequately represented communities, as well as recasting classic works to showcase their contemporary relevance."

"As we went through the strategic planning process (currently nearing completion), it became abundantly clear that we were nowhere near as good at communicating our mission as we were in our work. Over the course of the last three months we have worked steadily towards refining our mission statement, taking in feedback from the board, ensemble, and many interested people outside our organization. The board recently ratified a new mission statement for Halcyon Theatre." Says Artistic Director Tony Adams, "The new mission statement isn't changing our mission, but is a better reflection of our work and how we articulate our mission."

Season Five will include Trickster by Tony Adams, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable) by Caridad Svich and The Alcyone Festival 2011: Remixed. Season Five will be performed at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.

Trickster, a re-imagining of the stories of Genesis, the legend of Don Juan, and Coyote tales, will be taking its place in our season this winter. The show is written and directed by Artistic Director Tony Adams and will be developed in the rehearsal process by Tony and the cast. Using movement, puppetry, stage magic and music, Trickster tells the story of a displaced people torn between warlords and the spiritual world, until they receive a mysterious visitor (a cross between Don Juan and Coyote Trickster) that sets their world on fire. Set in the American Southwest, Trickster will explore what happens when we are forced to face the consequences of ignoring our changing world and the human cost of the cycle of creation and destruction.

The Chicago Premiere of Caridad Svich's Iphigenia... (a rave Fable) will perform February 17 through March 27, 2011. Artistic Director Tony Adams will direct. Inspired by Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, this play with music and video spins Iphigenia into dangerous orbit through an un-named Latin American country as she journeys through a meta-hell where she finds her body embraced and destroyed by a rock star named Achilles, and discovers she cannot escape a destiny set forth by myths ancient and modern. The world of the rich and the poor; the living and the dead; the live performance and the video, forge a new world familiar and foreign, mysterious and hyper-realistic. Says Adams, "Caridad has an innate ability to take existing styles and conventions and fuse them into something new and fascinating. One of the amazing things about her work is how she can almost mainline myths and create something poetic and mythic, yet completely contemporary, by telling them in a way that is both entertaining and powerful."

The Alcyone Festival 2011 will perform in the Summer of 2011.The theme for Alcyone 2011 will be Remixed, creating new works by women based off of classical texts by women. We will present new works using/adapting/sampling/re-envisioning . . . remixing classical plays written by women before 1850. The Alcyone Festival 2011 will celebrate both new and (really) old writers and see how the lineage of female playwrights over the past thousand years can inspire and inform contemporary audiences and artists.

Additionally, in order to combat the "development hell" cycle of reading for new works, we're experimenting with something new this year. Instead of picking scripts, we are picking writers and taking off the reigns. While we can't afford to commission, we can commit to producing. Says Tony Adams, "What I told the writers was, the only rules are: it has to be based in some way off a play written by a woman before 1850 and it has to be ready to begin rehearsing in April. You write it, we'll produce it. No holds barred." Featured writers include: J. Nicole Brooks, Jennifer Fawcett, E.M. Lewis, Coya Paz, and Caridad Svich.

Tickets to individual performances are $15-20 ($10 for students and seniors); Tickets will be available through the Greenhouse Theater Center Box Office beginning in late October. Season Passes will be available beginning October 20 at halcyontheatre.org.