Theatre News Wire

Theater Wit Artistic Director Jeremy Wechsler has announced the cast for the company's 2010-2011 season finale, Melissa James Gibson's new contemporary comedy This, playing February 25-March 27, 2011.

Theater Wit's Chicago premiere of Gibson's comic meditation on love, adulthood and adultery - hailed by New York Times critic Charles Isherwood as "the best new play to open off Broadway this fall" - will feature Rebecca Spence in the central role of Jane, in an "un-romantic comedy" about a single, 30-something mother confronting her pre-midlife crisis.

Spence, who is making her Theater Wit debut, recently portrayed the role of Merteuil in Remy Bummpo's Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Jeff Nomination, Supporting Role) and Catherine Donohue in Rivendell Theatre Ensemble's These Shining Lives (Jeff Nomination, Lead Role). Other credits include Remy Bumppo's The Voysey Inheritance, and The Crucible, Household Spirits, Our Lady of 121st Street and Pacific at Steppenwolf Theatre.

Wechsler, who will direct This, has also cast Lily Mojekwu (Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Romeo and Juliet and The Overwhelming and Well at Next) as Jane's best friend Marrell; John Byrnes (a member of The Hypocrites, seen in their productions of The Hairy Ape, Our Town, 4.48 Psychosis and many others) as Marrell's husband, Tom; Mitchell J. Fain (a Theater Wit favorite thanks to his three years playing David/Crumpet in The Santaland Diaries) as everyone's friend, Alan; and Steve Hadnagy (Bertolt Brecht's baal for TUTA and the title role in Macbeth at City Lit) as Jean-Pierre, a newcomer to the otherwise close-knit circle of long-time, 30-something, urban friends.

Designers for This include Roger Wykes (set), Mike Durst (lights), and Christopher Kris (sound). Stage manager is Dana Nestrick.

So what's This all about?

Jane is a recent widow whose dating life is a shambles, and her helpful friends are only helping make things more complicated. When an innocent party game suddenly goes awry, Jane and her friends are forced to face myriad uncomfortable truths about their marriages, loss and future. What does this life have in store for us? And how do we get through it all with love and dignity?

A smash hit for New York's Playwrights Horizons when it premiered in 2009, the New York Times called This "a beautiful new play... her (Gibson's) finest to date...wholly accessible... the delicate pace, richly patterned wordplay and undercurrent of rue combine to cast a moving spell that lingers in the memory, like a sad-sweet pop song whose chorus you can't shake."

Single tickets to This are $15 to $35. For tickets and information, visit TheaterWit.org or call the Theater Wit box office, 773.975.8150.