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Lear (Spring 2015)


One of the things that makes The Tragedy of King Lear stand out from the rest of the Shakespeare tragedy canon is that it isn't set in some removed or exotic location, but in England­­ for Shakespeare's original audience, home. There's a distance that comes with telling a tragic tale about foreigners: “This would never happen here, of course,” many tragedies seem to say, “we would never act so barbarically at home.”

Not this time.

Parents with deteriorating health, siblings with conflicting coping strategies, carrying the burden of your parent's insecurity and embarrassment, punishing someone weaker because the person who hurt you is out of reach, being thrust into something so outside your experience that it changes your identity forever­­ everyone you'll ever meet has been through, or is living with, at least one of these and possibly all of them.

Lear hits us where we live.

Here in our diverse, modern, civilized home (where women might run the country while their husbands take care of the house), where we are all good people just trying cope with grief, or hold
 onto our principles, or catch a goddamn break for once in our lives... here we may not fight our family wars with real armies­­ but fight them we do. We may not destroy relationships with real forged documents and swords and poison, but destroy them we do.

Leader or follower, spouse or sibling, once the storm is over, the bodies have been carried away, and home as we knew it is broken beyond repair... if we're lucky, we get a choice. Rebuild, or move on. That choice each person has to make themself, and if Lear can teach us one thing, it's that sometimes there's no right answer.

Enjoy the show.


Cast and Crew:



Elizabeth Kelly As Queen Lear
Sandra Marshall Howard As Queen Gloucester
Meredith Ernst As Edmund The Bastard
Tina M.P. As Edgar/Ensemble
 Jesse Hutson As Reagan/Ensemble
Gabriel Howard As Cordelia/Ensemble
Ian McLeland As Goneril/Ensemble
Helen Young As Kent/Ensemble
Madhura Jugade As Albany/Ensemble
Kyra Jones As Cornwall/Ensemble
Stephanie Mattos As France/Ensemble
Charlie Baker As Oswald/Ensemble
Taylor Raye As Curan/Ensemble

Producer/Director: Gwen Kelly-Masterton
Stage Manager: Margaret Morton

Assistant Stage Manager: Kaitlyn Stephens
Violence Design: Gabriel Howard

Assistant Violence Design: Kate Booth
Costume Design: Katie Cravens
Set Design: Zoë Mikel-Stites
Mural Design: Elena Amesbury
Lighting Design: Zoë Mikel-Stites
Master Carpenter: Zach Wziontka


Sudden Vanishings: A Night of One acts (fall 2015)

Three one-acts by female playwrights and female directors explored themes of absence and disorientation:

"Eight Buffalo" by Shannon Singley
When a woman arrives home to find a buffalo in her apartment, they must navigate personal boundaries and the fragile beginnings of friendship.

Directed by Emily Bates
Woman: Rachel Flanigan
Man: Andy Berlien
Buffalo: Jessica Goforth

"Votive" by Lauren Davenport
A young woman on the run from the law and the ghost of a WWII soldier struggle with loneliness, loss, and the difference between war and murder.

Directed by Gwen Kelly-Masterton
Caty: Amanda Martinez
Leary: Stephen McClure

"A Learning Experience" by Molly Harris
Four college students try to keep their heads when unexpectedly thrust into a dangerous (and eerily familiar) scenario.

Directed by Margaret Morton
Chuck: Jonathan Koller
Stacy: Courtney Lynn
Harold: Harold Jaffe
Chimamanda: Elizabeth Kubis

Crew: Zoe Mikel-Stites, Kaitlyn Stephens

The Land of Never-Lack (spring 2016)

Live a short life and suffer, or live forever and never know desire? Combining W. B. Yeats’ The Land of Heart’s Desire with a new story by Chicago playwright Harold Jaffe and Artistic Director Gwen Kelly-Masterton, The Land of Never-Lack asks what it means to be human-- and what happens when we’re offered the chance to give it up.

The Land of Never-Lack will run April 21- May 15 2016, at the Frontier Theatre, 1106 W Thorndale Ave, Chicago, IL. Visit our Get Involved page for info about auditions, design opportunities, and more
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