Back in 2014, Theater Wit presented Madeleine George’s acerbic but aching comedy, Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, in which the denizens of a small New England college town wrestle with the dusty past, as represented by the display of the title creatures in the campus museum—which no one ever visits. George’s play wove in […]
Tag: Jeremy Wechsler
Drinks with drama, cocktails for comedy
There was a time when concessions at Chicago live theaters were pretty basic: water, soda, candy, coffee, tea, and maybe some beer in a can or wine in a box (depending on whether or not the venue had a liquor license). But as theater bars have expanded their range of legal booze options (or in […]
Back to the future with Mr. Burns
Midway through the first act of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, one of the characters observes, “People are not competent. Can I just say that? People are not competent.” Given that the character is one of a handful of survivors of a massive string of nuclear meltdowns that have completely shut down America’s […]
Teenage Dick livestreams Shakespeare by way of high school
Theater Wit’s production about a disabled schemer carries on online.
Nothing next to normal
As the curtain falls on live performance, museums and performing arts groups scramble to adapt online.
A dramatic confrontation between the right-wing political group #WalkAway and Theater Wit ends up on YouTube
Does a venue have the right to cancel an event if it objects to a client’s rhetoric?
The Realistic Joneses face the existential dread of suburbia
Playwright Will Eno establishes himself as the Beckett of the backyard.
Theater Wit’s 10 Out of 12 isn’t about keeping us on the edge of our seats
Anne Washburn’s behind-the-scenes play re-creates the drudgery of a tech rehearsal.
In the world of Naperville, you can go home again
Mat Smart’s comic drama argues that there’s plenty of life in the burbs.
Lookingglass’s Blood Wedding, Strawdog’s D.O.A., and nine more notable current stage shows
García Lorca gets transplanted to the Dust Bowl, and an off-Loop mainstay goes noir.
Theater Wit gives second bananas their due
Time-traveling tale The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence focuses on the help in the form of a quartet of Watsons.
Adding Insult to Comedy
The alienation device that works all too well undermines Spin.
Playwright Penny Penniston tells how to “Talk the Talk”
Playwright Penny Penniston has penned a new paperback: it’s called Talk the Talk: A Dialogue Workshop for Scriptwriters, and it’ll be published by Michael Wiese Productions next month—shortly before Penniston’s new play, Spin, receives its world premiere from Theater Wit, whose artistic director, Jeremy Wechsler, just happens to be married to Penniston. “Dialogue puts conversation […]