Bailiwick Chicago Theater is pleased to announce its 2014–15 Season, as follows:
Oct. 2 – Nov. 1
The Wild Party
Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa
Book by Michael John LaChiusa & George C. Wolfe
Based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March
Directed by Brenda Didier
Music Direction by Aaron Benham
Featuring Danni Smith (Queenie) and Matthew Keffer (Burrs) and Danielle Brothers (Dolores) with Molly Coleman (Nadine), Gilbert Domally (Phil), Patrick Falcon (Black) Desmond Grey (Oscar), Jason Grimm (Goldberg), Christina Hall (Madeline), Sharriese Hamilton* (Kate), Ryan Lanning (Jackie), Steven Perkins (Eddie), Khaki Pixley (Mae), Jason Richards (Gold) and Sasha Smith (Sally).
at Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago
Manhattan decadence in the 1920s provides the backdrop for this tough musical fable. Queenie, a vaudeville chorus girl. hosts a titular blowout with her vicious lover Burrs, a blackface minstrel. The guests are a vivid collection of the unruly and the undone: Queenie’s conniving rival, a cocaine-sniffing bisexual playboy, a washed-up boxer, a black “brother act,” a diva of indeterminate age and infinite life experience, the fresh-off-the-farm ingénue whose naïveté quickly evaporates, a lesbian actress and her comatose girlfriend, and the bargain-basement heartthrob who catches Queenie’s roving eye. The jazz- and gin-soaked party rages to a mounting sense of threat as artifice and illusion are stripped away. When midnight debauchery leads to tragedy at dawn, the high-flying characters land with a sobering thud, reminding us that no party lasts forever.
April 2 – May 9, 2015
Murder Ballad
Conceived by and with book and lyrics by Julia Jordan
Music and Lyrics by Juliana Nash
Directed James Beaudry
at the Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
This new musical follows Sara, a young New Yorker who is torn between her dangerous ex-boyfriend and her reliable husband. Led by a sexy nightclub singer who serves as the show’s narrator, Murder Ballad documents the details of the torrid affair with vibrant pop-rock tunes. When Sara breaks up with Tom, a gritty bartender, she runs into the arms of Michael, a quiet poetry student at NYU. But after the couple gets married and has a daughter, Sara longs for her old, dangerous life and begins secretly seeing Tom at his bar downtown. As Sara’s passionate relationship with Tom intensifies, she begins to miss her old life with her husband and young child – but by then, it may be too late…
Bailiwick Chicago is a non-profit professional company with a mission to produce contemporary musicals and plays, reinvent classic musicals and develop new work, while sharing a powerful, intimate theatrical experience. The company celebrates and engages our community through diverse programming, artistic partnerships and outreach opportunities. In its first four seasons Bailiwick Chicago has garnered 65 award nominations, including eight Non-Equity Jeff Award Nominations in its 2013-14 Season.Additional information is available at www.bailiwickchicago.com.
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