Introduction written by: Leah Geisler, Co-Editor-in-Chief
After such a tumultuous year, the 2022-2023 season announcement has been much anticipated. Here at The Grappler, we have a tradition of reacting to the season announcement immediately afterwards, and this year is no exception. We all have so many thoughts about the lineup of shows expected to roll out in this next year, and we hope that our responses may inspire you to think differently about the possibilities they all may bring.
We want to extend a thank you to the TTS Season Selection Committee, the MFA directors, and the TTS community for their work to create a truly exciting and diverse season.
Three Antarcticas
By Kristin Idazsak
Directed by TBA
Written by Spencer Heemang Kim
Three Antarcticas by Kristin Idaszak serves as an effective model on how climate justice in theatre can be properly addressed while being empowering and unabashedly happy. For me, Idaszak's closing words in the season announcement pose a fascinating question to the TTS community and the place of current event issues in theatre: “... this is a chance for us to figure out together, how we as culture makers can work towards climate justice, and to do that as a celebration, and from a place of joy.” This leads to the broader and ever-important question of how we as artists explore relevant issues on stage.
That last phrase, “place of joy,” initially caught me off guard, and made me realize an implicit view I had on climate change plays. I had unconsciously associated the media surrounding climate change with utter dread and powerlessness, and assumed that Three Antarticas would dredge up anxiety and guilt from our perceived lack of control over the environmental degradation. These are not emotions that can sustain an artist, and I likewise imagine, were not ones that fed Idaszak throughout their creative process. This helpless and bleak view of the fate of our environment is a non-starter in discussions toward climate justice, because change cannot be rooted in despair.
As artists, we must both press the severity of contemporary issues while equally stressing our capacity for collective change. Idaszak’s emphasis on community discussion and creation as a celebration leads me to believe that Three Antarcticas will offer greater insight into how we can move beyond our initial dread and into action.
Henry IV Part I
Adapted from the play by William Shakespeare
Directed by Chris Anthony
Written by Liv Garcia and Leah Geisler
When it comes to Shakespeare, Chris Anthony is an expert at examining who controls the narrative. Her previous work with L.A.-based nonprofit Will Power to Youth reimagined the story of Henry IV, Part I with the input of teens and veterans. Next season at TTS, that same Shakespeare play will guide a new adaptation. Anthony described this production as a community-based theatre process, and we’re excited to see the school responding to students’ requests for more non-hierarchical creative opportunities. Hopefully this new adaptation will allow the TTS community to truly feel connected to a story that can sometimes feel distant from our contemporary world.
Creating this production will also present the opportunity for the theatre artists involved to reconsider the stakes and responsibilities of being a storyteller. Anthony’s description of the play as a “story about stories” is a bold jumping-off point into the larger narrative of what it means to craft and interpret classic works like Shakespeare. In this version of Henry IV Part I, there seems to be a greater focus on how contemporary experiences intersect with classic themes in the play like honor, duty, growing up, and truth. A play as iconic as Henry IV allows designers to go wild with symbolic and thematic elements, and the rich text means that dramaturgs and actors alike will have so much to explore together. We can’t wait to see this adaptation on the mainstage, and we’re excited for the truly unique creative process that Henry IV, Part I will bring to the TTS community.
Goosebumps: The Musical
Book and lyrics by John Maclay
Music and lyrics by Danny Abosch
Directed by Rob Adler
Response by Josephine Clarke
Goosebumps: The Musical is a new musical centered around a middle school production of The Phantom that is (allegedly) haunted. As mentioned during the announcement, the Goosebumps book series has sold millions of copies and has been an introduction to intermediate reading for many children. With this in mind, it makes sense that a musical filled with the spooky mystery and witty dialogue that occupied a significant part of many childhoods would translate into a fun and effective musical for young audiences. Musicals are a fantastic medium for conveying the supernatural, and the larger than life, which are all things present in the show, and Goosebumps blends the relatable fears of crushes and stage fright to the more fantastical fear of ghosts and ghouls.
Rob Adler’s vision for the musical seems to be focused on the fear aspect and the potential horror that this show could present. I certainly remember several Goosebumps books from my youth that I was unsettled by, making me trepidatious about putting something too scary on stage in front of an audience of impressionable children and young people. However, another strength of the musical medium is that it becomes difficult to remain too scared! What the atmosphere presents in creepiness, the songs alleviate in light-hearted melodies and fun character interactions that keep the story from descending into true horror. Not to mention, the fact that the kids “win” at the end, which presents a story of triumph and bravery.
That being said, the many elements of this show offer several unique opportunities for the TTS community. Certainly, there are actors who no doubt want to show off their singing abilities and perform in a musical, something oft unperformed here. I also believe that the eccentric look, from phantom boys rising through fog to the array of underground tunnels beneath the middle school stage, and feel of a Goosebumps story presents a technical and design task that will be exciting to explore. Overall, Goosebumps is a simultaneously light-hearted and creepy show that can provide a sense of nostalgic fright and triumph to Chicago’s young audience and the students of TTS as well.
Good Grief
By Ngozi Anyanwu
Directed by Aurelia Clunie
Written by Ember Sappington
The guiding question of dramaturgy is always, “Why this play now?” Ngozi Anyanwu’s Good Grief is a great play for right now. It’s a love letter to grieving. It’s raw. It’s not linear. There’s a wrestling sequence because that’s sometimes what you do with grief, you wrestle with it.
Anyanwu’s note at the beginning of the play describes how in writing this play, and how on a broader scale how theatre and storytelling and performance give us a chance to be with someone again when they're gone. The stage can bring back life to those we’ve lost, even if only for a few short hours. That’s magic. The playwright said that the play allowed her to, “conjure my past and write the things I might have said or did, had I a second chance to walk in this world”.
There is no one on this earth in the year 2022 that has not been touched by loss. For some, the past two years have taken loved ones, for all of us at TTS it has taken away some of the years of our youth, for all theatre artists it has taken away the craft we love most and the community that is built around it.
The play also parallels the story of Artemis and Orion, weaving parts of their myth throughout its course. The main character, Nkechi, or N, was in love with her friend MJ who has passed away. She is left without knowing what they were to each other (were they lovers? Friends?), and navigates figuring out what they were and what they could have been and facing that some things are unknown and may never be known.
MFA Director Aurelia Clunie has pitched this show as a chance to explore how we mourn and memorialize those that we love. She also wants to use Good Grief as a chance to explore what growing up as a Black child in a white suburb is like and how it affects those who’ve experienced it. Clunie explains it as “a great opportunity for students of color to navigate life and love, without it being a story focused on Blackness itself but that carries that with it. It's a story that many of us can identify with.”
It‘s fitting for students at TTS, because it's about the struggles of being young, in love, and navigating loss. Nkechi’s story explores first loves, sexual discovery, loss, and regret. So many TTS students are in a place where these are key questions in our lives. It also tells the story of growing up as a Black kid in a white suburb and holds that experience tight even as it focuses on other aspects of Nkechi’s life. Good Grief is to us as people living through a pandemic in 2022 as the Dada collages and Theatre of Cruelty and Expressionist paintings were to the Silent Generation emerging for the grips of the first world war. But while Good Grief is art and poetry for a time when nothing makes sense and everything has changed, it’s also a chance to take a breath, look back, and listen.
Vinegar Tom
By Caryl Churchill
Directed by Christine Freije
Written by Liz Bazzoli
In the winter of next year, the lovely Christine Freije will be directing Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom for the Watts Theatre, and there is a lot of exciting potential for the show. Adopting elements of style from Brecht’s Epic Theatre, Vinegar Tom tells the story of two English women accused of witchcraft. In the Brechtian tradition, the play serves to deliver a message about the systemic persecution of women at the hands of men. Originally premiering in 1976, the play came out during the height of the second wave of feminism. Churchill was writing from the context of the 1970’s. In Churchill’s native England, BWLM (the British Women’s Liberation Movement) was striving for equal pay and safety from workplace harassment. In America, NOW (the National Organization for Women) had just been founded, Roe v. Wade had just granted the constitutional right to abortion, and the feminist movement was pushing for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Fifty years later, there is still no ERA and we are seeing state legislatures actively overturn Roe v. Wade. The need to discuss society’s injustices against women is as prescient as ever.
Since this play is operating on a second-wave feminist framework, there are some potential blind spots that might arise in putting on this play and, as a dramaturg, I feel it’s important to consider this during the production process. Historically, mainstream feminist movements have left out women from other marginalized communities. Working-class women, women of color, and queer women were often not given a voice in the movement, as figures like bell hooks and Audre Lorde notably wrote about at the time. Christine also mentioned utilizing Riot Grrrl aesthetics for the musical interludes in the play, and it’s dually important to recognize the criticism of Riot Grrrl from the trans* community and the potentially harmful connotations that could arise from the movement’s imagery. I fully trust Christine as both a director and feminist, and I imply no harm in her vision, but a Vinegar Tom that aims for a diverse depiction of feminine identity needs to be conscious of intersectionality and how sexism manifests in diverse ways. This poses a dramaturgical challenge, but also an opportunity to engage in meaningful and productive work behind the scenes.
With all that said, I love the inclusion of punk culture in any theatrical context, and its joint motif with seventeenth century England presents unique possibilities for design. Getting to explore Epic Theatre without working only with Brecht is a rare opportunity, and Vinegar Tom is a chance for students to challenge the Aristotelian format through a more contemporary lens. The incorporation of music is also a welcome inclusion, and I’m excited to see TTS opening up to more musical components in its shows with Goosebumps and Indecent as well. Caryl Churchill is such a gem, and her plays are always so full of depth, so I’m certainly glad to see her featured in the season again.
Las Wavys
By Ricardo Gamboa
Directed by Coya Paz
Written by Laura Rodriguez Sierra
Las Wavys, a Playworks original supported by the annual Cunningham Commission for Youth Theater, is written by the fabulous Ricardo Gamboa and will be directed by the lovely and talented Coya Paz (L.A.T.C.P) for its world premiere at the Merle Reskin Theatre. This Chicago story illuminates the lives of Black, Brown, Queer, and Fem kids fighting against aliens! Yes, aliens. The audience will be taken on a journey with Gloria, Ilda, Laura, and Shawn (a.k. Shawntasia), a group of science-loving intergalactic middle schoolers who have created a Fem house collective to fight against alien domination. This new work sets expectations for crazy fight choreography, bigger than Cirque Du Soleil energy, ultimate Fem house music, and wild, cosmic, stunningly camp splendor, and is explicitly and truthfully written for Chicago public school youth; as written by the playwright themself, “Chicago’s youth deserve the best.”
I am thrilled to see what Ricardo Gamboa and Coya Paz have in store for us with this show. Its description is effervescent and full of surprise. As I sat listening to Coya read the opening stage directions of the play, I could only repeat the wonderful words of “...all this to say that fight choreo, music, and lights better be some epic caca.” Well, epic caca is what I am ready for and I am sure it will not fail to satisfy.
I hope the TTS community is looking forward to this production as much as I am. I find that in a continuously uncertain time within our history, with schools still finding ways to define our new normal, and with families learning new ways to survive, it is too easily overlooked that children among these times are still growing. They are still trying to learn about themselves and their society, still trying to understand many parts of life. I find that this play offers both a creative outlet for Chicago Youth and a reminder to artists and viewers of all ages that creative exuberance, celebration of the absurd, embracing the unknown, popping confidence, youth empowerment is still in our world, no matter how long tough and unnatural circumstances last. I hope this play not only provides a moment of escape for all participants but also serves as a reflection towards the masterpiece of youth life and the life of Chicago among the absurdity of our current prevailing conditions.
Indecent
By Paula Vogel
Directed by Rebecca Willingham
Written by Emily Townley
“As you know, six nights a week we gather together to sing songs we know and love, to dance, to escape our daily lives. But on the seventh night … God created Yiddish theater.” - Paula Vogel, Indecent
Theatre is not easily defined; it can be a job, a source of entertainment, or (as the play states) an escape. With its clever dialogue, the potential for great performances, and astounding story, Indecent, written by Paula Vogel, shows exactly how despite tragedy, persecution, and loss, theatre can be the latter.
Personally, Indecent, directed by Rebecca Willingham, is the show I am most excited about this season. After moving back to the United States from Warsaw, seeing what I consider to be my hometown made me homesick. It was a good sort of homesickness, however. For me, Indecent was the escape back to Warsaw.
One of the focuses of Indecent, according to Willingham, will be on the “vitality and the ownership of storytelling.” This message is fitting, as the play itself tackles the struggle of a playwright not being able to take ownership of the words he put onto paper. Indecent is about Jewish playwright Sholem Asch, and his struggles getting God of Vengeance to be produced. Due to its taboo topics of prostitution and the relationship between two women, the play is panned both by the Jewish and non-Jewish communities in both Europe and America. Eventually, it is censored and shut down in New York. Despite everything in his way, Asch and his play manage to transcend language and boundaries all over the world.
For The Theatre School, Indecent will be a chance for Jewish artists and their voices to be heard. In a time of rapid antisemitism, Jewish voices need to be amplified in the theatre. As with any piece of theatre, there are challenges. Actors will have to play multiple characters. One of the technical elements of the show is producing rain on stage. I look forward to seeing how The Theatre School community takes on these challenges and creates something mind-blowingly and heart-stoppingly spectacular.
A Wrinkle in Time
Adapted by Tracy Young
Directed by Jeff Mills
Written by Holly Dodd
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 disrupted the lives of the Theatre School’s faculty, students, and theatre practitioners all over the world. Several Theatre School shows were canceled, many of which had already begun pre-production. It’s so easy to ask what-ifs about that lost quarter. What if the virus never reached our community? What if we’d done it sooner? What-if we tried to re-do the show? In April 2023 that last question will be answered as A Wrinkle in Time written by Tracey Young, and directed by Jeff Mills will return to its intended stage in the Merle Reskin Theatre.
The whimsical, family-focused story pulls directly from Madeleine L’Engle’s iconic feminist novel, in which high-schooler Meg Murray travels through space and time with her brother, Charles Wallace, and her friend Calvin O’Keefe, to find her father and rescue him from dark forces.
Its fantastical elements and incredible world-building will help create a much-needed mental reprieve from the trauma of the past 2 years. However, Meg is also a character dealing with the disappearance of her father. In a time when so many of us have lost someone, Meg’s own struggles give the audience permission to feel all that hurt, instead of pushing it down to focus on the task at hand.
With senior members of the production being the same freshmen whose crew assignments were abruptly canceled- many of them assigned to A Wrinkle in Time for the spring of 2020; there is a nostalgia that’s certain to strike a chord with the class of 2023 in particular. The classic story will bring closure to many, and will without a doubt be changed with hindsight. I know it will be hard for me to watch without thinking about my lighting assignment that never was.
Now we turn to you. Do you have any burning thoughts you have to share? Are you excited, stirred, rattled, curious, confused? Comment below or on our Instagram!
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