Season Announcement
2017/2018
IDENTITY
Image credit: Jake Fruend
Nothing Without a Company
Announces 2017/18 Season
Chicago non-profit theatre company Nothing Without a Company has announced their 12th season, “Identity.” The season will feature three plays: Bobby Pin Girls, Cornerstone, and Not One Batu. These productions show characters figuring out their artistic and personal identities, trying to find themselves in larger social structures, and establishing new relationships as people in recovery from their pasts. The season will kick off with a New Play Festival on Saturday, July 8th, at Mary’s Attic, featuring works developed from previous 24 Hour Play Festivals. Tickets will be available at nothingwithoutacompany.org on June 8th.
The season opens with Bobby Pin Girls in November 2017, written by emerging playwright and Company Ensemble Member Janey Bell and directed by Ben Kaye. Bell tells the story of Ana and Bree as they are forced to do some rapid bonding over the course of a wild night. Ana is an uptight actress struggling to convince herself to stick with a show she not-so-secretly despises while navigating mixed signals from her director. Visual artist Bree attempts to boost her new roomie’s self-confidence while dealing with her impulsive and reckless ex reentering her life. Will the toxic people in their lives bust up this burgeoning friendship or will the girls learn to embrace their evolving identities? This play contains strong language and drug use.
February 2018 brings Cornerstone, a devised piece written by Company Ensemble Member Kevin Sparrow and directed by Company Ensemble Member Jake Fruend. Cornerstone Lecture Series Project Managers encourage participants to become “the architects of their own lives” through training exercises and group discussion. They espouse a philosophy that "promises to harness your passion and unleash your unbridled potential,” through wildly misappropriated design and architectural terms. The talk begins like any other, but as the Project Manager becomes more ruthless and belligerent, the attendees begin to rebel. What follows is an epic struggle for dominance and power.
The season concludes with Not One Batu* in June 2018. Written by Co-Artistic Director Hannah Ii-Epstein, directed by Rachel Slavick, and in partnership with cultural specialist Lanialoha Lee and the Aloha Center Chicago. Meet Honey Girl: a former meth user, now an expert drug dealer. At Hale’iwa beach park one morning, Honey Girl meets with customers and friends, rival dealers, and her addict mother. Amusing, intimate and occasionally disturbing, Not One Batu follows Honey Girl’s struggle to stay clean in a world turned upside down by meth. The play begins with a pre-show gathering to talk story* with Honey Girl and her crew and enjoy live entertainment by The Aloha Center Chicago. This play contains strong language and drug use.
*“Batu” is Hawaiian Pidgin for methamphetamine.
*“Talk story” means to chit-chat or gossip.