Theatre News Wire

Broken Nose Theatre anounced its tenth season, featuring two streaming audio plays followed by two in-person performances, including a world premiere and Chicago premiere. BNT is proud to celebrate a decade of programming, most of which was presented under their economically accessible ticketing model in the Chicago theatre community.

The 2021-22 season kicks off this fall with a streaming audio adaptation of BNT's hit 2018 play Kingdom, written by Resident Playwright Michael Allen Harris and directed by Manny Buckley. This spellbindingly lyrical family drama features ensemble members RjW Mays and Watson Swift reprising the roles they performed in 2018, joined by ensemble members Ben F. Locke and William Anthony Sebastian Rose II, and guest artist Darren Jones.

Up next, BNT presents the virtual world premiere audio drama Primer, a deeply honest look at the prioritization of property over people, written by ensemble member Spenser Davis and directed by Literary Manager Brittney Brown. Set in the same location of Davis's hit 2018 play Plainclothes, the cast consists entirely of Broken Nose Theatre company members: Kim Boler, JD Caudill, Catherine Dildilian, August Forman, RjW Mays, Watson Swift, Aria Szalai-Raymond, David Weiss and Brenda Scott Wlazlo, with several reprising their characters from Plainclothes.

Broken Nose Theatre is excited to welcome back live audiences in February 2022 with the world premiere of Eric Reyes Loo's drama This Is Only a Test. Toma Tavares Langston directs this all-too-prescient view of the future our youth may be inheriting. In spring of 2022, BNT presents the Chicago premiere of Stephanie Alison Walker's drama Friends With Guns directed by Georgette Verdin, a conversation-provoking drama about relationships in the wake of disagreement. Both plays will be presented at BNT's resident home, The Den Theatre at 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

BNT's tenth season will also include the 9th annual Bechdel Fest, the company's annual theatre festival, featuring a full slate of new short plays with female-identifying, trans and nonbinary casts.

Finally, Broken Nose will continue to provide institutional support to two outside playwrights through The Paper Trail, its new play development program. This season's playwrights include Rachel DuBose and Brynne Frauenhoffer.

Artistic Director E.M. Davis and Managing Director Rose Hamill comment, "After the last year and a half we all experienced, combined with so much uncertainty as our industry slowly reopens, we still get emotional thinking about a new year of theatrical programming. Our tenth anniversary season combines audio dramas with in-person productions, staged readings with virtual workshops, allowing us to take everything we have learned from working digitally and apply it to thought-provoking new work about captivating characters coming to terms with a world that has shifted beneath their feet. While we may not be in the same physical space together until 2022, we are thrilled to bring two compelling pieces of audio drama to you this fall, both of which are cast almost entirely from within our incredibly talented ensemble. Then in the new year, we're bringing back the conversation-driven stories we had to pause last season, helmed by two directors we admire so much within the community. And all of it, made possible through our economically accessible Pay-What-You-Can ticketing model, removing the financial barrier that can prevent so many from experiencing live theatre. We cannot wait to share these with you"

Broken Nose Theatre's Tenth Season includes:

October 4 - 24, 2021
Kingdom - An audio adaptation of the 2018 hit play
Written by Resident Playwright Michael Allen Harris
Directed by Manny Buckley
Featuring Darren Jones, Ben F. Locke, RjW Mays, William Anthony Sebastian Rose II and Watson Swift.

After the state of Florida legalizes same sex marriage, Arthur and Henry, partners of fifty years, come to terms with their differing opinions on the necessity of becoming husbands, even as their son Alexander finds himself wading through some rough new waters of his own. Kingdom is the story of an entirely-LGBTQ African American family that lives in the near-literal shadow of Orlando's magical kingdom, as they struggle to create a life together that captures a little bit of that same magic. Critically acclaimed when it was originally staged by Broken Nose in 2018, Kingdom received the 2018 BTAA Lorraine Hansberry Award.

November 15 - December 5, 2021
Primer - World Premiere audio drama
Written by ensemble member Spenser Davis
Directed by Literary Manager Brittney Brown
Featuring Kim Boler, JD Caudill, Catherine Dildilian, August Forman, RjW Mays, Watson Swift, Aria Szalai-Raymond, David Weiss and Brenda Scott Wlazlo.

When looters smash in a Michigan Avenue store's front windows, this singular act of destruction affects a host of individuals, including the store's security team, its managers, employees at one of its Cosmetics kiosks and more. Featuring a sequence of scenes that view the incident from vastly different perspectives, Primer offers a panorama of a single act of looting in the heart of the Magnificent Mile. Set in Brady's, the same fictional store that served as backdrop to Davis's much-lauded play Plainclothes (for which he received the M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award), and featuring the return of some notable characters, Primer examines institutions' tendencies to prioritize property over people, as well as our country's eagerness to cover up its blemishes, rather than treating the sicknesses that live just beneath the surface.

February 11 - March 12, 2022
This Is Only a Test - World Premiere!
By Eric Reyes Loo
Directed by Toma Tavares Langston
The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago

It could happen anywhere, at any time, and the faculty at Washington High have decided to take "being prepared" to a whole new level. Through a series of Active Shooter Drills, their students will be trained on how to fight back against intruders. But as they're asked to quell violence by responding violently, four teenagers begin to wonder: if we're so prepared, why do we feel even more unsafe? Directed by rising director Toma Tavares Langston (The Light; Hedwig and the Angry Itch), this brand-new play asks us to consider the moment when preparing for the worst tips over into a whole new breed of violence all its own.

May 13 - June 11, 2022
Friends With Guns - Chicago Premiere!
Written by Stephanie Alison Walker
Directed by Georgette Verdin
The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago

Shannon and Josh live in a nice neighborhood, a place where they can raise their family surrounded by other young liberal couples who think and vote just like them. But when the newest married couple in their social circle reveals that they're proud gun owners, they're forced to explore, defend and reconsider what they thought was a cut-and-dry political issue. Walker's complex play centers around a marriage and series of friendships, all pushed to the brink by the realization that they may not agree on something. A smash hit in Los Angeles, this play's conversation-stirring Chicago premiere will be helmed by Georgette Verdin, Managing Artistic Director of Interrobang Theatre Project.