Cast announced for City Lit's production of Emma's Child
Full casting has been announced for City Lit Theater's production of EMMA'S CHILD, a drama by City Lit Resident Playwright Kristine Thatcher about a Rogers Park couple who plans to adopt the child of Emma, a pregnant teenager. What follows threatens their marriage and reshapes what they think of parenthood. Director Terry McCabe has assembled a cast that has delivered some of the most acclaimed performances among City Lit productions in recent years.
Playing adoptive mother Jean Farrell is Kat Evans, last seen at City Lit as Robert F. Kennedy in THIRTEEN DAYS. Her other recent City Lit roles include Bridget in Kristine Thatcher's THE SAFE HOUSE and Io in Nicholas Rudall's translation of PROMETHEUS BOUND. The adoptive father, Henry Farrell, will be played by James Sparling (Sherlock Holmes in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, THE SEVEN-PERCENT SOLUTION and HOLMES AND WATSON). Rebecca Sparks (of City Lit's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) and Jamie Black (VOICE OF GOOD HOPE) have been cast as Franny - a friend who visits Jean and Henry as they await the baby's birth - and Franny's estranged husband Sam. Katie MacLauchlan will be Emma Miller, the teen mother of the title.
The cast also includes City Lit veterans Andrea Conway-Diaz (THIRTEEN DAYS, Barbara Jordan in VOICE OF GOOD HOPE), marssie* Mencotti (THE VIRGINIAN, THE SAFE HOUSE, DEIRDRE OF THE SORROWS, and J.B.), Lee Wichman (The Devil in "The Devil and Daniel Webster" half of TWO DAYS IN COURT, and Sigmund Freud in THE SEVEN-PERCENT SOLUTION), MiKayla Boyd (Young Barbara Jordan in VOICE OF GOOD HOPE); and Maria Zoia. On the production team are Samantha Gribben (Scenic Design), Louise "Scout" Gregory (Costume Design), Benjamin Dionysus (Lighting and Sound Design), Jeff Brain (Props Design), and Hazel Marie Flowers-McCabe (Stage Manager).
EMMA'S CHILD was the first play ever commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Its 1996 Chicago premiere at Victory Gardens was directed by Terry McCabe, who is directing this City Lit production. City Lit's world premiere of Thatcher's play THE SAFE HOUSE, which the company commissioned, was a 2019 Jeff award nominee for Best New Play. THE NEW YORK TIMES called it "a brave, humanizing play."