UIC Theatre announces 2020-2021 season with free shows
The UIC School of Theatre & Music has announced its 2020–2021 Mainstage Theatre season, with fall shows planned as virtual productions. All shows this season will be free to the public.
Shows this season ask the audience to experience new perspectives with stories of historic movements, courage, fear and loss that reveal a need for change in the reality we live today.
The season is dedicated to the memory of William “Bill” Raffeld, associate professor emeritus and UIC alumnus, in honor of his 57 years of teaching and dedication to UIC performing arts. Raffeld died in May of 2020; to make contributions to the William F. Raffeld Award for student scholarships, contact Victoria Johnson at vwjohns@uic.edu
This season’s performances include:
“Reverb”
By Karla Corona, Alex Hohnsen, MarieAnge Louis-Jean, Khameron Riley, and Phia Ringo
Directed by Jessica Fisch
Co-created by Lydia Diamond
Oct. 2–11
Online event
Tickets
Summer of 2020. COVID quarantine. Black Lives that have always Mattered demand justice. Black and Brown people organize. Allies galvanize. Protests against police brutality turn violent. Statues topple. And in and between the love, the life, and the laughter there is a roar. A demand for justice. A promise of change. Here in Chicago, a group of recent UIC alum writers turn the chaos of our times into an online experience that entertains, inspires, and makes for a viewing experience you won’t ever forget.
“Love’s Labour’s Lost”
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Richard Corley
Nov. 13–22
Online event
Tickets
“Love’s Labors Lost” is one of Shakespeare’s early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to swear off the company of women for three years in order to focus on study and fasting. Their subsequent infatuation with the visiting Princess of France and her ladies makes them forsworn. The play draws on themes of love and desire, reckoning and rationalization, and reality versus fantasy. Love’s Labour’s Lost will be an online experience.
“The Crucible”
By Arthur Miller
Directed by Tasia Jones
Feb. 26–March 7
Tickets
When teenage girls are discovered trying to conjure spirits, the 17th century town of Salem explodes with accusations of witchcraft. The vicious trials that follow expose a community paralyzed by fear, religious extremism and greed. “The Crucible was an act of desperation…when I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set it… Nobody but a fanatic, it seemed, could really say all that he believed.” – Arthur Miller. Sadly, we live in a polarized world of fake news and cancel culture so the play is still achingly relevant today as it was in 50’s during the McCarthy years when peoples’ livelihoods were being canceled.
“Ms. Estrada”
By the Q Brothers Collective
Directed by Jackson Doran and JQ
April 16–25
Tickets
The Q Brothers return to UIC Theatre with their newest work, ms. estrada, inspired by Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Liz Estrada is an honor college student who starts a movement to cancel the yearly Fraternity Olympics held on the campus of her university. In the time of Me Too, women take charge to bring down the male dominated university culture of sexual harassment and mansplaining. UIC Theatre is proud to produce the world premiere of ms. estrada and welcomes back director Jackson Doran and JQ who directed UIC Theatre’s hit production of Rome Sweet Rome.
