Displaying items by tag: Karina Patel

Jackalope Theatre Company is proud to present its first production for young audiences and the launch of its 18th season with the world premiere of The Dress-Up Play by Juliet Kang Huneke, March 7 - 22, directed by Karina Patel, at the Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N Broadway St. The running time is 60 minutes with no intermission. There is a preview performance Saturday, March 7 at 11 a.m. The performance schedule is Fridays at 7 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 - $35 with student and Edgewater resident discounts available. Subscription and single tickets are now available at JackalopeTheatre.org or call/text the box office at 773.340.2543.

The Dress-Up Play is a new family-friendly production from Jackalope. New friends gather in a bedroom to play dress up. But who gets to wear what? Do our clothes have to match what we look like outside? And what if our outside doesn't match our inside? Filled with tutus, fake mustaches, scarves and fierce runway walks. The Dress-Up Play is an immersive fashion party for all ages that celebrates self-expression, open-mindedness and the wholeness of everyone.

The cast of The Dress-Up Play includes Keimon Shook (he/him, Remi); Casey Whisler (she/her, Olivia); Aidan Henri (they/he/she, Aiden) and Jett Parr (they/them, Miles).  

The creative team for The Dress-Up Play includes Juliet Kang Huneke (she/they, playwright); Karina Patel (she/her, director and new works manager); AJ Links, CSA (she/her, casting director), Eric Turner (he/him, production manager); Seojung Jang (she/her, lighting designer); Newton Schottelkotte (they/she, sound designer); Amal Salem (she/her, stage manager); Hudson Therriault (he/him, accessibility manager); Amira Danan (she/her, development director) and Kaiser Ahmed (he/him, artistic director),  

ABOUT JULIET KANG HUNEKE, PLAYWRIGHT

Juliet Kang Huneke is a playwright and performer who is passionate about theatre that is larger than life. Her new TYA play, Hannah and Halmoni Save the World! recently had its world premiere at Filament Theatre. In addition, she was awarded the 2023 ReImagine: New Plays in TYA grant to develop Hannah and Halmoni with Filament. Juliet is also a 24 Hour Plays Nationals alum. Other Chicago writing credits include: Echo's Inferno (The Understudy), Home for the Summer (Theo Ubique, American Music Theatre Project), Mycelium (Playground Chicago) and Mechanicals (Impostors Theater Co Footholds Vol. 4). 

ABOUT KARINA PATEL, DIRECTOR

Karina Patel is a devised theatre artist, director and dramaturg originally from London, United Kingdom. She is currently the New Works manager at Jackalope Theatre Company and literary associate at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Patel has developed new and devised work with The Story Theatre, The Understudy Chicago, APIDA Arts, TimeLine Theatre Company, Avalanche Theatre, Token Theatre, 24 Hour Plays and more. She has also served as an assistant director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Court Theatre and the Repertory Theatre of St Louis. 

ABOUT JACKALOPE THEATRE

Jackalope Theatre Company expands the definition of American Identity by engaging with communities to produce works that celebrate diverse perspectives. Jackalope is a premier home for new and exciting Off-Loop Theatre based in Chicago's Edgewater and Rogers Park neighborhoods. They are committed to cultivating new voices that contribute to an expanding American culture and mythology. Each season, Jackalope produces full-length plays, new play development programming and provides free classes in partnership with the Chicago Park District.

MORE FROM JACKALOPE

WORLD PREMIERE

Andy Warhol Presents: The Cocaine Play

May 27 - July 6, 2026

Written by Terry Guest

Directed by AmBer Montgomery

Previews: Wednesday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 29 and Saturday, May 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 21 at 2 p.m.

Press Opening: Tuesday, June 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Performance schedule: Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays at 7:30 p.m., 

Sundays at 2 p.m.

The Broadway Armory, 5917 N. Broadway St.

JackalopeTheatre.org/2024-2025-season

Tickets: $15 - $45

It's 1962 in New York City and Andy Warhol (no, not that Andy Warhol) is stuck. He hasn't finished a painting in years and has no new ideas. When a mysterious actress named Marilyn Monroe (no, not that Marilyn Monroe) stumbles into his life, she sends him down an epic path of madness, murder, betrayal and the desperate pursuit of fame, sex and beauty. Andy Warhol presents: The Cocaine Play is a 100% fake story about 100% real people that asks how far are you willing to go for the chance at superstardom. 

17th Annual Living Newspaper Festival 

August 20 - 24, 2026

Press Opening: Thursday, Aug. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Performance schedule: Thursday - Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. and Monday at 7:30 p.m.

The Broadway Armory, 5917 N Broadway

JackalopeTheatre.org/2024-2025-season

Tickets: $15 - $35

The Living Newspaper Festival is inspired by the 1930s Living Newspapers of the Federal Theatre Project that created stories based on recent events. This year's Festival includes world premieres inspired from recent news headlines.

Performances, show times, dates are subject to change.

ABOUT JACKALOPE THEATRE

Jackalope Theatre Company expands the definition of American Identity by engaging with communities to produce works that celebrate diverse perspectives. Jackalope is a premier home for new and exciting Off-Loop Theatre based in Chicago's Edgewater and Rogers Park neighborhoods. They are committed to cultivating new voices that contribute to an expanding American culture and mythology. Each season, Jackalope produces full-length plays, new play development programming and provides free classes in partnership with the Chicago Park District.

Jackalope Theatre Company is proud to present its first production for young audiences and the launch of its 18th season with the world premiere of The Dress-Up Play by Juliet Kang Huneke, March 7 - 22, directed by Karina Patel, at the Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N Broadway St. The running time is 60 minutes with no intermission. There is a preview performance Saturday, March 7 at 11 a.m. with the press opening Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. The performance schedule is Fridays at 7 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 - $35 with student and Edgewater resident discounts available. Subscription and single tickets are now available at JackalopeTheatre.org or call/text the box office at 773.340.2543.

You’ll want to join this “Neighborhood Watch," a fast-paced comedy having its world premiere in Jackalope Theatre’s performance space in the Broadway Armory. Harsh Gagoomal plays Mo Rizvi with deft emotional range, a bearded, swarthy Middle Easterner who has moved into a house in white suburbia, in the weeks just after Donald Trump's return to the presidency.

Unfortunately for Mo—short for Mohammed—his bothersome next door neighbors are the widowed GenX-er Paul (Frank Nall), who wears his excessively liberal credentials on his sleeve (literally, a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt) with a Harris-Walz sign in the yard; and on the other side, Shawn (Victor Holstein) a 30-something ever-Trumper.

The broad comedic interplay between these opposites could lead one to believe ”Neighborhood Watch” is a lighthearted farce. Even the bouncy scene segue music keeps the situation-comedic vibe going.

But playwright Rehana Lew Mirza, who was commissioned to write "Neighborhood Watch" by the National New Play Network has more in store for us, using the laughter to slyly lure the audience into deeper matters, gradually, though not too deep. It's funny, first and foremost. Kudos to Karina Patel, Jackalope's darmaturg, for snagging this lovely script.

Shawn is suspicious as he eyes Mo unpacking household goods—a pressure cooker, electronics, a tank of propane and a mysterious black backpack, laughably obvious memes of terrorism, all in plain view. But ever-nosy Shawn feels compelled to draw Paul’s attention to the “danger” lurking from the new neighbor.

After he blithely disregards Shawn and introduces himself to Mo, we cringe at Paul’s virtue-signalling as he holds Mo hostage to a ham-handed, somewhat oblique “supportive” conversation. Paul is so caught in his conundrum of trying not to offend that he becomes even more offensive. Mo finally figures out this neighbor has cast him in the role of suffering minority, a moment of tokenism that’s laughable too, because it’s so exaggerated. As Harsh Gagoomal conveys Mo’s internal dialog so effectively, we can see him bemused on the inside as he figures out Paul’s designs on establishing a relationship—Paul the white savior, Mo the suffering minority. That’s how unconscious racism exhibits itself in the liberal camp.

Mirza imparts a comic air on all this, reminding me of TV’s “All in the Family,” if Archie Bunker were a liberal, with his Meathead son-in-law the bumbling Shawn next door. The assertive Gloria character would be Becca, Paul’s 22-year-old daughter Becca (Jamie Herb). After Paul advises her to dress more modestly, in deference to what he imagines are Mo’s Islamic religious leanings, Becca goes to meet Mo for herself, and we find both as their truest selves: mutual date material. Sparks fly.

Reporting back later to her dad, Becca gives us a laugh-filled take on how GenZ handle their GenX parents’ social missteps, excoriating him for “man-splaining, then coaching her father with that query I hear frequently enough from my adult son: “What have we learned?”

We also see Paul and Shawn partnering on common ground, as they spy on Becca to see what she’s up to with Mo. Shawn has his own romantic design on Becca, while Paul is just a run-of-the-mill helicopter parent of his generation.

Mirza brings us something deeper as the plot thickens around the core of the drama: the unexpected arrival of Mo’s “cousin” Javed at the end of Act I. Fresh out of federal jail, and now a devoted Muslim, Javid’s domineering relationship to Mo fills Act II. Avoiding spoilers, we learn there is much more between Mo and Javed than we might have guessed. We also get a small recount of the emotional dynamics involved in Javed’s journey to and from extremism, as he alights on a deeply held spiritual connection to Islam.

In “Neighborhood Watch,” Mirza scores light-hearted laughs at the expense of white liberal culture and the racism of a different sort that can thrive among. Stereotypes abound. And it’s funny. Comedy is all in the timing and director (and casting director) Kaiser Ahmed nails it. Nothing drags.

Also notable are the sets (Tianxuan Chen) and in particular the lighting (Maaz Ahmed), who instead of merely darkening areas that are inactive, casts them in a bluish light, a small thing perhaps but I thought it innovative.

“Neighborhood Watch” has been extended through July 12 at Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N Broadway in Chicago