Displaying items by tag: The Story Theatre

Chicago theatre‑goers have one of those rare, golden weekends where three very different companies are all firing at full power—each offering a production that hits a different part of the theatrical appetite: the intimate and unsettling, the bold and idea‑driven, and the emotionally classic. Together, Morning, Noon & Night, Pot Girls, and Come Back, Little Sheba create a kind of unofficial citywide festival of what Chicago does best: fearless storytelling, muscular performances, and theatre that actually has something to say.

Shattered Globe’s Morning, Noon & Night at Theater Wit

Shattered Globe has a knack for plays that sit right on the fault line between the personal and the political, and Morning, Noon & Night is exactly that kind of pressure cooker. It’s a story about a family unraveling in real time—funny, raw, and painfully recognizable. What makes it worth your weekend:

• Shattered Globe’s ensemble brings a lived‑in authenticity that makes the play’s emotional turns land with force.
• Theater Wit’s intimacy means you’re close enough to feel every shift in temperature between characters.
• The play’s themes—identity, addiction, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive—hit with contemporary urgency.

If you want theatre that feels like eavesdropping on a family at the exact moment everything changes, this is the one.

The Story Theatre’s Pot Girls at Raven Theatre

Directed by Ayanna Bria Bakari and written by Paul Michael Thomson, Pot Girls is the kind of world premiere Chicago audiences love to claim before it blows up elsewhere. It’s smart, messy, feminist, stoned, and deeply theatrical—an intertextual riff on Top Girls that stands entirely on its own.

Why it’s essential this weekend:

• It’s a Chicago world premiere—the kind of bold, idea‑driven new work our storefront scene is known for.
• The ensemble is electric, with performances that swing from hilarious to gut‑punching without losing momentum.
• It’s in conversation with Raven’s Top Girls, making it a rare chance to see two plays talk to each other across stages, eras, and feminist generations.
• Ayanna Bria Bakari’s direction keeps the play sharp, surprising, and emotionally alive.

If you want theatre that’s playful, political, and buzzing with creative energy, Pot Girls is the weekend’s must‑see.

American Blues Theater’s Come Back, Little Sheba

American Blues excels at reviving American classics with a clarity and compassion that makes them feel startlingly present. Come Back, Little Sheba is no museum piece—it’s a bruising, beautifully observed portrait of longing, regret, and the fragile hope that life might still change.

Reasons to go now:

• American Blues’ signature naturalism gives the play a heartbreaking immediacy.
• The production highlights the emotional intelligence of William Inge’s writing, revealing layers often lost in more traditional stagings.
• It’s a rare chance to see a mid‑century classic performed with the nuance and psychological depth it deserves.

If you’re craving a production that’s emotionally rich and quietly devastating, this is the one that will stay with you long after curtain.

It’s a weekend that shows the full spectrum of what this city’s stages can do—new work, re‑examined classics, and intimate ensemble‑driven storytelling. If you’re the kind of theatre‑goer who likes to feel plugged into the pulse of the city, this is the weekend to lean in.

The Story Theatre’s world‑premiere staging of Paul Michael Thomson’s Pot Girls bursts to life in a vivid, full‑throttle production at Raven Theatre. Pot Girls is a sharp, funny, and thought‑provoking new play that fuses feminist history, artistic accountability, and a rainbow haze of 1980s, weed‑soaked poetry and art.

Inspired as a thematic counterpart to Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, Pot Girls - directed by Ayanna Bria Bakari - leans into humor, theatricality, and a cloud of intoxication to explore how women create, collaborate, and collide both onstage and off. And in a bit of theatrical serendipity, both productions are currently running simultaneously at Raven Theatre. In fact, Raven Theatre and The Story Theatre are even offering special marathon days, giving audiences the chance to catch a matinee of Lucky Stiff’s directed Top Girls, stick around for some conversation with the creative team, then return in the evening for Pot Girls - all at a discounted rate (click here for details).

The story follows Caryl herself, a playwright on the cusp of her first major, Olivier‑eligible production - a show designed to spotlight women in the workplace. The year is 1982 and as she toasts the achievement with friends, her colorful London flat transforms into an impromptu hub where a lively, time‑spanning cohort of feminist writers drop in to drink, smoke, debate, and probe the ideas she’s celebrating.

The haze of a jubilant night eventually clears, and what remains is a sharper truth: this play lays bare the exhausting contortions women are expected to perform just to gain a foothold as authors and playwrights. It highlights not only the uphill battle of competing in a landscape where men still discriminate against women in their productions regarding creative authority, but also the added burden of being scrutinized for perfect political correctness the moment a woman-led production finally reaches the stage.

The many ways that women as authors have been discriminated against and unfairly censored or even hunted over the centuries is thoroughly laid out in a fantastic cast of intelligent expressive women.

The period feels fully realized, aided by Katelyn Montgomery’s evocative scenic work and Racquel Postilgione’s sharp costume design.

As the play unfolds, Caryl is pulled through a tangle of personal and professional upheaval - romantic tension with her partner Edith, pointed accusations about her racial blind spots, and the mounting pressure to tell women’s stories with integrity. Around her, the ensemble slips effortlessly between roles, embodying historical figures, colleagues, and critics who collectively push her toward an uncomfortable, necessary self‑examination.

In Pot Girls, Brenna DiStasio centers the production as Caryl, offering a steady emotional clarity that grounds the play’s wilder turns and quietly establishes her as its moral anchor. Ireon Roach, as Edith, wields her well-rolled blunt with sharp wit and charismatic intelligence, building a lively, charged dynamic with DiStasio that keeps the energy flowing like a river.

Peter Ferneding lends understated but essential texture as he shifts through historical and contemporary figures, his easy timing playing neatly against Tamsen Glaser’s agile, precise turns as multiple feminist icons, which bring warmth, wit, and tonal delicacy.

Vibrant, expressive energy radiates through each of Emily Marso’s roles, elevating every moment and sparking electric interplay with Glaser and Maya Bridgewater. Glaser and Bridgewater, in turn, deliver a fierce yet deep human presence across their characters, adding tension and charge to the ensemble’s debates. One of Bridgewater’s characters delivers a beautifully crafted, cathartic reflection on a young girl’s kidnapping and rape - written with such grace and restraint that it resonates powerfully with the conversations society is having today about trafficking and vulnerability.

Rounding out the cast, Laney Rodriguez displays a great sense of humor and threads emotional nuance through each character she inhabits, serving as a subtle connective force while carving out memorable moments opposite DiStasio and Roach. As a unit, the ensemble stays quick, engaged, and combustible, amplifying the play’s ideas with palpable charge.

Ultimately, Pot Girls crackles with ensemble energy and sharp ideas, offering an engaging, thought‑rich night of theatre for anyone drawn to fresh feminist work.

Highly recommended.

Pot Girls has been extended through March 8^th. For tickets and/or more show information, click here.

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

The Story Theatre closes its critically-acclaimed, sold-out, award-winning Season V with the world premiere production of Pot Girls by Governing Ensemble member Paul Michael Thomson* and directed by Governing Ensemble member Ayanna Bria Bakari*. This new play about the power of women, words and weed will play February 12 – March 1, 2026 on Raven Theatre's Schwartz Stage, 6157 N. Clark St (at Granville) in Chicago, with multiple possible extensions. Tickets go on sale Monday, January 12, 2026 at thestorytheatre.org/tickets or by calling (773) 338-2177. The press opening is Monday, February 16 at 7:30 pm.

The production will feature Governing Ensemble member Brenna DiStasio* with Myah Bridgewater, Peter Ferneding, Tamsen Glaser, Emily Marso, Ireon Roach and Laney Rodriguez. Understudies include Jack Bowes, Sierra Coachman, Jennifer Ledesma, Lizzy Mosher and Hannah Rule.

About the Production: 

What is the duty of the artist? Well, tonight, her only duty is to get stoned and celebrate! Caryl is getting her first big Olivier-eligible production with a smart, sexy new play that centers women in the workplace. Her nearest and dearest friends – an assortment of feminist writers from throughout space and time – come to her London flat to kiki and drink grasshoppers. (Did we mention it's 1982?) But when the party's over and Caryl is presented with the ways her new play may be causing harm, she must decide whether or not she'll learn from history or else abdicate her responsibility altogether. What is the role of critique in creation? Can we judge the artist's politics by the artwork's problems? And is any of our art really activism?

An intertextual riff on Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Pot Girls will run in creative conversation with Raven Theatre's production of Top Girls directed by Lucky Stiff and running on Raven Theatre's Johnson Stage from February 12 – March 22, 2026 The Story Theatre has been the storefront company in residence at Raven Theatre since 2019, and both companies are excited about this new chapter of artistic collaboration. The companies will offer "marathon days" where audiences have the opportunity to experience a matinee of Top Girls, a special event with the creative teams, and then an evening showing of Pot Girls – all at a discounted rate.

The production team for Pot Girls includes Katelyn Montgomery (Scenic Design), Racquel Postilgione (Costume Design), Seojung Jang (Lighting Design), Ellie Fey (Assistant Lighting Design), Gina Montalvo (Sound Design), Spencer Diaz Tootle (Properties Design), Jyreika Guest (Intimacy Direction), Stina Taylor (Technical Direction), Eva Breneman (Dialect Coaching), Emma Sipora Tyler (Dramaturgy), Anastar Alvarez (Stage Manager), Liv Morris (Assistant Stage Manager), Shelbi Weaver (Production Manager), Mark Brown (Master Electrician), David Hagen (Director of Design), Marlene Slaughter (Assistant Director) and Terry Guest* and Brianna Buckley (Producers).

*Denotes a member of The Story Theatre's Governing Ensemble

Content Advisory: If you would like content details before purchasing your ticket, please feel free to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The Story recognizes that individual sensitivities are myriad, and we encourage you to reach out with any questions.

Production Details:

Title: Pot Girls

Playwright: Paul Michael Thomson*

Director: Ayanna Bria Bakari*

Cast (in alphabetical order): Myah Bridgewater (Phillis Wheatley, Naomi, Ayanna), Brenna DiStasio* (Caryl), Peter Ferneding (Edward Carpenter, Max, Paul Michael), Tamsen Glaser (Sappho, Annie, Brenna), Emily Marso (Lady Murasaki Shikibu, Mei-Lin), Ireon Roach (Edith) and Laney Rodriguez (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Christine). Understudies: Jack Bowes, Sierra Coachman, Jennifer Ledesma, Lizzy Mosher and Hannah Rule.

Location: Raven Theatre Schwartz Stage, 6157 N. Clark St. (at Granville), Chicago

Dates: 

Previews: Thursday, February 12 at 7:30 pm, Friday, February 13 at 7:30 pm, Saturday, February 14 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, February 15 at 3 pm

Regular run: Thursday, February 12 – Sunday, March 1, 2026 (with multiple possible extensions)

Curtain Times: Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays at 7:30 pm; Sundays at 3 pm.

Tickets: $20 – $48* (tiered options). Discounts available. Tickets go on sale Monday, January 12, 2026 at thestorytheatre.org/tickets or by calling (773) 338-2177 *Pricing includes processing fees

Group tickets: Special group grates are available. For more information, call (773) 338-2177 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Plan Your Visit: 

Free parking is provided in a lot adjacent to the theatre—additional street parking is available.

Nearest El station: Granville Red Line. Buses: #22 (Clark), #36 (Broadway), #151 (Sheridan), #155 (Devon), #84 (Peterson).

About the Artists:

Paul Michael Thomson (Playwright) is an actor, playwright, producer and PhD candidate based in Chicago. He is so grateful to bring this play to life with his fellow Governing Ensemble members and closest friends, Ayanna Bria Bakari, Brenna DiStasio and Terry Guest. As an actor, Paul Michael has worked regionally at Steppenwolf, Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, Urbanite Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Southwest Shakespeare, and more, and his on-camera credits include All Happy Families, Drawn Back Home, Chicago Med and Chicago Justice. His plays have been developed and produced around the country, including: brother sister cyborg space (Raven Theatre); Bobby & Lorraine, or Something Left to Love (Rivendell Theatre, with Quenna Lené Barrett); Fremont Junior High Is NOT Doing Oklahoma! (Good Company Theatre, Live Theatre Workshop, Bramble Theatre); What a Time to Be Alive (You Say That Every Time) (Great Plains Theatre Commons, Definition Theatre); Leave Me Alone! (The Story Theatre); The G.O.A.T., or Who Is Ximone? (Theatre L'Acadie, O'Neill Center NPC Finalist); and more. Paul Michael is a PhD candidate in Afro-American Studies through the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his scholarly work has been published in Theatre History Studies, the Black Theatre Review and Theatre Annual. He is a proud co-founder and Governing Ensemble member of The Story Theatre and is represented by Gray Talent Group. paulmichaelthomson.com @paulmichaelt

Ayanna Bria Bakari (Director) is an actor, producer director and a proud Governing Ensemble Member of The Story Theatre. She is delighted to be making her Directorial debut with the folks she has loved and made theater with for the past 8 years. She graduated with a BFA in acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Some of her Chicago theatre credits include: Purpose, Last Night and the Night Before (Steppenwolf); Relentless, Too Heavy for Your Pocket (TimeLine Theatre); Relentless, How to Catch Creation (Goodman); As You Like It (Chicago Shakespeare); The Niceties (Black Theater Alliance Award) and Stickfly (Writers Theatre); At The Wake of a Dead Drag Queen (Asst. Director, 2019 and Wig Design, 2025 at The Story Theatre), Leave me Alone! (The Story Theatre). Regionally, she has played in Blues for an Alabama Sky (Seattle Rep); The Colored Museum (Studio Theatre); The Salvagers (Asst. Dir. at Yale Repertory Theatre); Clyde's (TheaterWorks Hartford); Sunflowered (Northern Sky Theater); The Rainmaker (Peninsula Players); The Originalist (Indiana Repertory Theatre). Ayanna Bria's television credits include recurring roles in Wu-Tang: An American Saga on HULU and The CHI on Showtime along with guest roles on Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, Empire on FOX and 61st Street on AMC. She made her film debut in Holiday Heist on BET. She is represented by Stewart Talent. @ayannabakari_

About The Story Theatre: 

Founded in 2018, The Story Theatre will pose questions rather than provide answers. We develop and produce new work that is whimsical, melancholic, mythic in vision and intimate in scale. We are run by a Governing Artistic Ensemble, who ensures our work is actively dismantling racism and inequity, while cultivating community through activism and catharsis.

In 2025, The Story Theatre was awarded the Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theatre Award from the League of Chicago Theatres. Our world premiere productions and elevated staged readings have garnered sold-out extended runs and Joseph Jefferson Awards, including: At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen by Terry Guest; the love object by Justine Gelfman; Marie Antoinette & the Magical Negroes by Terry Guest; Las Fantasmas y Frida Kahlo by Spencer Diaz Tootle, and more.

The Story Theatre is funded in part by The Michael and Mona Heath Fund, The Illinois Arts Council, DCASE CityArts and The Cecilia, Marcia and Jay Iole Foundation.

The Y2K era was a wild time to be a girl. Bubblegum pop juxtaposed against futuristic silver-scaled sets, female artists viciously pitted against one another in the media, women and young girls being viewed as simultaneously pure and virginal and corrupt and sexual deviants. All of these themes are perfectly captured in the millennial time capsule of a play The Love Object now playing at Raven Theatre.

On the eve of Ramona's sold-out stadium tour, her best friend and trusted assistant Paula announces she is leaving to pursue her own artistry. Fearing the loss of her closest confidante, Ramona reveals that a sex tape she made is about to be released, tainting her image (and ticket sales) forever. Will Paula stay and clean up Ramona's mess one more time or finally escape the oppressive celebrity machine for good? The Love Object is a contemporary adaptation of Euripides' Hippolytus, examining the hyper-sexualization of women celebrities, the power struggles of interracial friendship, and the tragedies of late-stage capitalism, all through the bubblegum veneer of an early 2000s pop superstar.

Much like its Greek predecessor, The Love Object, the characters within the play all have a bit of blindness that prevents them from understanding the other's perspective; Ramona, played by Emily Holland, failing to understand why Paula would want to leave, Paula, played by Kaylah Marie Crosby,  failing to understand the loneliness of stardom, and Simon, played by William Anthony Sebastian Rose II, failing to understand the complexities of female choices and consequences of his own actions. The undercurrent of purity and sexuality throughout the play is represented not only in the main protagonists but also in the supporting back up dancers, Tish, played by Cat Christmas, Randy, played by Spencer Diaz Tootle, and Kylie, played by Mollyanne Nunn, all of whom have their own squabbles with one another while also viewing Ramona through both lenses of a virgin and a sinner.

Looking back at the bubblegum pop era through the social context of today we have sure come a long way. We as a society were awful to young women, judgemental, critical, and downright vicious. Time allows us to look back on that period with a kinder viewpoint, one that is not so polarized. Being able to view The Love Object through the same lens affords us the ability to equally despise the vain pop star and be sympathetic to her loneliness of lacking in any real or substantive friendships, or to resent the assistant and her actions and also embrace the karmic justice of our f-around and find out world. With a minimalist futuristic set, early 2000s pop culture references, superb acting, and a storyline every millennial woman can relate to, The Love Object is a perfect time capsule for this fall theatre scene and one sure to entertain.

The Love Object, presented by The Story Theatre at Raven Theatre (6157 N Clark St, Chicago), runs through November 3rd. Ramona’s tour is selling out fast so be sure to grab your tickets with backstage access at www.raventheatre.com/season42/. 

Let me begin by saying, this was one helluva 90 minutes in Chicago theatre. We enter the theatre to the sound of a combination of Jazz, trap music and hip-hop. There is a sign reading “This is not history”. On stage, the set, a French street with boarded up storefronts with the name of the play prominently on display. I was not aware of the roller coaster ride I was about to witness.

Terry Guest successfully uses the French Revolution as background for several Black uprisings. A tall order to say the least. The cast enters and opens what appears to be a pandora’s box of costumes. We are off to a thrilling night of theater. This is just the beginning of the time travel and the various people we will meet.

The ensemble consists of Jim Crow (Keith Iliddge), Mammy (Amber Washington), Sapphire (Danyelle Monson), Sambo (Maya Vinice Prentiss), Savage Nathaniel Andrew. They are not history. They’re stereotypes. These ensemble members also play other characters as well such as JFK, Jacqueline Kennedy (complete with bloody pink Chanel suit) Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Ida B. Wells, Axel Von Fersen, Toussaint L”Ouverture and Napoleon. Yes, that Napoleon. This is History.

Joining these characters on stage in various times of their lives are Marie Antoinette (Brenna Di Stasio) and Louis LVI (David Stobbe). The goings on at Versailles is commentated by a on scene reporter to hilarious results. This ensemble was wonderful to watch. They assumed the characters and told the story with excitement and verve.  

The play moves at an extremely fast pace. You have stay awake to catch everything, and you do want to catch EVERYTHING! You got to be woke. We may start in 18^th century France, but we travel to the Haitian Revolution, Los Angeles “Rodney King” uprisings, Ferguson Missouri, for Michael Brown, Minneapolis for George Floyd, and other places where there have been uprisings. Through all these metamorphoses the ensemble shifts effortlessly. In a surprising turn the audience becomes the Revolutionary Tribunal convicting Marie Antoinette to death after a vote. This is a fun evening.

The script is wonderfully complex. Terry Guest’s writing reminds me of a young Susan Lori Parks. I’m excited to see what else he has to say. He has directed the cast to work as efficiently as possible to fantastic results. This play is a must see, maybe twice, you’re bound to miss something.

The Story Theatre’s Marie Antoinette and the Magical Negroes is playing thru July 17^th at Raven Theatre.  

*Extended through July 24th