Displaying items by tag: Eliana DecknerGlick

After receiving six Jeff Award Nominations in 2025, The Impostors Theatre Company (ITC) returns this Spring with the highly anticipated world premiere of Static-Head – a sci-fi thriller written by critically acclaimed playwright Ryan Stevens (The Last Living Gun) and directed by ITC Artistic Director Stefan Roseen. Static-Head is a cautionary tale about the internet, AI, and the people it uses. Static-Head runs from April 17 to May 2, 2026 at ITC's resident home The Den Theatre, 1331 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622. 

Sensor-E is the hit new social media app, able to simulate real-life sensations so you can touch, taste, and smell everything you see on your screen. At the prestigious Osman-Haskill University of Technology, where the app was first created, strange things are happening on Sensor-E: Aimee, mourning the loss of her twin sister, uncovers a string of disappearances targeting her classmates. Blair, a fame-hungry would-be influencer, is enlisted into a vast conspiracy concerning school leadership. Paige, relegated to her dorm room due to a health issue that keeps her isolated, is haunted by a strange digital ghost that might hold the key to understanding her condition.

As they struggle to navigate these mysteries, the three students’ paths cross. Soon enough, their use of Sensor-E threatens to permanently blur the line between reality and simulation. The school they attend is not what it once seemed, and the world they know becomes weirder and more dangerous than they could ever imagine. When we can approximate reality, how do we distinguish the real thing?

A sci-fi thriller about the internet and the people it uses, Static-Head renders a cautionary tale against the existent rise of AI and virtual realities.

The cast of Static-Head features ITC ensemble members Jaclyn Jensen as Dr. Priscilla Osman,

Courtney Marie as Dr. Eliza Babbage, and Keaton Stewart as .EXE, with Eliana Deckner-Glick as Aimee,

Kati Yau as Paige, Bryce Lederer as Blair, William Delforge as Ben, Cayla L. Jones as Dorothy,

and Lexy Hope Weixel as //BAD-GATEWAY//.

Following Static-Head, ITC’s Seventh Season will conclude in June with Footholds Vol. 7, an anthology play written by the community and directed by ITC Executive Director Rachel Borgo.

About the Artists

Ryan Stevens (Playwright) is a New York-based playwright and director. They received an MA in Theatre from USC and an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA. They served as the Playwriting Fellow at Emory University from 2023 to 2025. They are beyond thrilled to get to work with The Impostors again for Static-Head's premiere after previously getting the honor to work with them on 2023's The Last Living Gun. Ryan’s work has also been produced by Astoria New Play Festival, Silver Spring Stage, Inkwell Theatre, St. Croix Falls Festival Theatre, Queen City Theatre, New American Theatre, Whiskey Radio Hour, Theatre Viscera, Festival D’Avignon, Broken Slate Productions, The Plagiarists Chicago, Corn Productions, Seoul Players, and Theatre Above the Law, among others.

Stefan Roseen (Director & Sound Designer) is a Chicago-based director, designer, and playwright, and the artistic director of The Impostors Theatre Company (ITC). He most recently directed ITC’s critically acclaimed and Jeff Award–nominated Helena & Hermia in the Enamored Odyssey and Pilot Island & Her Keepers. Additional directing credits include Beyond the Garden Gate; The Last Living Gun; ITC’s Jeff Award–nominated Miranda: A War-Torn Fable; Windwalkers; the Jeff Award–nominated Hertha Nova; Summer & Smoke; Tippy: Stories from the River; Caged: An Allegory; The Wood; Art; and The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan. His direction on the short play The Altercation in the Underworld won “Best Of” at the MadKap Productions Short Play Festival. A three-time Jeff Award–nominated artist, Stefan has been recognized for his direction of Helena & Hermia (...) and Hertha Nova, as well as for Artistic Specialty (Sound Design) for Pilot Island & Her Keepers. All three productions were also nominated for Best Production (Short Run). By day, Stefan is an educator, teaching Performance Art and Fine Art. Recent design credits include sound design for Rising Water and Big Time Toppers (Theatre L’Acadie); as well as scenic design for 7 Minutes to Live, Eurydice, A Doll’s House, 25/25, Occidental Express, the Jeff Recommended They, and the Jeff Award–nominated The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Trap Door Theatre).

Fact Sheet | Static-Head

Press Photos for Static-Head will be available the morning of Friday, April 17th. Poster and cast photo attached.

Parking and Transportation:
The Den Theatre is located in Wicker Park on Milwaukee Avenue. There is limited street parking available and The Den Theatre does not currently have parking or valet.

ITC recommends the usage of the ParkChicago and SpotHero apps. Metered parking is available on Milwaukee Avenue and surrounding side streets. Pay boxes are enforced from 8:00 A.M. – 10:00 P.M. on Milwaukee Avenue and from 8:00 A.M. – 6:00 P.M. on side streets. Pay boxes accept quarters and credit cards and can be fed up to two or three hours, depending on the location.

The theater is easily accessible via the Blue Line to Division or Damen stops and by bus from #56 (Milwaukee), #70 (Division), #50 (Damen), or #72 (North).

About The Impostors Theatre Company

The Impostors Theatre Company stages stories at the crossroads of retrospect and innovation, where the fantastic collides with the everyday. In order to better our discourse, our relationships, and ourselves, The Impostors aim to inspire an urgency for the arts by embracing the art of pretend.

In 2025-2026, The Impostors explore the past, the near future, and the bridge between. Season Seven reanimates an ancient mythological character, untangles the threads binding us to virtual realities, and stages our favorite anthology series in a new way. The action will play out on the various crossroads that capture our fascination year after year—growth and stasis, truth and deception, life and death.

The Impostors Theatre Company is a 501(c)3 non-profit arts service organization. For more information about The Impostors Theatre Company, and donating to our mission, we invite you to visit theimpostorstheatre.com. Follow ITC on facebook.com/theimpostorstheatre and on instagram.com/impostorstheatre.

My companion was apprehensive about the press release’s statement that “… the two-person cast will play all characters and will even share certain characters.”  “How can that work?” she wondered. “How will we know which character is speaking?”

I told her, “Wait and see.”  I had no such doubts; I’ve seen several shows at Open Space Arts and been consistently impressed at how well the company overcomes its multiple challenges, not the least of which is its extremely small space, further circumscribed by the 6-inch diameter pipe running floor to ceiling in the center of the stage space. It requires a nimble and imaginative company to not simply overcome this hindrance, but actually incorporate it into the action.

Eliana Deckner-Glick as Andrea (et al) and Artem Kreimer as her grandfather Max (and others) flowed seamlessly through their multiple roles; at times even switching to Kreimer playing Andrea and Deckner-Glick as Max. But no matter how quickly and how completely they fluctuated, at no point was I ever in doubt as to ‘who’ was speaking.

How on earth did they do it?

First, of course, is via the actors’ skill. Their vocal repertories were only one aspect of their transformations: posture, gait, facial expression, even temperament were all faithfully conveyed as Deckner-Glick modified Andrea to a clerk, and Kreimer transitioned from Max to a librarian and … and and and! It was uncanny how realistic the conversions were, especially as the evolution was usually made in mere seconds. Brava/o!

But even the most sensational acting could not have passed muster without the masterful direction of Izadorius Tortuga. I was stunned to learn that THE BERLIN DIARIES was Tortuga’s Chicago directing debut! The four years at Carnegie Mellon earning his BFA were clearly very well spent. The blocking and staging alone was ingenious as, in collaboration with Stage Manager Sean Smyth, magic was made in that meagre space.

Scenic Designer Viscaya Wilson supported the show’s authenticity by creating a plausible and effective space that generated copious domains, from Andrea’s NYC apartment to the snowy streets of Berlin. I loved the family tree that covered one wall, linked to maps of various destinations in South America, Europe and Palestine, as well as New York City and, of course, Berlin. These features came alive with Gabe Seplow’s Lighting and Valerio Gardner’s Sound.

Andrea Stolowitz is an internationally produced playwright, known for her unflinching approach to difficult issues in service of deepening social understanding. Her work is often heartbreaking, and THE BERLIN DIARIES certainly falls into that category.  The play is autobiographical, triggered by Stolowitz reading the diary her great-grandfather kept while living as a Jew in Berlin during the rise of Hitler and the beginning of World War II. The entries were specifically intended for and addressed to his descendants, often beginning with phrases like “My beloveds ….” Excerpts read throughout the play artfully served to encompass and embrace the audience, drawing us into Andrea’s clan.

Andrea’s parents told her that all members of their family had escaped the Holocaust, but in the diary her family’s genealogy becomes more mysterious the deeper she digs, raising far more questions than it answers. Frustrated yet fascinated, Andrea recognizes that these unanswered questions may reveal a far more significant history than the kindly, comfortable accounts that have become family legend. Andrea travels to Berlin seeking clarification and is increasingly troubled as her research adds one name after another to the list of ancestors who were verschollen: lost, like a library book.

I really haven’t committed too many spoilers here; this is the bare outline of THE BERLIN DIARIES, and when you see the play – and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND! You do – you’ll be as awestruck as I was for the grim experiences and searing disclosures Andrea is led to by her great-grandfather’s diaries.

THE BERLIN DIARIES plays at Open Space Arts through January 5

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!