Displaying items by tag: Netta Walker

The Gift Theatre, led by Artistic Directors Brittany Burch and Jennifer Glasse, continues its 25^th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of Hayward by Gift ensemble member Netta Walker, directed by AmBer Montgomery. Presented in Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre, 1700 N Halsted St in Chicago, Hayward runs October 14 – November 15, 2026. The opening is Sunday, October 18, 2026, at 6:00 pm.

Tickets, priced at $45-50, are on sale now through Steppenwolf Theatre Company's box office, http://steppenwolf.org/hayward, and (312) 335-1650. Presenting this production during the Gift's anniversary season in Steppenwolf Theatre's 1700 Theatre feels like a homecoming for the company. Many in the ensemble first met at The School at Steppenwolf, and those experiences shaped how the company thinks about telling stories.

The cast features Gift ensemble members Shanésia Davis and Gregory Fenner and guest artists Ireon Roach, Sydney Charles, Victor Musoni, Watson Swift, and Alfred H. Wilson.

The creative team is AmBer Montgomery (director), Martel Manning  (assistant director), Sydney Lynne (scenic designer), Daniella Brown (sound designer), Saawan Tiwari (costume designer), G. "Max" Maxin (lighting designer), Mariah Bennett (props designer), Maya Vinice Prentiss (violence director), Sarah Luse (stage manager), Dorothy Craven (assistant stage manager), Tom Daniel (technical director and Jennifer Aparicio (production manager). Brittany Burch and Jennifer Glasse are co-artistic directors.

Hayward reimagines Hamlet and Electra through the eyes of Luna, who reveals to her family — on the day of their father's funeral — that his ghost has come to see her. Beneath the haunting, this is a love story: a daughter's love for her father, and the complicated, unresolved feelings he left behind. The story follows a family shaped by the trauma passed down by a father who served in the Navy during the Gulf War. Across grief, they reach for each other, trying, imperfectly, to come back together.

Developed through the Pearl Cleage Writers Workshop with Goodman Theatre and Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, and named a semifinalist for the 2025 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Hayward is exactly the kind of bold new work The Gift Theatre was built to tell.

The Gift Theatre Co-Artistic Directors Brittany Burch and Jennifer Glasse comment, "We are so excited to produce this powerful world premiere by Ensemble Member Netta Walker. As one of our newest ensemble members, Netta's history with The Gift goes back 10 years, beginning in 2017 when she understudied The Grapes of Wrath in her first professional play. After last summer's sold-out In the Works reading of Hayward, we are thrilled to bring this beautiful and deeply personal play to the stage."

Fact Sheet | Hayward

Playwright: Gift Theatre Ensemble Member Netta Walker

Director: AmBer Montgomery

Cast:    Gift Theatre Ensemble Members: Shanésia Davis and Gregory Fenner  

Guest Artists: Ireon Roach, Sydney Charles, Victor Musoni, Watson Swift, Alfred H. Wilson

Dates: October 14 – November 15, 2026

Audio description: November 12, 2026

Captioning: November 13, 2026

Location: Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre, 1700 N Halsted St in Chicago

Tickets: $45-50

Box office: http://steppenwolf.org/hayward; (312) 335-1650

If you are a veteran who has served or is currently serving in the United States Armed Forces, we thank you for your service to our country.  Veterans may purchase tickets for $15 with code HAYWARDVET with an Active Duty, Reserve, or Retired Military ID Card.

About the Artists: Link to all artist bios and headshots

Netta Walker | Playwright

Netta Walker is an actor and playwright who began her career onstage in Chicago 10 years ago as the Rose of Sharon understudy at The Gift Theater for "The Grapes of Wrath". Now she is known for starring as Keisha McCalla in "All American: Homecoming" and "All American" on The CW for 3 seasons. In 2019, she won a Jeff Award for "Best Supporting Performance in a Play" ("Yen", Raven Theater) and was quickly named one of the Chicago Tribune's "Hot New Faces" by theater critic Chris Jones.

She studied playwriting at The LIR at Trinity College for a year while simultaneously taking acting classes at RADA. As a writer in the Pearl Cleage writers workshop with the Tony Award winning Goodman Theater and Remy Bumppo Theater Company, she began developing Hayward - which was choosen as a Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference 2025 Semifinalist. Her play keerah was selected as a winner in Definition Theaters' 2024 AMPLIFY New Play Festival, where it is set to be workshopped for two years. keerah has also been performed in scratch nights in London with Irish speaking casts. Her Filipino short film Balik won the Horror/Thriller short script category at Hollywood Just4Shorts Film and Screenplay competition, as well as being selected for London Film Festival International and Edinburgh FFI. This was swiftly followed by her short script Baby Gay being selected for the Chicago Script Awards and as a Cambridge Script Festival finalist (LGBTQ Screenplay). Both shorts were selected for the Best Script Awards screenplay competition in London in the same year. Walker was also chosen to pitch her original feminist dystopian series House of Dixie at the American Cinemtheque's Proof of Concept Film Festival in LA in 2024 - it then went on to be selected as a Quarterfinalist for WeScreenplays' Diverse Voices Lab Spring 2025. She is now adapting it for stage.

Chicago onstage acting credits include: Lion in Winter (Court Theater), How to Defend Yourself (Victory Gardens, original cast); Yen (Raven Theatre, Jeff Award for Best Supporting Actor); Hamlet, Grapes of Wrath (The Gift); No Child (Definition Theatre); Continuity (Goodman); truth and reconciliation (Sideshow Theatre Company); Great Expectations (Silk Road Rising/Remy Bumppo); The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley (Northlight, original cast) and in workshops and reading series with companies like Steppenwolf Theater, Jackalope Theater, and Pride Films and Plays. Regional: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Milwaukee Rep).

Born and raised on the Florida/Georgia line in the Westside of Jacksonville, Florida, her unique background as a child of an immigrant and a Navy Chief influences every decision of storytelling she makes. The blended cultures of Cebuano Filipina and traditional Southern African-American heritage fuel her passion for creating multicultural, multilayered, and nuanced representation of the human condition in the arts.

Special events:

These events happen immediately following the respective Sunday performances of Hayward:

October 25, 2026: Scholar Sunday | African American Literature & Psychology of Trauma Speakers: Tara Betts | Author & Professor in Peace, Conflict Studies and Social Justice at DePaul University & Judith Singleton | Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Dominican University

November 8, 2026: Scholar Sunday| The Role of African-American Soldiers in Literature | Speakers: Names to Follow 

The Gift Theatre's 25^th Anniversary Season continues with:

ANNUAL GHOSTLIT AT GALE STREET INN

Dinner and drinks are available for purchase with specialty cocktails designed for the event.

4914 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60630 - Monday October 26th - Doors at 6:00pm

Tickets $25 online or $30 at the door

Come gather at the inn to warm your bones and chill your blood. Join The Gift Theatre for our annual evening of live ghost stories and haunting songs presented this year at The Gale Street Inn!

25th ANNIVERSARY BENEFÊTE PERFORMANCE

at Copernicus Center — Gateway Theatre 5216 W. Lawrence, Chicago, IL

December 7, 2026

Tickets $75, thegifttheatre.org and (773) 283-7071 | Tickets on sale now: https://thegifttheatre.org/event/homecoming-benefete/

The season will close out with a spectacular, one-night-only celebration honoring a quarter century of The Gift Theatre. This 25th Anniversary Benefête Performance, will be a night featuring our favorite scenes from over the years performed by ensemble members —the artists who have shaped this theatre across generations.

About The Gift Theatre
The Gift Theatre is a storefront nonprofit theater founded in Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood, committed to creating accessible, inclusive, and impactful theatrical experiences. 

Our identity is defined by intimacy, collaboration, and a belief that live storytelling can inspire and transform both artist and audience. 

What began as a spatial limitation became a revelation. For nearly 20 years, we performed in a renovated shoe store—Chicago's smallest Equity theatre—where audience members sat just inches from the actors. That intimacy didn't just shape our work; it shaped who we are as artists.

We've learned to lean into the vulnerability and electricity that arise when actor and audience share the same breath, both fully present in mutual emotional exchange.

At the Gift, we are only interested in work that is challenging and transformative —stories that ask big questions and risk discomfort in pursuit of deeper understanding. We delight in the dark humor and unexpected joy that surface in life's messiest moments, reminding us that even pain can carry connection and light. We believe that every story, at its heart, is a love story—rooted in longing and a search for communion. 

Our programming isn't bound by genre but guided by character-driven, emotionally rich storytelling rooted in truth. Whether surreal or starkly naturalistic, each play we share reflects our commitment to creating spaces of deep connection—among artists, between artist and audience, and within our community.

Presenting this show during our anniversary season at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre feels like coming home — many in the ensemble first met at The School at Steppenwolf, and those experiences shaped how they think about telling stories.

The Gift Theatre Ensemble includes its newest members Jennifer Aparicio, Shanésia Davis, Angela Morris, Jennifer Rumberger, Netta Walker, and Patrick Weber. They join fellow ensemble members Daniel Ahlfeld, Cyd Blakewell, Brittany Burch, Hillary Clemens Harbor, Jenny Connell Davis, John Kelly Connolly (in memoriam), Paul D'Addario, Brendan Donaldson, Will Eno, James D. Farruggio, Gregory Fenner, Ed Flynn, Gabriel Franken, John Gawlik, Maggie Andersen Gawlik, Emjoy Gavino, Jennifer Glasse, Andrew Hinderaker, Chika Ike, Evan Michael Lee, Sarah Luse, Marti Lyons, Alexandra Main, Martel Manning, Laura Marks, Kenny Mihlfried, Benjamin Montague, William Nedved, Darci Nalepa, Keith Neagle, Lynda Newton, Sheldon Patinkin (in memoriam), Maureen Payne-Hahner, David Preis, David  Rabe, Mary Ann Thebus (in memoriam), Michael Patrick Thornton, Hannah Toriumi, Erica Weiss, Jay Worthington, and Kyle Zornes.

The Gift Theatre, led by Artistic Directors Brittany Burch and Jennifer Glasse, announces its 25^th Anniversary "Homecoming" Season. The landmark 2026 season features the return of the company's signature short play festival, a major Chicago premiere, and a new work by ensemble member Netta Walker, staged at iconic venues across the city including A Red Orchid Theatre, Steppenwolf's 1700 Theater, and a return to Jefferson Park at the Copernicus Center.

The 25^th Season includes the annual short play festival TEN 25^th, March 25-April 4, 2026, to take place at A Red Orchid Theatre. The Chicago Premiere of Marble by Marina Carr, August 2-30, 2026, will mark a return to the company's home neighborhood. Hayward, a world premiere by new ensemble member Netta Walker, October 14-November 22, will be presented at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theater. The season will close with a one-night event in December, the 25th Anniversary Benefête Performance at Jefferson Park's Copernicus Center.

Artistic Directors Brittany Burch and Jennifer Glasse comment, "As we look ahead, we're recommitting to our origins in Jefferson Park and actively exploring pathways to bring The Gift home again. Our 25th Anniversary 'Homecoming' season reflects that spirit—beginning with a winter gala and continuing this spring with TEN 25th at A Red Orchid Theatre and continuing with Marina Carr's captivating drama Marble, and Hayward, a new play by one of The Gift's newest ensemble members Netta Walker. We celebrate 25 years of intimate, ensemble-driven work by coming home—to our artists, audiences, and the neighborhoods that shaped the company."

Subscription packages are now on sale at thegifttheatre.org or by calling 773-283-7071. The Homecoming Subscription Package, $105, includes TEN 25^th, Marble and Hayward. The Homecoming Subscription Package+ Subscription Package, $170, includes TEN 25^th, Marble, Hayward and the 25th Anniversary Benefête Performance.  Subscribers save up to 15% off regular ticket prices, priority seating, free ticket exchanges and guaranteed seating to limited-run productions.

The 25^th Anniversary Homecoming Season is:

TEN 25^th

The Gift's Ten-Minute Play Festival of New Work

at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N Wells St. in Chicago

March 25 – April 4, 2026

Tickets, $25, thegifttheatre.org and (773) 283-7071

TEN 25th features the work of Gift ensemble members Cyd Blakewell, Erica Weiss, Gregory Fenner, Jennifer Glasse, Jennifer Rumberger, John Gawlik, Kenny Mihlfried, Pat Weber, Paul D'Addario and Shanésia Davis.

TEN 25th features 10-minute world premiere plays from Chicago playwrights John Gawlik, Jennifer Rumberger, Gregory Fenner, Kimberly Dixon-Mays, Dolores Diaz, Stephanie Alison Walker, Emilio Williams, Jermaine Jenkins, and Brett Neveu.

MARBLE
Chicago Premiere by Marina Carr

at Copernicus Center – Kings Hall, 5216 W Lawrence Ave in Chicago

August 2 – August 30, 2026

Tickets, $45-$50, thegifttheatre.org and (773) 283-7071

individual tickets will be on sale this spring

Marble follows two married couples, Ben and Catherine, and their friends Art and Anne, whose comfortable lives begin to splinter after a shared dream triggers suspicion and desire.

A surreal and haunting exploration of two couples whose lives collide through shared dreams, this production anchors the company's homecoming to the neighborhood where it was founded.

HAYWARD

World Premiere by ensemble member Netta Walker

Directed by AmBer Montgomery

featuring ensemble members Shanesia Davis and Gregory Fenner

at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted St in Chicago

October 14 – November 22

Tickets, $45-$50, will be available this summer through the Steppenwolf box office.

A reimagining of the classics Hamlet and Electra. The play follows the main character Luna, who on the day of her father's funeral, confesses to her siblings that she has seen her father's ghost. Staged in Steppenwolf's intimate 1700 Theater, this production continues The Gift's commitment to ensemble talent and bold new narratives.

25th ANNIVERSARY BENEFÊTE PERFORMANCE

at Copernicus Center — Gateway Theatre 5216 W. Lawrence, Chicago, IL

December 7th 2026

Tickets $75, thegifttheatre.org and (773) 283-7071 tickets will be available this spring

The season will close out with a spectacular, one-night-only celebration honoring a quarter century of The Gift Theatre. This 25th Anniversary Benefête Performance, will be a night featuring our favorite scenes from over the years performed by ensemble members —the artists who have shaped this theatre across generations.

About The Gift Theatre
The Gift Theatre is a storefront nonprofit founded in Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood, committed to creating accessible, inclusive, and impactful theatrical experiences. Our identity is defined by intimacy, collaboration, and a belief that live storytelling can inspire and transform both artist and audience. Our programming isn't bound by genre but guided by character-driven, emotionally rich storytelling rooted in truth. Whether surreal or starkly naturalistic, each play we share reflects our commitment to creating spaces of deep connection—among artists, between artist and audience, and within our community.

The Gift Theatre ensemble includes its newest members Jennifer Aparicio, Shanésia Davis, Angela Morris, Jennifer Rumberger, Netta Walker and Patrick Weber. They join fellow ensemble members Daniel Ahlfeld, Cyd Blakewell, Brittany Burch, Hillary Clemens Harbor, Jenny Connell Davis, John Kelly Connolly (in memoriam), Paul D'Addario, Brendan Donaldson, Will Eno,

James D. Farruggio, Gregory Fenner, Ed Flynn, Gabriel Franken, John Gawlik, Maggie Andersen Gawlik, Emjoy Gavino, Jennifer Glasse, Andrew Hinderaker, Chika Ike, Evan Michael Lee, Sarah Luse, Marti Lyons, Alexandra Main, Martel Manning, Laura Marks,Kenny Mihlfried, Benjamin Montague, William Nedved, Darci Nalepa, Keith Neagle, Lynda Newton, Sheldon Patinkin (in memoriam), Maureen Payne-Hahner, David Preis, David  Rabe, Mary Ann Thebus (in memoriam), Michael Patrick Thornton, Hannah Toriumi, Erica Weiss, Jay Worthington, and Kyle Zornes.

We often forget that The Taming of the Shrew is, at its core, a play within a play - a bit of theatrical mischief in which characters watch other characters pretend. Marti Lyons’s ambitious new adaptation for Court Theatre not only remembers this but revels in it. She reframes Shakespeare’s battle-of-wills as a private, immersive experience for five elite guests - figures who could easily have wandered off the set of Succession—invited to indulge in a curated world of erotica, fantasy, and power play. This is not like any production of Shrew I have ever seen. And I love it.

Lyons taps into the erotic charge embedded in Shakespeare’s text. For Lyons the struggle between Kate and Petruchio isn’t a patriarchal lesson but a provocation - an invitation to consider what people consent to in the privacy of their desires, even when those desires run counter to their public personas. In fantasy, we try on identities we might never inhabit in daylight. Could Kate, in this telling, actually be exercising her agency by consenting to a submissive role in her intimate life while fiercely maintaining her autonomy in her public life? The question lingers.

The production openly engages with bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and S&M,  - not as taboo spectacle but as a consensual system built on trust, communication, and negotiated power. This is especially evident at Petruchio’s house.  Instead of treating Kate’s submission as Shakespeare’s dreaded moral, Lyons reframes it as a conversation about desire and embodiment. The cast leans into this with a refreshing clarity: pleasure, not punishment, drives the story. Power is a game, and everyone in the room is choosing to play.

By foregrounding the play-within-the-play structure, Lyons opens a fertile space not only to re-engage with the text but to ask ourselves uncomfortable, thrilling questions about love and control, submission and domination, agency and desire. It is rare for a Shrew to feel so sensual and so intellectually alive.

Much of the production’s force comes from its ensemble. As Katherina, Melisa Soledad Pereyra embodies fire, humor, and hunger—a woman who knows her own body and mind. Her chemistry with Jay Whittaker’s Petruchio is the engine of the evening: two equals circling, sparring, testing limits until the battle between them becomes a dance. Netta Walker’s Bianca is no docile ingénue; she claims her place with confident wit. Samuel Taylor, Nate Santana, and Dexter Zollicoffer bring sharp comedic flavor to Hortensio, Lucentio, and Gremio, while Ryder Dean McDaniel anchors Tranio with duplicitous cunning. The supporting cast - Alex Weisman, Monica West, and others - soften and sharpen the edges of the world as needed.

The design team conjures a world where erotic imagination thrives. Jackie Fox’s scenic design refashions Court Theatre into a sensuous playground of marble black-and-white tiled floors, sculpted statues, expansive botanical murals, and imposing wooden doors. Kotryna Hilko’s costumes heighten the atmosphere with daring textures - leather for Petruchio, jewel-toned gowns for the women, jacquard damask for the aristocrats - each piece balancing revelation and restraint, structure and seduction. Every visual element underscores Lyons’s central argument: desire is a kind of performance, and every performance is a negotiation of power.

This Taming of the Shrew pulses not with brute domination but with the sensual, exacting choreography of consent. Lyons doesn’t blunt the play’s jagged edges; she sharpens them into tools of erotic inquiry. Her staging invites us to feel the heat of what is given freely, the tautness of what is deliberately withheld, and the exhilaration of boundaries tested - then mutually defined.

Court Theatre’s production doesn’t simply reinterpret Shrew; it challenges us to reinterpret ourselves. By grounding the story in erotic power exchange and consciously negotiated dynamics, Lyons’s adaptation pushes us to confront the desires we rarely articulate. What do we relinquish willingly? What pleasure do we find in surrender? And what power do we claim by choosing when—and to whom—we yield? In Lyons’s hands, the theatre becomes a chamber of self-interrogation, where the line between performance and private longing thins, and we’re invited to examine the fantasies that shape us as intimately as any script.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

When: through Dec 14TH

Where: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes 15 minute intermission

Tickets: $60 - $90.00 Student, Group and military discounts available

773-753-4472

www.courttheatre.org

The tiny Gift Theatre, occupancy 50, has bitten off a big challenge with its determination to present Hamlet. Featuring Daniel Kyri in the title role of Shakespeare’s classic, director Monty Cole has hewed to the melodious Elizabethan English of the script.

The production has contemporary touches that largely respect the genius of the playwright, while delivering a show that the author would recognize, and which conveys the crucial dramatic conflicts. And, a mark of a serious production, Cole and cast examine anew the mysteries that will ever surround the motives and actions of the characters.

In a nutshell, young prince Hamlet suspects his mother Gertrude and uncle Claudius are complicit in the recent death of his father, King Hamlet. The two have married, and for the rest of the play Hamlet works through his feelings of anger and guilt, goaded by ghostly appearances of his father. Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia, her brother Laertes and their dad Polonius are killed in the fallout. Likewise for Claudius and Gertrude.

Producing any play requires envisioning and mastering the drama, psyching out characters and motivation, getting the script down. With Shakespeare, you also must account for the specific challenge of a language in iambic pentameter, and at times florid or obscure.

So Shakespearean acting is its own special skill. The cast has largely nailed the motivation and inculcated it to their roles on stage, delivering moving performances with conviction. But, alas, the language suffers a few slings and arrows along the way – though there are bright spots – including a rap version of one monolog that was very successful.

From the moment she appears, silently regal, completely in touch with the Gertrude, Shanesia Davis shows how it’s done. Her every line is immediately clear, even when we are uncertain of an archaic word or phrase – we totally understand her. Davis acting background makes it clear why – she has a lot of experience with Shakespearean roles.

Daniel Kyri has captured young Hamlet, and we ride with him through his internal turmoil. But Kyri is still working through what is one of theatre’s most demanding roles. Of those seven famous Hamlet soliloquies, I felt he did best with the fifth (“Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out”) and the sixth (“Now might I do it pat now he is praying, And now I'll do it, and so he goes to heaven.”)

Netta Walker’s performance as Ophelia was balanced and well done. Martel Manning as actor Guildenstern and the very funny Grave Digger, had a magnetic presence on stage. Gregory Fenner as Laertes has all the passion and constrined fury required. Alexander Lane carries a military strength and sinister swagger in his three roles as Fortinbras, Valteman and Marcellus. 

Not everything works, though most things do. Cole, who spent a year in the development of the show, keeps the play in its historic setting, but the production is unconstrained by period dress. Several younger characters have smart phones, and somehow, these make sense. They are used as flashlights in some scenes, and Ophelia sings along with her earbuds in. Smart phones are now a normal human appendage, like eyeglasses, and are almost invisible in their roles in the show.

The set was nice – a classic paneled plaster hallway illuminated by sconces with decaying carpeting on the floor, the edges lined by weeds and smashed beer cans. William Boles did scenic design, but I do quibble with whoever made the decision to encase the stage in a box of acrylic sheets, so the actors play behind a “glass.” This muted the sound and an effort to mic the space was unsuccessful. 

Hamlet runs through July 29 at Gift Theatre.