Displaying items by tag: Festival of Unfinished Work

Bramble Theatre Company, is proud to announce the third annual Festival of Unfinished Work at the new Bramble Arts Loft located on the second floor of the historic Capital Garage building at 5545 N. Clark St, June 26 - 30. The Festival's performance schedule is Wednesday, June 26 through Saturday, June 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 each and may be purchased at BrambleTheatre.org.

"Bramble is proud to showcase a variety of new plays in the hopes of launching them to further development. Whether their eventual world premiere is at Bramble or another producing company, it's a thrill to amplify these stories and see them receive well-deserved attention in the Chicago theatre community and beyond," said Bramble Theatre Creative Producer and Co-Founder Matthew Lunt.

The submission process for this year's Festival of Unfinished Work began in fall 2023. A call was put out for original, unproduced plays by Chicago playwrights. From the submissions, the literary committee, composed of Bramble ensemble and staff, went through an extensive review process to narrow the submissions to a list of finalists, which was presented to Bramble Theatre Co-Founder and Artistic Director Karissa Murrell Myers for the final selection. Each 10-15 minute scene will be brought to life by a team of Chicago directors and actors during the Festival. 

The Festival of Unfinished Work was born out of the desire to help amplify writers' new work and provide them development resources while their plays are in progress. Murrell Myers explains, "When we sat down with each of our ensemble members in 2019 to ask them what they wanted to see Bramble produce, every single one of them said, 'new work.' A new works festival seemed like the perfect chance to give writers a platform to have their in-development plays heard."

"It's an unusual and exciting opportunity to stage a scene from a play that is 'unfinished,'" says Festival Literary Manager Spencer Huffman. "Our hope is that this process will give the playwright a sneak peek of what their play could look like when it's finished and help inform their writing going forward."

Another element of the Festival of Unfinished Work is audience participation. During the Festival, the audience will be invited to vote on which pieces they would most like to see developed by Bramble Theatre. Upon entry, audience members get a handful of dried beans, and they vote by dropping beans into cups labeled with each show's title. This voting process will impact which pieces will be given a workshop and public staged reading by Bramble at a future date.

"It's also very exciting that Chicago audiences will have the rare opportunity to voice their opinion on what gets selected for programming by voting for their favorite pieces from the Festival," said Murrell Myers. 

 The Bramble Theatre's Festival of Unfinished Work includes:

Blood of My Mother's

By Karissa Murrell Myers

Directed by Azar Kazemi

A pregnant college student flees to her older sister's house on Christmas Eve, 1997, where she must choose to either abandon her baby or her American dream. This choice turns the entire family's world upside as they are forced to face their inner demons from the past. Because sometimes, the place you run to for safety turns out to be the most dangerous place of all.

Grape Leaves

By Alexander Attea

Directed by Dan Washelesky

A Lebanese-American family runs the Lebanese Festival in a rapidly changing Buffalo, NY during the worsening climate crisis. A play that boils over, freezes and asks how to find what you come from.

New Oleanna

By Zach Barr

Directed by Spencer Huffman

Nona, a faculty advisor, is helping undergraduate student Hudson select a play to direct for his senior thesis, and suggests he look at David Mamet's "Oleanna." However, when Hudson's take on the play becomes much less balanced than Nona expected, she begins overlooking more and more red flags, citing that he should have the freedom to fail. By the end, however, she must decide whether the play – and Hudson himself – are worth defending at all.

Remembrance

By Ben F. Locke

Directed by Aja Singletary

Four friends come together to celebrate Trans Day of Remembrance but when the ghost of Rita Hester starts haunting their apartment, they know they're in for a night to remember. The group decides to team up with the ghost to solve her unsolved murder and bring justice to Rita Hester, the woman who inspired Trans Day of Remembrance.

They Broke Up

By Skyler Tarnas

Directed by Ben F. Locke

Happy New Year! With your whole friend group crumbling at three little words, who can even remember that the world is ending?

Top Girl or the cheerleader play

 By Evalina Lakin

 Directed by Lauren Katz

A tragedy about the most dangerous athletes of our time: competitive cheerleaders. Hearts, spirits and skulls may be broken.

The cast for the festival includes Ky Anderson (Harper); Haley Bolithon (Amy/Carrie); Rasheeda Denise (Nona); Dylan J. Fleming (Dylan/Taufiq); Luke Halpern (Angel/CJ); Carmia Imani (Lacey-May); Iman Kamel (Rosie); Ben F. Locke (Hudson); Matthew Lunt (Richard/Coach); Shane Novoa Rhoades (Husband Bill); Jordan Tannous (Marcus/Griffin); Joshua David Thomas (Derby); Hilary Williams (Naomi); Austin Winter (Blake); Emily Zhang (Marina); Katie Bevil (understudy); Rashaad A. Bond (understudy); Juliet Kang Huneke (understudy) and Travis Shanahan (understudy).

The creative team for the festival includes Melanie Thompson (production manager); Anna Vu (stage manager); Quinn Bachus (asst. stage manager); Dee Etti-Wiliams (sound designer); Hilary Williams (props); Suzy Krueckeberg (props); Tristan Hall (fights and intimacy designer); Karissa Murrell Myers (casting); Haley Bolithon (asst. director); Noella Bonsol (asst. director); Danny Breslin (asst. director) and Andrew Lund (asst. director).

ABOUT BRAMBLE THEATRE COMPANY

Bramble Theatre Company is made up of an ensemble of multicultural artists who seek to create powerful new theatre that both nourishes and challenges our community to explore the question of what it is to be Human. By fostering an Artist-first culture that inspires hope and innovation, the company strives to be a leading voice in this emerging era of American Theatre. The bramble bush symbolizes the duality of the fruit that nourishes and the thorn that challenges; made of many tangled vines, it remains a single, united organism. The beginnings of Bramble first took root among the 2019 cohort of the esteemed School at Steppenwolf. At the end of that ten-week session, members of the group continued building upon their experiences and artistry, and from that, Bramble Theatre Company was born. 
 

MORE INFORMATION
For more information on Bramble Theatre Company, please visit BrambleTheatre.org or follow @BrambleTheatre on Facebook and Instagram.

Bramble Theatre Company, is proud to announce the third annual Festival of Unfinished Work at the new Bramble Arts Loft located on the second floor of the historic Capital Garage building at 5545 N. Clark St, June 26 - 30. Press are invited to attend Wednesday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m. The Festival's performance schedule is Wednesday, June 26 through Saturday, June 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 each and may be purchased at BrambleTheatre.org.