Displaying items by tag: LC Bernadine

Award-winning Redtwist Theatre, launching its 22nd season with Prayer Circle, September 17 - November 8, by Erik Gernand and directed by Executive Artistic Director Dusty Brown, announces today an added special engagement to its 2026 - 2027 season, the world premiere of Flying Monkeys, produced in collaboration with the New Theatre Project, December 6 - January 17, by L.C. Bernadine and directed by Robert Falls, at Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Preview performances are Friday, Dec. 4 and Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Regular performance schedule includes Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. Some dates adjusted for the holidays. Single tickets are on sale starting September 15 for $50 (seniors and veterans: $35; students: $10 and Fridays are Pay-What-You-Can) with subscriptions also available at RedtwistTheatre.org. 

Chicago is a city where, when all goes well, theater happens at every scale. Just weeks after his production of Don Giovanni will open at the almost 3,500-seat Lyric Opera of Chicago, Robert Falls will direct Flying Monkeys, a new play by Chicago playwright L.C. Bernadine, at Edgewater’s Redtwist Theatre, an intimate venue of just over 35 seats. 

Flying Monkeys follows two transport agents working in the so-called “troubled teen industry.” Hired by a desperate mother, they arrive in the middle of the night to legally take her 15-year-old daughter from her home and deliver her to a residential treatment program across the country. What begins as a job governed by contracts and procedure becomes increasingly complicated as everyone involved is forced to confront what they believe desperation can justify.

Falls read the play earlier this year and was drawn both to its subject and to the opportunity to stage it in an extremely intimate venue. “I’ve been an admirer of L.C. Bernadine’s plays for quite a while,” said Robert Falls. “She has a very distinctive voice — tough, funny, poetic and completely her own — and Flying Monkeys feels to me like an especially exciting new work. It takes on difficult, volatile material without reducing anyone to a type or telling us too quickly what to think. The play keeps shifting under you: your sympathies move, your assumptions get challenged and what at first seems morally clear becomes much more complicated. There are no easy villains and no easy answers, which is exactly what I find so compelling about it.” 

For Falls, the shift from Lyric Opera to Redtwist reflects something essential about Chicago theater. He continued, “I cut my teeth in Chicago at Wisdom Bridge Theatre, one of the city’s first storefront theaters, a small space up two flights of stairs over a bar and a violin repair shop on Howard Street. I spent more than a decade of my life there, so coming to Redtwist really does feel like a homecoming. It’s one of Chicago’s finest theaters and there’s something about being back in a room this intimate that takes me right back to where I began.” 

“L.C. Bernadine has been an incredible friend and collaborator over the past few years, welcoming me to Chicago when I first made the move,” says Redtwist Artistic Director Dusty Brown. “After working together on the Independent Productions Initiative, I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate artistically with L.C. on her new play. Bringing Bob Falls on to direct spoke to the very thing that drew me to Chicago in the first place, the most incredible artists in the world can be found in the least likely of places. Some of our country’s greatest artists started their careers in Chicago storefronts and Bob Falls’s return is a reminder that artistic merit can’t be judged simply by the size of the theatre.”

Redtwist Theatre is producing Flying Monkeys in collaboration with the New Theatre Project. Peter Handler and Spencer Huffman will serve as producers. Founder of the New Theatre Project Spencer Huffman said, "Since our first production in 2024, L.C. has been pivotal in New Theatre Project's success as a producer. When the opportunity arose to co-produce her excellent new play with Bob directing, we jumped at it. This collaboration captures something essential about the Chicago theatre: the city's most notable director teams up with two small storefronts to produce a new play by an under-the-radar Chicago playwright. It's so exciting."

ABOUT L.C. BERNADINE, playwright 

The author of numerous plays and a frequent collaborator with The New Theatre Project, Bernadine was recently profiled in Newcity's "50 Players" as founder of the Independent Productions Initiative, which supports work outside ongoing companies. Her plays include The Whole Seamus Thing, co-written with Ben Auxier (Bramble Theatre); Welcome J-1 Students (University of Alabama Theater); Is You Is, a musical co-written with Nik Whitcomb and Erik Olsen about the 1930s “Races of Mankind” exhibit at The Field Museum (DCASE’s Chicago Cultural Center New Play Residency and then Broadway Rose Theatre, Portland, Oregon) and The Virginian, co-written with Spencer Huffman (City Lit Theatre). 

ABOUT ROBERT FALLS, director

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Robert Falls has directed new plays and reimagined classics, large-scale musical theater and opera in the United States and internationally. He began his career at Chicago’s Wisdom Bridge Theatre and later served as artistic director of Goodman Theatre for 35 years. His most recent productions include Richard Greenberg’s Holiday at the Goodman and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Falls’ many Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida.

His honors include a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, Helen Hayes Award, multiple Jeff Awards and the Savva Morozov Diamond Award from the Moscow Art Theatre. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2015.

ABOUT NEW THEATRE PROJECT, producer

The New Theatre Project is an independent theatre collective based in Chicago. The New Theatre Project intends to put artists at the far edge of their abilities so that they must discover something new to succeed. They believe there is nothing more moving than an artist on the brink. This process of artistic risk and discovery defines their work.

Owen Wister’s 1902 novel The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains has been adapted for the stage at least once (by Wister himself along with a co-adaptor) and has had five screen adaptations, not including the television series based on it. This leads to the question of why it is necessary to adapt this seminal Western novel once again for the stage. According to director Terry McCabe, “The value of any national myth lies in its availability to everyone.” The diverse cast certainly seems to enjoy the opportunity to bring the well-worn trappings of the myth of the American West to life, and, hey, who wouldn’t? Wister’s novel is considered the first to introduce the Wild West to the American mainstream, with its black hat/white hat dichotomy, rough justice and rugged individualism. With prose capturing the unspoiled glory of Wyoming, both the novel and this new adaptation by L.C. Bernadine and Spencer Huffman evoke a time and place that exist only in the imagination, but nevertheless have shaped the “American Character.” Is it valuable to return to those dusty streets? This production does not make that case. Is it fun? Most certainly, especially in this tightly written adaptation, under the inventive direction of McCabe, with a creative and committed cast and design team.

L.C. Bernadine and Spencer Hufffman have done an excellent job of adapting Wister’s 400+-page novel into a stage version that clocks in at just over two hours, including the intermission. The play hews closely to the plot of the original, though the novel’s narrator has been eschewed with his elegiac praise of the Virginian and the Wyoming landscape assigned to other characters. In making the myth available to everyone, the playwrights have also made a few changes; for example, Steve calls The Virginian “Whiskey” instead of “Jeff” (for Jefferson Davis, which would be discordant in this production) to honor his Southern roots. The dialogue, much of it lifted from the novel, is remarkably fresh and entertaining, though the playwrights have used the time constraints and desire to preserve elements of the novel’s descriptive prose as an excuse to give proportionally more stage time to the female characters, which also allows for a more critical gaze at the mythological Western version of masculinity. There are also nods to the economic disparities between owners and employees, and the hardships faced by small-scale ranchers, as well as the nascent Women’s Suffrage Movement. Despite these changes, Bernadine and Huffman’s adaptation is a faithful rendering of the American classic.

Director Terry McCabe has more practice than anyone in dealing with the constraints of the tiny City Lit Theater space, and it shows in his ability to effectively shoehorn a sprawling Western into its confines without sacrificing the sprawl. First and foremost, McCabe embraces the fact that this is a stage adaptation, and his production deploys a wide range of theatrical devices with aplomb. He also embraces the sepia-toned nostalgia for an America that never was. The cowboys look cool in their jeans and gun belts, the ladies elegant in their high-waisted skirts. The costumes by LaVisa Williams perfectly capture this Western fantasy world. Resident set designer Ray Toler has created a set that bends and folds and pops out into various locations, with the Great Plains represented by beautiful rolling fabric drops. Though smoothly executed by the cast, the scene changes are helped along by composer/cellist Kellee Vandervall’s score, which emulates and incorporates American folk music (and Wister’s own compositions). Liz Cooper’s lighting design helps recreate the sundrenched colors of the Plains and focus the action. Steven Widerman of the Puppet Company designed the expressive horses, which are integral to the action.

The large ensemble cast is uniformly strong, smoothly moving from location to location, transforming the set as they go. The well-choreographed scene changes never break the momentum of the performances. Robert Hunter Bry brings a quiet, intelligent charm to the Virginian, convincingly filling the shoes of ranch foreman and architect of change in the West. As his love interest Molly Wood, the schoolmarm from Vermont, Liz Falstreau embodies the well-mannered rebelliousness of her role, and makes a solid case for reexamining the traditions of Western vigilantism. Ben Auxier brings enough dimension to the antagonist role of Trampas to almost garner sympathy—and enough to make some good points about the inequities of the democracy of the Wild West—but fortunately comes up short on this front to create a compelling villain. David Fink’s performance as animal-loving, gullible Shorty is affecting as he maintains his heart through adversity. Aaron Sarka is an affable, winningly impetuous Steve. Varris Holmes is charismatic and grounded as Judge Taylor, while bringing the necessary gravitas to the role. As Mrs. Taylor, Andie Dae brings just a touch of aristocracy to her strong-willed character. Tom Lally is imperious as the cruel ranch owner Balaam. Rounding out the cast of cowpokes are DC Cathro, Tyler DeLoatch, Tony DiPisa, and Huy Nguyen; each creates a distinct character that goes beyond the archetypes they are portraying to breathe life into the sometimes cliched dialogue. Likewise, as Molly’s relatives back home, Hilary Hensler and marssie Mencotti fully realize the characters behind their Vermont attitudes. Adele Watel brings spirit to both her Young Bride and sharp-tongued barmaid Krista. The horses could not horse without horse without the talented puppeteers who animate them: Linsey Falls, Sarah Franzel, Adele Watel and David Wiesenhahn, who allow the animals to not only move but express emotion. The horses are also given life by their “riders,” who each give them a distinct gait. 

The trend in Westerns these days is to go beyond the mythologizing to the harsh brutality that inspired it. This production does the opposite, though it does open the door to a more inclusive portrayal of the myth. The dialogue pays lip service to condemning extra-judicial killing, vendettas settled by showdowns at sundown, and unbridled masculinity, but the adaptation does not veer far enough from its source to make a serious stab at an alternate morality. The Virginian unabashedly celebrates the men who won the West with horses and six-shooters and opened the land to those who would come after with railroads and coal shovels. Terry McCabe’s City Lit Theater production of Owen Wister’s The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains, as adapted by L.C. Bernadine and Spencer Huffman, is an enjoyable, fast-paced, inoffensive step back into a time that never really was, but that inspired generations, now made available to everyone.

The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains runs through February 20 at City Lit Theater at 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue, on the second floor of the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church. Performances take place Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 3:00, as well as Mondays February 7 and 14 at 7:30. Tickets are $34, seniors $29, and students and military $12. Information about the run, including COVID policies and transportation, are available at www.citylit.org or by phone at 773-293-3682.