BOHO THEATRE ANNOUNCES LINEUP FOR 11TH SEASON

Following up the success of its landmark 10th anniversary season, BoHo Theatre is excited to announce its lineup for its 11th Season. BoHo has gained widespread acclaim for the quality and range of its programming, including leading Chicago with the most non-Equity Jeff Award nominations for the past two years. In choosing its next  season, BoHo continues its commitment to celebrating the Bohemian Pillars of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love and exploring them through the lens of human relationships.

Beginning with its 11th Season, BoHo will begin presenting each of its seasons in a single calendar year, bucking the current theatrical trend of presenting season programming from fall to spring. The upcoming 2015 Season will explore Beauty with Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, Truth with Jeffrey Hatcher’s Scotland Road, Love Dogfight by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Peter Duchan, and Freedom with a special benefit gala.

THE SEASON IN DEPTH

ORDINARY DAYS
Music and lyrics by Adam Gwon
February 13 – March 15, 2015 at the Heartland Studio
Representing the Bohemian Pillar of Beauty

From one of musical theatre's most exciting new composers comes Ordinary Days, a refreshingly honest and funny musical about making real connections in the city that never sleeps.  In the bustle and routine of New York, Ordinary Days tells the story of four everyday people discovering that their dreams, their passions, and their struggles are anything but ordinary. True to BoHo’s Bohemian ideals, this intimate musical is about finding the beauty and the extraordinary in the everyday. The LA Times calls Ordinary Days "arrestingly poetic", and the New York Times says this is "a quietly affecting show."



SCOTLAND ROAD
By  Jeffrey Hatcher
May 15 – June 14, 2015 at the Heartland Studio
Representing the Bohemian Pillar of Truth

A  young woman in 19th century clothing is found floating on an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic. When rescued, she speaks only one word—“Titanic” –before falling into a frustrating silence. Using his wealth to bend the rules, an obsessed aristocrat brings her to an isolated facility on the coast of Maine with the sole purpose of getting her to talk, and to admit that the idea that she is a survivor of the famed sunken ship somehow transported through time is a fraud. But nobody here is truly who they appear to be, and with revelations come both transcendent and dire consequences. After finding success with last fall’s Veronica’s Room, BoHo brings to the stage another suspenseful mystery, one that begins as an investigation into the true identity of one woman and ends as a journey of understanding identity for all involved.


DOGFIGHT
Music and Lyrics by  Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Book by Peter Duchan
October – November (dates TBD) at Theater Wit
Representing the Bohemian Pillar of Love

November 21, 1963. On the eve of their deployment to a small but growing conflict in Southeast Asia, three young Marines set out for one final boys’ night of partying, debauchery, and maybe a little trouble. But when Corporal Eddie Birdlace meets Rose, an awkward and idealistic waitress whom he enlists to win a cruel bet with his fellow recruits, she rewrites the rules of the game and teaches him the power of compassion. With some of the best new music on the current musical stage, Dogfight begins as a rousing song and dance adventure and ends as an intimate story about finding the beauty and comfort of love in the most unsuspecting places. BoHo is thrilled to present this new musical based on the Warner Brothers film. Time Out New York calls Dogfight “easily the most delicate, surprising, musically satisfying score since Spring Awakening.”


TICKETS ON SALE SOON
BoHo Memberships are unique subscription packages that allow for flexibility in choosing productions and dates, as well reserved seating and invitations to exclusive events. Membership packages for BoHo’s 11th season will go on sale in September online at www.BoHoTheatre.com


SEASON 10 CONCLUDES THIS FALL

BoHo’s 10th Season isn’t quite done yet! The 2013-2014 Season will come to a close with Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s sweeping musical Parade, opening October 16th at Theater Wit. Look for more information on this exciting production soon!

From the Desk of the Executive Director - April 2014

CONGRATULATIONS to all the 2014 Jeff Nominees. Your hard work and passionate commitment to Chicago Theatre is one of Chicago's biggest treasures. I am so proud to work with you, and so happy to be a part of such an extraordinary community of artists.

Welcome to April - Welcome to Spring

After surviving a record-setting winter in Chicago, I am so relieved to finally celebrate Spring. BoHo Theatre Company Members have been a flutter with activity! Sean Thomas has just recently closed Sandalwood with Tympanic Theatre while our fabulous Casting Associate, Stephanie Sullivan has been hard at work with Fox Valley Rep working on Cheaper By The Dozen. Greg Foster, who recently garnered a Jeff Nomination for his role in Spamalot, is also  heading towards his opening of Kokandy Production's Assassins, playing Charles Guiteau. Meanwhile,and our own Peter Robel will be starting rehearsals for our summer musical of Myths & Hymns in just a few short weeks.

Announcement: BoHo Theatre Welcomes New Company Member 

Eleanor Katz

I'm pleased to announce that BoHo recently on-boarded a new company member. Many of you may remember Eleanor Katz from her role as Anna Hauptmann in our production of Hauptmann in 2013. Eli will be working along side our Space Coordinator, Greg Foster, to assist our renters at the Heartland Studio. Look for Eli around the city - she'll be seen with the Signal Ensemble Theatre in the premier of The Next Thing, "a new musical spanning six years, five movies, four deals, three significant others, two Oscars, and one combustible relationship".
We are so happy to welcome Eli on board!

Arts & Business Council - Business Volunteers for the Arts

As you may recall, last Fall BoHo partnered with the Arts & Business Council - Chicago to participate in their Business Volunteers for the Arts program (BVA). The company and board has worked diligently alongside our fantastic BVA's to craft a three year strategic plan. As part of this initiative, we have identified and explored how to help on-board new faces to help us with this ambitious plan. Keep your eyes on our website for information on open positions, and how to get involved.

Upcoming Events:

Myths & Hymns
June 13 – July 13, 2014
presented at Heartland Studio
Directed by Peter Robel
Music Direction by Nick Sula

Parade
Oct 18 – Nov 16, 2014
presented at Theater Wit
Directed by Linda Fortunado
Music Direction by Matthew Deitchmann
(look for information on auditions in the coming weeks!)

2015 Season Reveal Party - Coming Summer, 2014!

Announcing the 2012-2013 Season!

 On Tuesday, March 13, the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble gathered at COOPER'S CHICAGO to celebrate the announcement of the 2012-2013 Season. With the announcement now official, and the pizza put away, we wanted to share our announcement with our online community. Keep your eyes on BoHo Theatre's website as more information about the coming season will be posted soon!

BoHo Theatre strives to examine how love, truth, beauty and freedom thrive in our everyday lives. Focusing on the larger events to the everyday regularities, our stories focus on these four pillars.

They are seemingly simple, yet so wonderfully complex. 

And now...The 2012-2013 Season (listed in order of production):

Ordinary Days - LOVE

Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon

Ordinary Days is a perfect example of searching for something so simple in a world so complex.

 

The story is about 4 people struggling to connect; searching for fulfillment, happiness, beauty, love, friendship and simplicity in an overly complex, confusing and often impersonal world.  The production centers on two couples – one dealing with their past in order to find love in the present, the other an unlikely pair of companions lost in the complexity of the everyday searching for a simple story they can share.  All come to find that the pieces of our lives, as jumbled as they may seem, do fit together (even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes). 

 

Funny, charming, witty, with a huge heart…  and a lot of LOVE…

Pygmalion – Beauty

By George Bernard Shaw

The production will be directed by Stage Left Artistic Director Vance Smith, and BoHo Theatre's Peter Robel acting as Associate Director.

This co-production with Stage Left will explore the bohemian themes of identity and perception of BEAUTY. As Eliza suggests, the difference between a lady and a flower girl lies not in how she looks or speaks, but rather in how she is treated. Shaw asks us to examine how each of us perceives BEAUTY in our lives -- not simply in the conventional, but also in the ordinary and mundane. This openness to discovery and appreciation allows beauty to flourish, where it otherwise might never have been revealed.

This is an extremely exciting opportunity to join with venerable Chicago theatre company Stage Left theatre to mount this as a co-production. This will allow both companies to pool our talents and resources to tell this story in our unique way on the 100th anniversary of the first production in Vienna.

 

Hauptmann - TRUTH

John Logan

March 1, 1932: a 20 month old toddler was abducted from his home in New Jersey.  Two months later his body was discovered a short distance from his home. Cause of death? A massive skull fracture. 

 

After an investigation that lasted two years, a suspect was arrested and charged, and the “Trial of the Century” was held in 1935. That trial found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the murder in the first degree of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr and was executed in 1936.  Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence till the end. 

 

Whether or not Hauptmann was guilty of the so-called crime of the century, one verdict is clear from the play: his trial was a disservice to the judicial system.

 

BoHo Theatre's production doesn't seek to answer the question of innocence or guilt, but looks at the trial of the century in a personal and theatrical way.  As Hauptmann retlls his story, the guards turn into characters, allowing the audience to relive the critical moments. Hauptmann is a dark investigation of TRUTH.

Kiss of the Spiderwoman - FREEDOM

Music and Lyrics by Kander and Ebb

Book by Terrence McNally

 

Winning the 1993 Tony Award for Best Musical, our final show explores the question: What happens when a gay window dresser and a straight Marxist guerrilla are thrown together in jail?

 

The lead character, Molina, lives in a fantasy world in order to flee the reality of torture, fear and humiliation, and Valentin is happy to introduce this fantasy world to his new cellmate, a revolutionary that’s a key to eliminating a political terrorist threat to the state.  The only part of his fantasy world that scares him is the presence of the spider woman, who kills with a kiss. 

 

Playing with the contrast between the gritty reality of police-state torture and the beautiful fantasy world Molina creates, Kiss of the Spiderwoman is all about FREEDOM. 

 

From the obvious desire to be free from prison, to the more complex ideas of freedom from a reality that’s immersed in political and social strife, and freedom of personal identity, Kiss is theatrical, comedic, charming, and brutal.  It is, as the NY Times says, “the story of an uncloseted, unhomogenized, unexceptional gay man who arrives at his own heroic definition of masculinity.” 

 

Thank you to everyone who came out to support BoHo Theatre! We look forward to welcoming you next season.