András Visky's JULIET - EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 8th!

THEATRE Y RETURNS TO ITS ROOTS WITH THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SHOW 
THAT LAUNCHED THE COMPANY 

András Visky’s JULIET  

EXTENDED DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND — NOW RUNNING THROUGH MARCH 8th!

After 300 solo performances of the beautifully haunting JULIET around the world, Melissa Lorraine reunites with director Kevin V. Smith for a richly imagined new staging.
 

“A clear-eyed, unrelenting journey to the heart of things." (Chicago Reader)

"Lorraine gives a performance that will lodge itself in your memory long after you've left the theater." (Chicago Tribune)

Theatre Y is proud to premiere a new staging of András Visky's lacerating, loving monologue JULIET at their performance space at 4546 N. Western Ave. Written in tribute to his mother, the work is colored with myths Shakespearean and Biblical. It is the true story of a Juliet without her Romeo, arrested and deported with her seven children to the Romanian hinterland under the Communist regime of the 1950s. 

Having performed JULIET over 300 times world-wide, Theatre Y artistic director Melissa Lorraine returns to it with director Kevin V. Smith, whose lush and emotional new staging weaves in a chorus of mothers and their babies to dramatize the play’s poignant commentary on motherhood and the existence of eternal love in a deeply oppressive society. 

András Visky’s JULIET is the sixth Theatre Y production offered to the public
Free of charge as part of the FREE THEATRE MOVEMENT!
JULIET is EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 8th! Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm, and Sundays at 4pm
For more information or to reserve your seat, visit www.theatre-y.com,
email info@theatre-y.com or call 708-209-0183.

Seating is guaranteed for Theatre Y Members, who generously underwrite the company and enable each show to be offered free of charge. Members of the public are admitted at the door at no charge. Membership contributions can be made at theatre-y.com or, by phone at 708-209-0183.

Director Kevin V. Smith, assistant director/choreographer Daiva Bhandari (RE|Dance Group), sound designer/composer Dominic Johnson (Carnegie Hall/Drunk History) with Jeff Award winning vocal coach Nicholas Tonozzi, Theatre Y’s set designer Henry Wilkinson, costume designer Rebecca Hinsdale, and technical director Cody Beyer, lighting designer Tyler King, additional content devisor Jessica Anne (Neo-Futurists), props designer Alanna Gerardi, dramaturg Amber Robinson (TUTA), graphic designer Halina Hubrienko, and production stage manager Emily Bragg.

Starring Melissa Lorraine (Theatre Y’s Co-Founding Artistic Director), and introducing a chorus of mothers and babies: Simina Contras, Milan Campbell, Christian Jones, Miah Jones, Tania Gillian Musso, Emma Xareni Musso, Gabrielle Cross, Emmaline Cross, and Franklin Cross.       

Playwright András Visky (born April 13, 1957) is a Hungarian-Romanian poet, playwright and essayist and the resident dramaturg at Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Theatre, Romania, where he also holds the position of associate artistic director.

In 1958 Visky's father, Ferenc Visky, was sentenced to 22 years in prison and forced labor by the Romanian Communist authorities for "the crime of organization against socialist public order." Shortly after, his wife and their seven children, including the 2-year-old Visky, were deported to the Baragan. In 1964, his father and other political prisoners were released during a short-lived period of relative thaw during which the regime relaxed its repressive policies. Visky himself was released the same year along with his mother and siblings.

Visky joined the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj as dramaturg in 1990. This was also the beginning of his long professional collaboration with Gábor Tompa, the artistic director of the theatre. The pair have worked together on innumerable performances, including plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ionesco, Caragiale, Gombrowicz and Beckett, and Tompa has directed Visky's Juliet, Tanítványok, Hosszú Péntek, Visszaszületés and Alkoholisták. Visky has also worked with directors Dragos Galgotiu, Mihai Maniutiu, Robert Raponja, David Zinder, Robert Woodruff and Karin Coonrod. He has led workshops or taught as a guest lecturer at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (Budapest), Northern Illinois University (DeKalb IL), the University of Michigan (Kalamazoo MI), the University of California, San Diego (CA), Yale School of Drama (New Haven CT), Károli Gáspár University (Budapest), Josai International University (Tokyo, Japan), and Osaka University (Osaka, Japan). In 2017 he spoke at the European Division of the Library of Congress.

His plays have been staged in several countries including Romania, Hungary, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, England, Scotland and the United States. He holds a Doctor of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Theatre and Film, Budapest and since 1994 he has lectured at the Babes-Bolyai University in the Department of Theatre and Television. He is one of the co-founders and the former executive director of Koinónia Publishing.

Director Kevin V. Smith  is a queer feminist theatre artist and the former Associate Artistic Director of Theatre Y, where Kevin’s directing credits include Medea, The Misunderstanding, Exiles, and The Ash Girls…. Assistant directing credits at Theatre Y include Juliet (2010) and Happy Days. Kevin is a distinguished actor and a four-time Non-Equity Jeff Award nominee for TUTA Theatre’s Radio Culture (Best Performer in a Play, 2019); Red Theatre’s Taste (Best Actor in a Play, 2017); and Mary-Arrchie Theatre’s Our Bad Magnet (Best Supporting Actor in a Play and Best Ensemble, 2009). Kevin was named Chicago Stage Review’s Best Actor of the Year in 2011 for Theatre Y’s Vincent River. Other acting credits at Theatre Y include Penelope, O Penelope and The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez. Off-Broadway acting credits include Jean Genet’s The Maids X 2 (EgoPo/Cocteau). Regional credits include Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (EgoPo). Other Chicago acting credits include roles at Goodman Theatre, Oracle Theatre, The Gift Theatre Co., Sanculottes Theatre Co., Tooth and Nail Ensemble, and Lake Como in Rome, among others. Kevin has trained extensively in Viewpoints and Grotowski techniques both domestically and abroad. Juliet marks ten years of collaboration with Melissa Lorraine across fifteen productions.

Starring Theatre Y Co-Founding Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine - After graduating from Northern Illinois University in 2002 with a B.F.A. in acting, she became a company member of Studio K in Budapest, Hungary.  In 2006, she co-founded Theatre Y with Director Christopher Markle, an International Theater Company, based in Chicago, Illinois. In 2006, Lorraine premiered the English language version of Transylvanian writer András Visky’s JULIET with over two hundred performances worldwide. After the death of co-founder Christopher Markle, she became sole Artistic Director and COO, selecting and casting all plays, and seeking ever more international maestros with whom to collaborate.  Starred in Visky’s I KILLED MY MOTHER, earning a Chicago’s Best Actress Orgie Award and a Ben Brantley feature on the cover of the New York Times Art Section when invited to present at LaMama in New York: "an almost elemental presence.”  Directed VINCENT RIVER, about which The Chicago Reader lauded Lorraine for turning even an “overwritten” and “implausible script” into “probing, harrowing, hallucinogenic truth,” and named her one of the 6 Stars of 2012 for her performance in Visky's PORN: 1989 A BUTTERFLY. In 2013 Lorraine directed the world premiere of The Binding, a collaboration between Theatre Y and two acclaimed Serbian/Hungarian choreographers, which was a cover feature of the Chicago Reader.  Collaborating with Theatre du Soleil’s Georges Bigot for one year (2015-16), she developed the Theatre Y Ensemble of 14 actors, according to the traditions of the Theatre du Soleil. Lorraine now leads this ensemble to discover a common language and a new way to work, searching for a way to create theater without the “dictator.” In 2018 she began to research Movement Therapy for Trauma Rehabilitation, and teaches both harmed and responsible parties across the city of Chicago.

Theatre Y creates challenging and innovative theater that addresses the contradictions of the human experience. The following values and practices form the foundation of our work: 1) We operate as in INTERNATIONAL laboratory, inviting artists from diverse cultures and backgrounds, because this exchange enriches our work. 2) Inspired by director Anne Bogart, we believe that “all great life-changing work made for the theater has       historically been made by companies.” That is why Theatre Y has constituted itself as a  continuously training ENSEMBLE devoted to experimentation and artistic excellence. 3) We joined the FREE THEATRE MOVEMENT to make work for our community and remove all financial barriers that would exclude anyone.

“If they were creating their art under a corrupt and brutal regime, they would no doubt have already been imprisoned and would quite possibly be dead by now…it is as if you are watching the ghosts of great artists poignantly, vehemently and posthumously rage against the very structural machine of human deprivation.”  (Chicago Stage Review)

For more information and to reserve your ticket, visit http://www.theatre-y.com/.