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Season to kick off in November with THE SUFFRAGE PLAYS by Shaw and Evelyn Glover and conclude in June 2020 with World Premiere of Lauren Ferebee’s EVERY WAITING HEART.
Lauren Ferebee, winner of Artemisia Fall Festival 2018. Her play EVERY WAITING HEART will be developed at Artemisia to be presented as a world premiere in June 2020.
In a departure from the company’s previous production model, but not from its mission of fostering the development of new feminist plays, Artemisia Theatre will mount two fully staged productions in 2019-20 and forego its Fall Festival of New Play Readings. Artemisia’s previous seasons consisted of the Fall Festival and a single fully-staged production.
Artemisia Founding Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot says, “While we will continue to actively solicit and develop new scripts, we’re excited about the opportunity to champion new work by reaching the larger audiences that will be attracted to fully staged productions. Additionally, we will revisit landmark feminist dramas in full productions to celebrate and learn from these classic pieces.” In that spirit, the company’s 2019-20 season will include both an evening of one act plays from the canon of British Suffrage Drama of the early 20thCentury, and the World Premiere of the winner of Artemisia’s 2018 Fall Festival – the drama EVERY WAITING HEART, by Lauren Ferebee.
Playwright Lauren Ferebee and Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot are thrilled about their artistic collaboration and partnership.
Lauren Ferebee: “It means so much to me to be working with a theatre that privileges the complex and intricate narratives of women's lives. It is especially meaningful for this play, which looks at different generations of women and what strength has meant to them. I am proud to be working with a theatre whose namesake was one of the greatest women artists of all time, a theatre whose work carries her legacy into our shared future.”
Julie Proudfoot: "EVERY WAITING HEART is extremely special and sublime in its fierce feminist examination of the characters’ shared crisis of faith. Playwright Lauren Ferebee has given us something previously unseen and incredibly unique and inspiring."
FALL 2019 – THE SUFFRAGE PLAYS
Artemisia’s season opener will be THE SUFFRAGE PLAYS, running November 1-24 at The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. The program will be three one-act comedies focused on the importance of voting rights for women and will celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in America.
One of the most influential writers of suffrage plays was Evelyn Glover, who dramatized the arguments of working-class women in particular, because of the criticism that was leveled at the Suffrage Movement - that only middle-class women would benefit from sexual equality and the vote. Artemisia’s THE SUFFRAGE PLAYS will include two of her most popular plays. A CHAT WITH MRS. CHICKY, which depicts a conversation between a suffragette charwoman and an upper-class matron; and MRS. APPLEYARD’S AWAKENING. The latter play is a comedy in which an anti-suffrage activist comes to realize the fallacies and illogic of her views. THE SUFFRAGE PLAYS will also include George Bernard Shaw’s one-act comedy PRESS CUTTINGS, a farce satirizing British politicians and attitudes against suffrage. The comedy imagines a time when suffrage activism led to an imposition of martial law and a chaotic society.
SPRING 2020 – The World Premiere of EVERY WAITING HEART
Artemisia’s Spring 2020 production will be the World Premiere of EVERY WAITING HEART, by Lauren Ferebee. The drama will be performed at The Den in June 2020 and directed by Artemisia Founding Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot. This winner of Artemisia’s 2018 Fall Festival, EVERY WAITING HEART centers on the relationship between an overworked single mother and her rebellious teenaged daughter. Sherri and Annette have been an unbreakable mother-daughter duo since childhood, but Annette's sudden rebellion terrifies her mother. Desperate for help, Sherri goes to a speed-dating event at a Pentecostal church that unexpectedly changes the course of both of their lives and fractures the bond that has held them together for so long. A deep and intimate dive into what it means to be a strong woman, EVERY WAITING HEART is an unflinching examination of faith and the many variations of love.
ARTEMISIA’S COMMITMENT TO NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT
Artemisia will continue its annual search for all-new feminist plays that empower women. Chicago playwrights as well as playwrights with whom Artemisia has a working relationship will be invited to submit each year for consideration. Artemisia’s Artistic Director Julie Proudfoot will curate the submissions and select one play to be fully developed into a world or regional premiere production in Chicago. Ten plays and playwrights are finalists under consideration for Artemisia’s 2020-2021 Theatre Season.
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In proud partnership with media sponsor Windy City Times, Artemisia Theatre presents SWEET TEXAS RECKONING during National Pride Month, June 7th-30th.
The voice of Chicago's Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, and Queer community since 1985.
BE SURE TO CATCH THEM #DownAtTheDen
Artemisia's Midwest Premiere of SWEET TEXAS RECKONING, by Traci Godfrey, is funded in part by a grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.
Artemisia is supported by the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation's Gen Ops Plus strategy in the Chicago region provides general operations grants and an array of other kinds of support to help grantees sustain their artistry and strengthen their operations.
Artemisia's 2018-19 Theatre Season is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Artemisia Fall Festival 2018 was made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly.
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