TWELFTH NIGHT ON TWELFTH NIGHT
January: Unrehearsed commemorates the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s stumbling off! We opened with our annual Twelfth Night on Twelfth Night. After working on this play seven times, I am still learning new things about it!
MESSINA3004 (Much Ado About Nothing)
February: I joined Otherworld Theatre for MESSINA3004: A Dystopian Retelling of Much Ado About Nothing. I played an especially nebbishy Leonato.
THE WAYWARD WOMEN (Or: Nothing To Do)
March-April: We Three debuted The Wayward Women (or: Nothing To Do), a new Elizabethan Comedy about gender roles, post-war peacetime, and good ol’ fashioned doin’ it!
“ I cannot recommend this show enough… It is original, playful, hilarious… A solid 4 out of 4 stars.” – Patrick Bushnell
AS YOU LIKE IT
April: Unrehearsed staged As You Like It for the first time in Chicago. For the second time in my life, I got to perform “All the world’s a stage,” this time with the Duke Senior as a visual aid!
[THUS DIE I]
April: Unrehearsed joined Two Pence Theatre for [Thus Die I], a celebration of all things Shakespeare and Death. April 23rd, in commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s lamented demise. After an evening of depressing death scenes, we were happy to add some levity with Pyramus & Thisbe. And I got to fulfill a twenty-year ambition by portraying Wall!
UNREHEARSED SHAKESPEARE WORKSHOP
May – June: Back by popular demand, Unrehearsed Shakespeare held another workshop, recruiting student performers for Hamlet Unrehearsed.
COUNTESS BATHORY
June: We Three struck again with Countess Bathory, an Elizabethan tragedy about the infamous “Blood Countess,” who allegedly bathed in the blood of her virgin serving girls to maintain her legendary beauty.
“GO SEE THIS PLAY!! Gorgeous writing and truly exceptional acting. Mary Kate Arnold brings the countess fully to life, imbuing her with a humanity and beauty that makes her actions all the more believable and horrifying. A wonderful evening at the theater!” – Laura S.
“Dark subject matter handled deftly, surprising moments of humor and pathos… it was very pleasant to hear non-Shakespearean verse that was just as passionate and fiery as the Bard’s.” – Jeremiah Barr
“And, of course, the play would be nothing without the expertly crafted writing.” – Stephanie Plus Verb
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have to see the show! But you might wanna leave the kiddies at home. It is brutal, intense, tension so thick you could cut it with a knife (might take a couple passes even). One HELL of a show!” – Dylan Crow
“One hell of a show… It is not very often you can see a bold performance like that even in a place like Chicago.” – Artur Michalowicz
HAMLET
July – August: Unrehearsed staged Hamlet for the first time in Chicago.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE? Unrehearsed Hamlet finally came to Chicago! Featuring a completely different cast each night, three different Hamlets helped created three markedly different performances of this, the greatest of Shakespeare’s masterpieces.
THE HOUR OF ERRORS
August: Unrehearsed headed out to Elgin, IL to perform Comedy of Errors with Janus Theatre!
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POETRY TALK
September: A scene from The Wayward Women was featured on Peter Storey’s Poetry Talk, a monthly show discussing contemporary poetics.
Guests included Jacob Saenz, Robyn Shanae, and myself. Immediately following my interview, The Wayward Women‘s Act 2, Scene 1 was performed, featuring Adrian Garcia, Gilly Guire, Alexandra Boroff, and Katy Jenkins reprising their original roles. My interview featured some gratifyingly boisterous laughter (especially from one particularly appreciative audience member), though this was soon dwarfed by the reaction to the scene itself. Admittedly, it’s easy to get a reaction in a scene where the characters talk almost exclusively about sex.
POLYXENA IN ORBIT / BUTCHER BOGGLE
October: Otherworld Theatre hosted its 2nd annual PARAGON play festival, the largest Sci-Fi/Fantasy play festival in the world! My play Butcher Boggle, a parable about moral relativism, was just one of the 40 plays that were staged. I also directed Stuart Bousel’s Polyxena in Orbit.
HELL
October: The Accidental Shakespeare Company presented a staged reading of Upton Sinclaire’s Hell, a darkly comic indictment of contemporary capitalism that is still sadly relevant today. I was blessed to double as Mammon, the devil of Greed who takes over the management of Earth, and “Big” Bill Haywood, a coal miner and socialist revolutionary.
STEAMPUNK CHRISTMAS CAROL
December: EDGE Theatre produced my Steampunk Christmas Carol (and this time, I got to direct!) in rep with Commedia Beauregard’s A Klingon Christmas Carol. Much sci-fi! So Holiday! It was a remarkably warm and reassuring production with many of my favorite artists.
KING LEAR UNREHEARSED
December: Unrehearsed closed its fourth season with King Lear! Two very different but equally exciting audiences made each performance an incredible and unique experience, as did our brief fore into larger venues with the Public House Theatre.
