Sponsor an Illinois Theatre Production
Every year, Illinois Theatre mounts six productions, four in our Studio Theatre and two in the Playhouse Festival Theatre. These productions are our laboratories, offering students opportunities to hone their skills with an audience; to stage manage 0ur professional-level productions; to design and build sets, props and costumes; to develop media and lighting designs and see them realized; to work with resident and guest directors as dramaturgs and assistants. Not surprisingly, the larger our budgets, the more opportunities we have to hire leading guest artists, to invest in new technologies, and to offer our students more freedom to let their design and technical imaginations grow. Your support of a specific production helps us maximize those opportunities. Sponsors are recognized in the program, invited to the opening night reception, and have the opportunity to attend rehearsal.
The 2019-20 Season offers these sponsorship opportunities:
To sponsor one of these productions, please click the link below and indicate which production you’d like to support.
And thank you!
Gem of the Ocean (directed by: Chuck Smith, guest director) In 1904 Pittsburgh, formerly enslaved woman Aunt Ester holds the African American community together. Aunt Ester is a soul washer, restoring the spiritual balance of troubled individuals. Her powers and community are tested when newcomer Citizen Barlow refuses to accept responsibility for his actions. Part of August Wilson’s celebrated Pittsburgh Cycle, Illinois Theatre’s production is directed by long-time Wilson collaborator Chuck Smith and features a newly choreographed and composed City of Bones section in collaboration with Dance at Illinois.
Cabaret Wilkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! This joint production celebrates Krannert Center’s 50-year partnership with the School of Music, Lyric Theatre @ Illinois, Illinois Theatre, and Dance at Illinois. Come to the Cabaret and see the sexy, seedy Kit Kat dancers, doomed lovers Frau Schneider and Herr Schultz, and the inimitable Sally Bowles. With classic songs (“Maybe This Time,” “Two Ladies,” and of course the title song), fresh choreography, and an emphasis on the humanity of life in the Weimar Republic, this collaboration is sure to enchant.
Titus Andronicus (directed by Robert G. Anderson) Bloody, devastating, and darkly comic, Titus Andronicus was one of Shakespeare’s earliest commercial successes—and yet critics have sometimes dismissed the tragedy as a failure or as somehow “unShakespearean” for its abrupt tonal shifts and extreme violence, in particular its depiction of the rape and mutilation of its central female character. Loosely inspired by Shakespearean “original practices,” this streamlined and intimate production confronts the ethical challenges of staging this play for contemporary audiences.
Consider It Not So Deeply (directed by Lisa Gaye Dixon) Henry Wishcamper, member of the Goodman Theatre Artistic Collective, updates his 2007 The Polish Play. Hysterically funny but definitely NSFW, this conflation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, and today’s political landscape includes puppets, live sound effects, and the whole Polish army. Hold on to your hat for this bawdy, bumpy rollercoaster of a play!
The Wolves (directed by Nisi Sturgis) Almost every weekend, a girls’ competitive high school soccer team meets at the City Sports Dome. They come to play. They come to win. But life is not a level playing field. Over the course of several Saturdays, nine female warriors navigate the cacophony, the cruelty, and the courage of adolescence. They are their own. They are each other’s. They are The Wolves.
Lysistrata (directed by Jason Jang) Find out what happens when people barter their bodies for peace and justice. Aristophanes’ rumination on sex and war is as relevant now as in the 5th century BCE. Contemporary gender, racial, and sexual identities as well as political debates find ancient parallels in Illinois Theatre’s bawdy, brave reimagining of the classic text.