FREUD'S LAST SESSION Celebrates 200th Performance, 9/20

FREUD'S LAST SESSION will celebrate its 200th performance on Thursday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport, in Chicago. Following the performance, audience members will have an opportunity to meet with Mike Nussbaum and Coburn Goss and celebrate the 200th performance with complimentary cake and coffee from Bad Ass Coffee. The production has been extended multiple times and is now in final weeks, ending its successful Chicago run on November 11. Winner of the 2011 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play, the Midwest Premiere of FREUD'S LAST SESSION has received rave reviews and three Jeff Award nominations, including Best Play. Written by Mark St. Germain, under the direction of Tyler Marchant, the production stars local theater legend, Mike Nussbaum (Emmy, Drama Desk Award, four-time Jeff Award winner, and recent Sarah Siddons Award recipient), as "Sigmund Freud" and Coburn Goss (Vigils at the Goodman Theatre, Dead Man's Cell Phone at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Off Broadway When the Messenger is Hot at 59E59) as "C.S. Lewis."

Additional productions of FREUD'S LAST SESSION are already set to open into 2013 in major markets across the nation and around the world, including London, Madrid, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. Chris Jones of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE called FREUD'S LAST SESSION "Terrific!" and selected it as "Critic's Choice." The CHICAGO SUN-TIMES hailed it as "Compelling Theater!" THE HUFFINGTON POST exclaimed that the production "Clips Along with Wit and Charm!", WINDY CITY TIMES raved that it is "Intimate, Witty and Thought-Provoking!," and LAKE COUNTY JOURNAL called it "Fascinating, quick-witted, compelling!"

FREUD'S LAST SESSION centers on legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud, who invites the rising academic star C. S. Lewis to his home in London. Lewis, expecting to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a recent book, soon realizes Freud has a much more significant agenda. On the day England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex, and the meaning of life – only two weeks before Freud chooses to take his own. Not just a powerful debate, this is a profound and deeply touching play about two men who boldly addressed the greatest questions of all time. Mark St. Germain's celebrated new play was suggested by the bestselling book The Question of God by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., professor of psychology at Harvard University.

There have been an unusually large number of celebrity spottings at FREUD'S LAST SESSION in New York, including such luminaries as Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Neil Simon, Barbara Walters, Richard Gere, Jerry Stiller, Peter Bogdanovich, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, John Cleese, Patricia Heaton, Cornel West, Christiane Amanpour, Marcia Gay Harden, John Kander, Andy Rooney, Dick Cavett, Frank Oz, Dr. Ruth (8 times!), Peter Shaffer, The Amazing Kreskin, Celeste Holm, Victoria Jackson, TR Knight, Dan Lauria, Scott Adsit, and Tina Louise. Additionally, Chicago news anchor Ron Magers had a session.