Steppenwolf Presents 3rd Annual GARAGE REP Featuring Oohrah!, He Who

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is set to present its 3rd annual GARAGE REP, featuring three productions in rotating repertory by some of Chicago’s most innovative storefront companies: LiveWire Chicago, Theatre Zarko and The Inconvenience. GARAGE REP will play a ten-week run February 2 – April 8, 2012 in The Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 N. Halsted St. Three play passes for GARAGE REP are currently on sale; single tickets go on-sale Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11 am.

The GARAGE REP 2012 Productions & Companies:

February 2 – April 8, 2012
LiveWire Chicago presents
Oohrah!
By Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Brad Akin
Featuring Peter Esposito, Joel Ewing*, Madeline Long*, Melissa Engle, Josh Odor, Calliope Porter
and Ian R. Tranberg

Surprised by her husband’s early return from a tour in Iraq, Sara is unprepared for the complications of his re-entry into civilian life. Tension simmers around their gun-obsessed teenage daughter, Sara’s oddball live-in sister Abby, and Abby’s newest infatuation – a sexy, young Marine who’s keeping a secret. Oohrah! turns a comic eye to a homecoming gone awry.

Bekah Brunstetter’s plays include A Long and Happy Life (Naked Angels), Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova, Collaboraction), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival), Oohrah! (Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater) and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Finborough Theater). She is a member of The Primary Stages Writer’s Group, a New Voices/New York Fellow with The Lark Play Development Center and the 2011 Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theater, London. Brad Akin is a company member at Steep Theatre where he has directed productions including Greensboro: A Requiem, Insignificance, Book of Days, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Under the Blue Sky. He also directed Where We Were Born as part of Steppenwolf’s 2011 NEXT UP Rep. Akin holds an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University.

The Oohrah! production team includes: Anders Jacobson* and Judy Radovsky* (scenic design), Eric Branson* (lighting design), Stephen Ptacek (sound design), Maria DeFabo (props design), Kendra Miller (dramaturg), Mary Ellen Rieck (stage manager) and Cory Conrad* (production manager).

LiveWire Chicago is a collective of artists who create theatre that reflects the current cultural landscape of our community through productions of original and contemporary works. www.livewirechicago.com
*Denotes LiveWire Collective members

February 3 – April 8, 2012
The Inconvenience presents
Hit the Wall
By Ike Holter*, directed by Eric Hoff
Featuring Walter Owen Briggs*, Manny Buckley, Daniel Desmaris, Desmond Gray, Steve Lenz, Layne Manzer, Shannon Matesky, Rania Salem Manganaro, Arturo Soria and Mary Williamson*

It’s the summer of ’69 and the death of music icon Judy Garland has emboldened her gay followers. A routine police raid on an underground Greenwich Village hotspot erupts in to a full-scale riot, the impetus of the modern gay rights movement. That’s the well-known, oft-rehearsed myth of Stonewall, anyhow. Smash that myth against the vivid theatrical imagination of playwright Ike Holter, add a howling live rock ‘n roll band, and you get the world premiere play, Hit the Wall. Remixing this historic confrontation reveals ten unlikely revolutionaries, caught in the turmoil and fighting to claim “I was there.”

Ike Holter’s pieces have been presented with Nothing Without a Company, ATC, City Lit, Stage 773, EP Theater and Mixed Blood Theater. He's the two time recipient of the Lorraine Hansberry award for Playwriting from the Kennedy Center's ACTF festival and a Many Voices fellowship from The Playwrights Center. He has had four shows produced with The Inconvenience, where he is a company member. Eric Hoff is a director and an activist, whose mission is to explore the intersection of beautiful art and social justice. He is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab. Next summer, he is directing What's the T? for About Face Youth Theatre. In New York, Eric serves as Operations Manager for ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble and is a co-founder of The Accidentals.

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