Photo: Saverio Truglia

Jason Grote’s postmodern revision of the “Arabian Nights” was a big hit for Collaboraction when they staged the play’s Chicago premiere last fall, and so the show returns, after a week at Theater on the Lake, for a month-long run at the company’s new digs in the Flat Iron Arts Building. It’s not difficult to figure out why the show was so popular—it’s a heady, fresh and intriguingly complicated piece of theater—both head-scratchingly dense and cheekily fleet.

Dahna, a Middle-Eastern American woman, and Alan, an American Jew, modern-day extrapolations of Scheherazade and Sultan Shahriyar, are a couple who form the core of  a play so willfully labyrinthine as to include Jorge Luis Borges (literary figure and maze obsessive) as a character. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Piven Theatre:

Piven Theatre Workshop Announces 2011-2012 Season: Celebrating Historic 40th Anniversary!

Evanston, IL – Piven Theatre Workshop proudly announces its 2011-2012 season! The exciting programs we’re offering this season are a celebratory retrospective on our 40 year history, mission & legacy. Productions include the world premiere of Cities of Light, an evening of theatrical cabaret with Rebecca Joy Fletcher and Encores: After the Theatre And Other Stories directed by Co-Founder Joyce Piven, featuring classic Piven Theatre adaptations of Chekhov stories originally created by Byrne and Joyce Piven as well as Sarah Ruhl. This season will also include a special Anniversary Production by our 2012 Young People’s Company performance troupe. Read the rest of this entry »