A pair of clownish musicians attempt to perform a duet for violin and piano, but a series of interruptions and distractions leads to gruesome complications, and hilarity ensues in this bleak meditation on the futility of love and all other human endeavors. Inspired by a 14-line theatrical fragment by the late East German playwright, Heiner Müller, HERZSTÜCK is a deconstruction of old, b&w silent film comedies — think Laurel & Hardy meets David Cronenberg. Read more

What begins as a one-night stand between Frankie, an over-worked, over-tired waitress and Johnny, a short order cook at the same diner, evolves into an honest and sometimes humorous evaluation of the traps of companionship, the pain of unrealized dreams, and the fear of true intimacy. When Johnny refuses to leave post-tryst, Frankie finds herself confronting feelings she would rather avoid, while exposing Johnny’s gusto as a guise masking his own insecurities. Against the backdrop of a New York City sunrise and a soundtrack of the most beautiful music ever written, the couple tramples into new territory of common ground and possibilities.Read more

An homage to Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park examines the evolution of a Chicago neighborhood over a fifty-year span. Act One takes place in 1959, as white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family. Act Two is set in the same house in 2009, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood faces gentrification. With the same cast appearing in both acts, Clybourne Park examines how people and places evolve over time and play different roles in society’s progress or the hindrance thereof.Read more