New Colony Announces Season and New Ensemble Members

New Colony Announces Season and New Ensemble Members

Pictured: The playwrights and directors featured in The New Colony’s eleventh season include (clockwise from top left) Elise Marie Davis, Liam Fitzgerald, Fin Coe, Elyse Dolan, K.L. Parker, and Spenser Davis. | Photos by Joe Mazza/Brave Lux

The New Colony, under the artistic direction of Fin Coe and Stephanie Shum, has announced its 2019-20 season, to presented at its resident home, The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave.

This fall, The New Colony joins forces with Broken Nose Theatre to present the world premiere of Liam Fitzgerald’s sexually-charged comedy “Peg,” directed by Broken Nose Artistic Director Elise Marie Davis.

The season continues next spring with the world premiere of ensemble member K.L. Parker’s heartfelt ensemble family drama “Under the Tree,” directed by Spenser Davis.

Next summer, the season concludes with the world premiere of Fin Coe’s time-traveling quest to save the present “Other Rockpools,” directed by Elyse Dolan. (A reading of “Other Rockpools” is featured in The New Colony’s Uncharted Festival which begins this week).

“Our 11th Season is a sprawling, ambitious re-affirmation of all the ways we source and nurture new works in Chicago,” said Coe and Shum. “Three wildly imaginative world premieres, featuring a scorching bedroom comedy in co-production with our collaborators at Broken Nose, a Southern secret second family drama developed in our Writers’ Room program, and a timeline-hopping adventure developed from the ground up with our Ensemble; this season sprints out of the gate and never lets up. We can’t wait to share this wide range of stories that pivot, inspire, and speak to the heart of who we really are.”

The company is also bringing on four new ensemble members — Zoe Benditt, Lila Gilbert, Cedar Larson and Evan Sposato — and has charged Elyse Dolan as its director of new work. Katy King (formerly the company’s marketing director) will step into Dolan’s former role as director of education.

Tickets for the upcoming season’s productions will go on sale in August 2019 at www.thenewcolony.org.


The New Colony’s 2019-20 Season:
(descriptions from a press release)

November 13 – December 14, 2019
PEG – World Premiere/Co-Produced with Broken Nose Theatre
Written by Liam Fitzgerald
Directed by Broken Nose Theatre Artistic Director Elise Marie Davis
Featuring Co-Artistic Director Stephanie Shum with Gage Wallace

Peg is excited. Steve is nervous. Sure, they’ve opened a nice bottle of wine, dinner smells delicious… but the brand-new strap-on they ordered has just arrived, and tonight’s plan is to flip the script. Peg wants to peg Steve. And even though he was all for it initially, his last-minute hesitation will force this ordinary couple to face their kinks, quirks and societal conditioning, as they’re quickly reminded that gender politics follow them everywhere – including the bedroom.

April 1 – May 3, 2020
UNDER THE TREE – World Premiere
By ensemble member K.L. Parker
Directed by Spenser Davis

When her husband dies while out of town on a business trip, Delphi Rabbitt calls upon her children and sister to assist in planning the funeral arrangements in their town of Altoga, Texas. That is, until she discovers his body is traveling from Houston accompanied by another family… another wife, another son, another life that no one knew about. When both Rabbitt families find themselves under one roof, they’re forced to decide: is it possible to bury our grievances before we bury the man who deceived us all?

July 15 – August 15, 2020
OTHER ROCKPOOLS – World Premiere
By Co-Artistic Director Fin Coe
Directed by Elyse Dolan

In the summer of 2001, a renowned physicist invites three strangers to her family’s cabin. Horrified by the results of the recent Presidential election, the team of scientists set to work building an experimental machine with a wild and irresistible purpose: to get them the hell out of their awful timeline. Political differences, personality conflicts, and a disruptive drug-dealing pizza driver ratchet up the tension; as the machine grows closer to completion, the team must reckon with what they will do when it’s finally time to turn it on.

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