Refracted is honored to receive 10 Jeff Award nominations, and thrilled to celebrate Chicago’s 2023 theatrical season with other nominees at the awards ceremony on March 25.
Photo by Joe Mazza
NewCity Stage has announced it’s annual “Players 50: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago,” and Refracted Theatre is honored that our co-artistic directors, Tova Wolff and Graham Miller, were chosen as “Rising Stars and Storefront Stalwarts.”
“After two seasons in New York City, Refracted Theater Company co-founders and co-artistic directors Tova Wolff and Graham Miller moved the company to Chicago in 2021. “Chicago always felt like the place where we could build the kind of community where you can be true to what you stand for,” says Miller. Last year’s production of “Tambo & Bones” showcased Refracted’s goal of producing works that find the gray in the black-and-white. “Our mission,” says Wolff, “is to ask our audience to wrestle with divisive questions in order to analyze their own biases and engage in an empathic discourse with one another.” (Tristan Bruns)”
Check out the full article here.
After several weeks of shows to incredible audiences, here’s a photo recap of the critically acclaimed, Jeff Award Recommended Tambo & Bones.
Photography by Ricky Kluge
We are ecstatic to announce the cast and team of our fall production, Tambo & Bones by Dave Harris! The cast features William Anthony Sebastian Rose II as “Tambo” and Patrick Newson Jr. as “Bones,” with Timothy Bernard Felton, Michael-Ellen Walden, and understudies Jordan Wallace and Emil Ginter. Chicago audiences will recognize William Anthony Sebastian Rose II from his performance in Whistleblower at Theater Wit and Patrick Newson from his work in Definition Theatre's production of Alaiyo.
They’re beautiful, they’re talented, they’re going to absolutely blow your mind.
Not only is our cast stacked, but so is our production team. These actors will be led by the inimitable Mikael Burke, known for his work in Chicago at About Face, Remy Bumppo, Story Theatre and more.
The production team is rounded out with some of the best talent Chicago has to offer:
Lorenzo Blackett (Production Manager),
Joel Willson (Assistant Director)
Sydney Lynne (Scenic Design)
Ethan Korvne (Sound Designer/Composer)
Eric Watkins (Lighting Designer)
Erne Ospina López (Projection Designer)
Kotryna Hilko (Costume Designer)
Michael Corrie (Props)
Ashton Goren (Stage Manager)
Carli Shapiro (Assistant Stage Manager)
Becca Venable (Technical Director)
Gregory Geffrard (Fight Choreographer)
Megan E. Pirtle (Hair & Makeup Consultant)
Refracted Co Announces Cast for Mathilde Dratwa’s A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein Directed by Tova Wolff
The cast of Chicago talent includes Mackenzie Jones as Francince, Jaeda Larkins as Zoe, Rachel Hauben Combs as Francesca, and William Ryder as The Davids.
About the Play:
In 2018, the year after the New York Times published the first sexual abuse allegations involving Harvey Weinstein, David Mamet wrote a play. David Mamet, a legendary voice of the American theater, is known for his provocative plays about sex, masculinity, and power, most of which premiered in the 1970’s - 1990’s. In the last two decades, Mamet and his work have been widely criticized for exalting the male ego while devaluing women’s voices by creating shallow female characters with little to no agency. Which is why many were incredulous when, in 2018, he was given production rights to write and direct Bitter Wheat, a “farce” about a thinly veiled Weinstein-stand-in character committing cruel acts of sexual abuse (a show which saw a poorly reviewed run at The Garrick Theatre in 2019.)
Also in 2019, Mathilde Dratwa, a Brooklyn based playwright, wrote a play, and this is the play you are about to see. This is the first time this play has been seen/heard in Chicago, so we are thrilled at the chance to see what it feels like in front of a Chicago audience. You are very much a part of this experience! So stay alert…you never know what monsters might be here tonight.
