Strawdog Theatre Company Announces Jessica Dickey's CHARLES IVES TAKE ME HOME, May 9 - June 21, Directed by Keira Fromm

Keira Fromm Makes Her Strawdog Debut Directing this Dynamic and Comic Tug-of-War of Generational Estrangement, Passion, Music and Basketball 

CHICAGO -Strawdog Theatre Company and Interim Artistic Director Hank Boland are proud to announce the final production to their 2013 – 2014 season, Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home, May 9 – June 21, direction by Keira Fromm with music direction by Strawdog Theatre Company Member Mike Przygoda and original music composition by Christopher Kriz, at Strawdog Theatre Company, 3829 N. Broadway Street. Preview performance tickets are $15 with performances Friday, May 9, Saturday May 10, Thursday, May 15 and Friday, May 16 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m. There is a Board Preview performance, Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m., with $50 tickets that include access to a post-performance reception. Opening/press night is Monday, May 19 at 8 p.m. Industry night is Monday, June 2 at 8 p.m. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Single tickets are $28 and are currently on sale. Subscriptions, group, senior and student discounts are also available. Tickets may be ordered online at strawdog.org or by calling OvationTix toll-free: 866-811-4111. 

Strawdog concludes its 26th season with their fourth production, Charles Ives Take Me Home. When a father’s love of music clashes with his daughter’s passion for basketball, long-dead modernist composer Charles Ives is the perfect referee.  Featuring Ives pieces performed by Dave Belden including "Variations On America," "The Unanswered Question," "Things Our Fathers Loved (from 114 Songs)," "Sonata for violin and piano no. 4," and "The Concord Sonata."  Charles Ives Take Me Home is a comic and poignant story of dissonance, defense and devotion. 

“In the show we will be deconstructing some of these compositions to demonstrate the use of traditional musical concepts as filtered through more modern sensibilities.  David plays solo violin versions of many of these compositions giving the audience a chance to hear the components that make up the music of Ives and how it relates to the conflict on stage.” said Music Director Przygoda.

Charles Ives Take Me Home was nominated for the prestigious Susan Blackburn Prize and was first produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in NYC in June 2012 and was met with praise from audiences and critics alike. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote “Charles Ives Take Me Home suggests she [Dickey] is a talent to watch: her writing has freshness, economy, an occasional cheeky vulgarity and a fine measure of poetic insight” andThe New Yorker described the play as “honest, vulgar, funny and smart…Like an Ives sonata -- sometimes jagged, sometimes lyrical-- the play is an accomplished, affecting composition.” 

The cast includes Strawdog ensemble member Jamie Vann with guest artists Dave Belden and Samantha Chavara. 

The production team also includes Strawdog Company members Mike Mroch, co-production manager and set design; John Kelly, light designer; Brittany Dee Bodley, costume design; Sam Hubbard, fight choreographer; Josh Sobel, dramaturg; Carmine Grisolia, technical director with guest artists Christopher Kriz, sound designer; Jamie Karas, props designer; Lindsey Miller, stage manager; Sarah Jackson, assistant director; Danielle Whaley, co-production manager and Kristoff Janezic, master electrician.

ABOUT JESSICA DICKEY, playwright
Jessica Dickey is an actor and playwright and is most well known for her one-woman show The Amish Project, which started at the New York International Fringe Festival, premiered at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and was produced at the American Theater Company in 2011. Her new play Row After Row, also nominated for a Susan Blackburn Prize, a comedy about Civil War re-enactors, opened at the City Center in NYC with the Women’s Project in January 2014. As an actor Dickey was most recently seen in Hit The Wall at Barrow Street Theatre in NYC, Proof at McCarter, the Broadway production of Wit at Manhattan Theatre Club, Miss Lilly Gets Boned with the Ice Factory/Studio 42, and television shows “The Big C,” “Law & Order,” and the Lifetime movie Amish Grace. 

ABOUT KEIRA FROMM, director
Keira Fromm is a Jeff-award nominated director for Lobby Hero at Redtwist Theater, Recent directing credits include: The How and the Why for TimeLine Theatre Company, Broadsword for The Gift Theatre, Fallow for Steep Theatre Company, Enfrascada for 16th Street Theater; staged readings at TimeLine, Steep, About Face, Route 66, Chicago Dramatists, American Theatre Company, and Red Tape Theatre. While living in New York City, Fromm served as the resident director of the popular off-Broadway shows The Donkey Show and The Karaoke Show. She was also the audience casting coordinator for the original Broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Fromm received her MFA in Directing from DePaul University. She is a proud member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and an ensemble member of the New York based theater company, Stage 13. 

ABOUT MIKE PRZYGODA, music director
Mike Przygoda is a classical composer, jazz composer and arranger and rock songwriter.  He is also a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass, piano, drums, vibraphone, harmonica, banjo and several other instruments. He currently works with Baby Wants Candy, an accompanist for Improv Olympic and producing his own music as well as other musicians. He studied composition and performance at Columbia College and written a large number of works, including an opera, a staged musical, chamber music,film scores, theater scores, and jazz and rock arrangements. In December 2005, he had his works performed at Orchestra Hall. He has released andproduced two albums of original chamber-pop both on which he performed most of the instruments.

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER KRIZ, composer and sound designer
Chrisopher Kriz is an award-winning composer and sound designer based in Chicago. Over the course of his career, he has worked with more than 50 Chicago area theater companies, including Northlight, Steppenwolf, Writers, Victory Gardens, Next Theatre, TimeLine, First Folio, Theatre Wit, Chicago Dramatists, Lifeline, Strawdog and Rivendell. Born into a family of musicians, Kriz was raised on the sound of his mother playing Debussy and his father playing jazz, he quickly gravitated to the piano. In high school, Kriz started to study and write music seriously. But it was in college that he merged his love of music with his love of theatre. For his work in theatre, Kriz has been honored with nine Joseph Jefferson Nominations and two Awards as well as two Broadway World Award nominations.

ABOUT STRAWDOG THEATRE COMPANY
Since its founding in 1988, Strawdog Theatre Company has offered Chicagoland the premiere storefront theatre experience and garnered numerous Non-Equity Jeff Awards with its commitment to ensemble acting and an immersive design approach. The celebrated Company develops new work, re-imagines the classics, melds music with theatre, asks provocative questions and delivers their audience the unexpected.

Strawdog Theatre Company presents Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home, May 9 – June 21, at Strawdog Theatre Company, 3829 N. Broadway Street. Preview performance tickets are $15 with performances Friday, May 9, Saturday May 10, Thursday, May 15 and Friday, May 16 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m. There is a Board Preview performance, Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m., with $50 tickets that include access to a post-performance reception. Opening/press night is Monday, May 19 at 8 p.m. Industry night is Monday, June 2  at 8 p.m. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Single tickets are $28 and are currently on sale. Subscriptions, group, senior and student discounts are also available. Tickets may be ordered online at strawdog.org or by calling OvationTix toll-free: 866-811-4111.

All productions, plus ongoing late night offerings, are presented at Strawdog’s space in the heart of Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, 3829 N. Broadway St. Tickets are available at 773.528.9696 or www.strawdog.org.

The neighborhood has limited paid parking and is easily accessible by public transportation (via the Red Line Sheridan stop, plus 36-Broadway, 80-Irving Park, and 151-Sheridan buses).

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Strawdog Theatre Company is supported in part by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Illinois Arts Council (a state agency) and the annual support of businesses and individuals.