PRODUCTION HISTORY
This history only contains Otherworld Theatre Company MainStage Productions. For SecondStage Programming, please view our Facebook Album Page.
COUNTESS DRACULA
October 2019 | Performed at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Adapted from Bram Stoker's Dracula | Written by Nick Izzo and AmBer D. Montgomery
A dramatized retelling of the mother of all vampire stories, Countess Dracula is set in 19th century New Orleans and New York. Portrayed as an African American woman, Dracula becomes an avenging angel against the high society of white patriarchy that seeks to oppress her and her people.
Countess Dracula promises a macabre bloodbath that you will not want to miss this Halloween.
MEDUSA UNDONE
April 2019 | Performed at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Written by Bella Poynton
Medusa Undone is a dramatization of the little-known Medusa origin story. Before she was one of the greatest mythical monsters of all time, Medusa was a kind, beautiful sea-nymph in Athena’s service. Unparalleled in both her beauty and devotion to the Gods, Medusa catches the eye of the charming but narcissistic Poseidon. Interested only in the passions of the spirit, and not the flesh, Medusa has no choice but to reject the greedy God. She not only suffers violence at the hand of Poseidon, but also unknowingly incites a deep-seated jealousy in Athena, with horrific and disturbing consequences. Medusa Undone explores the social problem of rape culture, our tendency to victim blame, and the great injustice suffered by female victims of abuse of all kinds.
CORONA
April 2019 | Performed at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Written by Elizabeth A. M. Keel
Captain Ariadne Minos must ferry the latest fourteen tributes to her home planet of Crete, where they will be fed as sacrifices to a fearsome bull. On the journey, she makes a surprise connection to two of her more forceful passengers: the headstrong prince Theseus, and Pneuma, a Healer who is outraged to face death with her medical education incomplete. However, as the spaceship nears its final destination, Ariadne must weigh the comfort of her new friends against family loyalties which have haunted her across the galaxy. The time has come for her to reconcile between monsters, gods, and men.
THE WINTER WOLF
December 2018 | Performed at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Written by Joseph Zettelmaier
It's Christmas night in Cora's house. She's visited by her beloved grandfather, a man of high spirits and failing health. They sit around the fireplace and she listens to the legend of the Winter Wolf, a strange creature who serves as Time's hunter, stalking those who are in the winter of their lives. That night, the Winter Wolf comes for Cora's grandfather, but the young girl manages to trap it. What follows is a magical journey through the mysteries of time, as Cora learns how far one can go for the sake of someone they love.
ALL I WANT IS ONE MORE MEANWHILE
October 2018 | Performed at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Written by Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons
Twenty years ago she was Perfectra, an artificially engineered superhero impervious to humanity’s flaws. Today, she is Jane, a real woman who gave up power and perfection to become a mother. But estranged from her daughter and battling against a no-longer-perfect physique is not the ending she planned on. Discovering her daughter has not only been kidnapped by a canine-controlling criminal but worse still, engaged to a local superhero—can this supermom stand by and let her daughter spend her life dangling in distress? Especially as she suspects her daughter might have a secret of her own...
DOWN THE ROCKY ROAD AND ALL THE WAY TO BEDLAM
March 2018 | Performed at Nox Arca Theatre, 4001 N. Ravenswood | Written by D. Matthew Beyer
In a cyberpunk vision of future, an android named Zelazny struggles to comprehend her own evolution while fulfilling her intended purpose as a nurse for Thomas Oliver Bedlam’s dying daughter Lucy. As Zelazny tries to cope with her theoretically impossible emotions and Lucy’s looming death drives Bedlam to desperate measures, absent mother Lain returns from her exile-- still carrying the darkness that drove her away in the first place. With the house of Bedlam collapsing around Zelazny, picking up the pieces and moving forward seems like a distant impossibility. Can a broken family be fixed?
SPEED OF LIGHT
October 2017 | Performed at Berger Park Cultural Center, 6205 N. Sheridan | Written by Bella Poynton
On the planet of Nerth, physicist Mayra Ecazin races against time to unlock the secret of light speed travel while a hoard of alien invaders threaten to decimate life on the planet. However, getting the machine made proves more difficult than anticipated. Battling greedy investors, competing agendas, and her own mortality, how much is Mayra willing to sacrifice to make her machine?
Speed of Light takes a fantastical look at the infinite possibilities of the human mind and the finite potential of a flawed civilization.
THE ROGUE AVIATOR
June 2017 | Performed at Strawdog Theatre, 1802 W. Bernice | Written by Nick Izzo
In an alternate history of the 1930s, the floating city of Olympus has been built among the clouds of America. Sold as the epitome of the American Dream, many yearn to be a citizen of the jeweled metropolis. However, once admitted into its iron embrace, citizens find themselves living as prisoners in what they once hoped would be their promised land.
Rogue Aviator Ellie McCloud navigates the perils of her era. Once raised among the elites of Olympus, Ellie now fights for the freedoms of those they oppress. In a world of fanatical rulers and nearly forgotten masses living in the bowels of the city, Ellie must wage a war on two fronts: the Sky Pirates who lay their claim to the city, and her moral battle within.
A PRINCESS OF MARS
March 2017 | Performed at Berger Park Cultural Center, 6205 N. Sheridan | Based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Adapted by Nick Izzo and Tiffany Keane Schaefer
In the year 3004, humankind is left to rebuild a world that has been ravaged by war, poverty, and disease. From these ashes arise two opposing political powers: The Moralists who value order and reason and The Revolutionaries who value free expression. Two years have passed since these political enemies have met face to face. Join us now in Messina as either a Moralist or a Revolutionary as you navigate a story of brotherly foes, requited romance, and slanderous villainy.
You will be equipped with government sanctioned medication to survive this destitute world. CAUTION: new users have reported hallucinatory side effects.
Whether you join us as a Moralist or a Revolutionary, welcome to Messina.
MESSINA3004 (A Post apocalyptic Much Ado About Nothing)
February 2016 | Performed at Mary's Attic, 5400 N Clark St. | Written by William Shakespeare, Adapted by Mary-Kate Arnold
In the year 3004, humankind is left to rebuild a world that has been ravaged by war, poverty, and disease. From these ashes arise two opposing political powers: The Moralists who value order and reason and The Revolutionaries who value free expression. Two years have passed since these political enemies have met face to face. Join us now in Messina as either a Moralist or a Revolutionary as you navigate a story of brotherly foes, requited romance, and slanderous villainy.
You will be equipped with government sanctioned medication to survive this destitute world. CAUTION: new users have reported hallucinatory side effects.
Whether you join us as a Moralist or a Revolutionary, welcome to Messina.
GONE DARK
October 2015 | Performed at Epworth United Methodist Church, 5253 N Kenmore | Written by Stuart Bousel
A site specific piece taking over a gothic cathedral built in the late 1800s, playwright Stuart Bousel weaves a dark romantic tale in the gothic thriller "Gone Dark". Centered around a society of vampire hunters, slayers are summoned from around the world to convene after the death of their leader.
Ned Dalton is tormented by his last hunt and haunted by foggy and untrustworthy memories. As events begin to unfold around him, he begins to realize the hunt may not be over yet and that the dead may indeed rise again.
QUEEN AMARANTHA
April 2015 | Performed at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W Bryn Mawr Ave | Written by Charles Busch
An homage to nineteenth century historical melodrama, Queen Amarantha tells the story of a fictional monarch, Amarantha, the daughter of a barbaric warrior king, who tries to emerge from her father’s shadow. Like Sweden’s Queen Christina, she is uncomfortable with her society’s conventional female role and prefers to dress as a man. She falls in love with a wanderer named Adrian and when her enemies destroy her reputation through a manipulated scandal, Amarantha abdicates and runs away with Adrian. She leaves the throne to her young and hopelessly weak ward, Roderigo, who becomes a pawn of Amarantha’s enemies, particularly her treacherous childhood friend, the Countess Thalia.
THE AURORA PROJECT
November 2014 | Performed Right Brain Project, 4001 N. Ravenswood | Written by Bella Poynton
The Aurora Project follows Constantine—a humanoid robot, or ‘intelligent design'--and Nora, a genetically enhanced female explorer, as they begin a voyage across the uncharted universe. When Nora unexpectedly contracts an incurable illness, Constantine decides to subject them both to the phenomenon of cryo-freeze. Thus, the pair begins a kind of chemical induced time warp, spanning millions of years as they wait for the universe to get smarter, and a cure to Nora’s illness to be found.
OF DICE AND MEN
April 2014 | Performed at The Public House Theatre, 3914 N. Clark Street | Written by Cameron McNary
In 2006, when his best friend Jason enlists in the Marine Reserves and prepares to deploy to Iraq, 30-something Dungeon Master John Francis is left with shattered friendships and a crisis of identity. He examines the role the game Dungeons and Dragons has played in his life, and what that means in the face of Jason's sacrifice. He must ultimately use the game he loves to get his two best friends to say what they need to say to each other before Jason leaves... and in the process, figure out what it means to finally “grow up”.
A blisteringly funny and heartwarming comedy about gamers, for a general theatre audience.
FAHREINHEIT 451
June 2013 | Performed at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway | Written and Adapted by Ray Bradbury
Sixty years after its originally publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
