BOYS & GIRLS
Event Type:
PerformanceFriday, June 6, 2008 - 7:30pm
Theatre Seven of Chicago, in conjunction with Chicago DCA Theater, presents two explosive one-act plays about the battles within the sexes in Boys & Girls. The evening includes Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor’s Never Swim Alone, a highly theatrical sizzler that blows the lid off modern masculinity, and The Shallow End, Wendy MacLeod’s story of four teenage girls dealing with old friendships, new bodies, and the bridge to adulthood over the course of one summer at the city pool. The plays, directed by Margot Bordelon and Meghan Beals McCarthy, come to the Studio Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph Street, from May 16 – June 15, 2008.
Performances are Thursday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Discounted students and senior tickets are $12, and groups of 7 or more can purchase seats for just $10 each.
The preview performance on May 15 costs only $10.
All tickets are available by calling 312.742.TIXS (8497), visiting www.dcatheater.org, or stopping by the box office at 66 E. Randolph Street. The box office is open Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., and one hour prior to each performance.
Boys & Girls is directed by Margot Bordelon (Never Swim Alone) and Meghan Beals McCarthy (The Shallow End). The cast includes Rebecca Buller, Brian Golden, Brian Stojak (Never Swim Alone) and Olivia Cygan, Lindsey Lyhus, Zoe Levin, Emma Jane Hostetler, Hannah White, Sydney Lynch, Sophie La Cava, Ilyssa Ernstein (The Shallow End). The set is designed by Charlie Olson, with costume design by Brenda Winstead and lighting design by Justin Wardell.
The evening’s first offering, Never Swim Alone, tells the story of two lifelong best friends chained together since childhood by one tragic day at the beach. Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor shrouds the play in mystery, revealing little of why the men know each other so well or fight one another so viciously. As they play a deadly thirteen-round game with rounds called “The Power Lunch,” “Business Ties,” and more, the men fight to the death to see who can establish himself as the bigger, better, richer, stronger man. The New York Times wrote that a 2006 revival of the play was “a 45-minute triumph of formal experimentation that is slyly witty, unexpectedly suspenseful, timeless as the battle of the sexes and as quick and forceful as a heavyweight’s jab.”
The evening’s second half is The Shallow End, a clever peek at the minds and mouths of four 14-year old girls on the precipice of adulthood. Addie’s friendship with Becca and Teresa is put to the test when a new girl moves to town and threatens the clique’s power structure over one summer. While the city pool setting and pre-teen language offer a gentler world than Never Swim Alone, the bitter rivalry brewing beneath the surface of The Shallow End is no less intense. MacLeod’s play explores with insight and humor the tenuous bonds of friendship and the brutal challenge of “growing up girl” in America. Upon its production as part of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Marathon ’92, the New York Times wrote that “This evocative work…speaks with clarity and humor about young women embracing adolescence with all the mixed emotions of their age.”
For more information about Boys & Girls and Chicago DCA Theater, visit www.dcatheater.org or call 312.742.TIXS (8497).