Displaying items by tag: Shanesia Davis

The Gift Theatre is pleased to announce its 2024-25 season featuring Suzan-Lori Parks' masterpiece Topdog/Underdog directed by Shanésia Davis and the world premiere of Cygnus by Susan Soon He Stanton, directed by Co-Artistic Director Brittany Burch. These mainstage productions will be followed by the annual 10-minute performance festival, TEN. In addition, there will be three In The Works staged readings of plays in development and three live lit performances with GiftLit. All productions will be presented at Filament Theatre (4041 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 6064).

The Gift's 2024-25 Season includes:

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG

by Suzan-Lori Parks

Directed by Shanésia Davis

Featuring Ensemble Members Martel Manning and Gregory Fenner

September 12- October 20, 2024

This darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity tells the story of two brothers, Lincoln (Manning) and Booth (Fenner), names given to them as a joke by their father. Haunted by the past and their obsession with the street con game, three-card monte, the brothers come to learn the true nature of their history.

Co-Artistic Director Jennifer Glasse commets, "While envisioning our upcoming season we wanted to choose a blend of stories that would be both personal and challenging to the artists involved. Topdog/Underdog has been a dream project with roles Ensemble Members Martel Manning and Gregory Fenner have wanted to play for years. We are thrilled to reunite them with the vision and direction of the incomparable Shanésia Davis. They are all deeply connected to this story and I am over the moon for Chicago to see their dreams come to fruition."

The world premiere of

Cygnus

by Susan Soon He Stanton

Directed by Co-Artistic Director Brittany Burch

February 6 - March 16, 2025

Cydney believes an angel rescued her from an ineffable trauma, and the truth may prove stranger than she imagines. In this mythic, hilarious, and poetic new play, a burnt feather may illuminate the possibility of a divine intervention.

Co-Artistic Director Brittany Burch states, "Cygnus is a modern-day fairytale that weaves fantasy into a very honest story of trauma and recovery. I immediately resonated with its themes of escapism as a defense mechanism and codependent, mother-daughter relationships but I fell in love with Stanton's use of dark humor, absurdism, and Greek mythology to guide her richly layered characters through their search for meaning in life's adversities."

TEN

A 10-minute performance festival of new work written, directed, and performed by various local artists.

May 8 - 19, 2025

IN THE WORKS

The Fires by Jennifer Rumberger

Monday, June 10, 2024

Jennifer Rumberger (The Locusts) is returning to The Gift for a one-time reading of her latest play, The Fires.

Two men sit outside a 7/11 in downtown Los Angeles, watching a wildfire come closer and closer, the latest in a series of natural catastrophes that have caused massive casualties all over the United States. Other than a traveling newsman bringing stories of the fates of other Americans, they are the last people alive. As the fire gets closer, they are forced to contend with the end of not only their relationship, but their lives as well.

Two additional IN THE WORKS readings are scheduled for October and December, 2024. Titles and additional information are TBA. 

Artist Biographies

Shanésia Davis (Director, Topdog/Underdog) is a veteran Chicagoan who has graced the stages of theaters in Chicago and regionally and is honored to direct at The Gift Theatre. Some of her credits include works at Steppenwolf, Northlight, Porchlight Music Theatre Goodman, Congo Square, Mark Taper Forum, Cleveland Playhouse, CenterStage Baltimore, The Gift Theatre, Kansas City Rep and The Court theatre to name a few. This actress has several Jeff Award nominations included the recent Fences. Ms. Davis is a multi–NAACP Image Award nominee and is a Black Theatre Alliance Award recipient and Excellence in The Arts Award recipient. Film credits include Chicago Stories: Ida B. Wells, The Thing about Harry, Working Man, BLUEPRINT, External Rivals, Consumed, Damaged Goods, Cleveland Abduction, Morning Due, The Weatherman, Uncle Nino, Life Sentence, Chicago Cab among others. Television credits include Emmy nominated LOVECRAFT COUNTRY(HBO), Proven Innocent (FOX), Empire (FOX), Chicago Fire (NBC), CRISIS (ABC), Detroit 187 (ABC), and series regular on Early Edition (CBS). Her directing credits include Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. Shanésia is Program Director of Acting at Roosevelt University CCPA where she directed a very successful production of Indecent. Other directing includes Spunk, Mother Courage and Her Children. Other university directing includes Our Lady of 121st Street, good night, Desdemona good morning, Juliette as well as several workshops and readings with Congo Square Theatre. She is a published writer of "Nine questions every actor of color should consider when tokenism is not enough," (Routledge, Taylor & Fracis publishing).

Suzan-Lori Parks (Playwright, Topdog/Underdog) is a multi-award-winning American writer/musician and the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog which recently enjoyed its twentieth anniversary Broadway revival. The production won both the 2023 Tony Award, (Best Revival of a Play) and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Just last year, in 2023, Parks also had three new works which all received world premieres: at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Sally & Tom (Steinberg New Play Award finalist) at Joe's Pub in New York City, Plays for the Plague Year (winner of The Drama Desk Award for Best Music in a Play), and, at the Public Theatre, Parks world-premiered a musical adaptation of the 1972 film The Harder They Come (winner: Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical.)

Brittany Burch (Director, Cygnus) is a co-artistic director and ensemble member with the Gift Theatre where she was last seen in The Locusts. Other credits with the Gift include: The Lonesome West, Northwest Highway, Absolute Hell, Oh The Humanity, Thinner Than Water, Othello, Royal Society of Antarctica, Good For Otto, Unseen, and Pilgrims. Additional Chicago credits include A Red Orchid, Steppenwolf, Wildclaw, Lakeside Shakespeare, The Goodman, and Redtwist. Regionally, Brittany has worked with Artists Repertory Theatre and Profile Theatre in Portland, OR; Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, AK; Chautauqua Theatre Company in NY; and The New Theatre in Kansas City. She has a BA from Willamette University and studied with the British American Drama Academy, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, as well as the School at Steppenwolf.

Susan Soon He Stanton (Playwright, Cygnus) is a playwright, television writer, and screenwriter originally from 'Aiea, Hawai'i, and now living in New York and London. Her plays have been produced internationally and regionally across the United States: WE, THE INVISIBLES (Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival); TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY (Page 73, Yale Repertory Theatre); BOTH YOUR HOUSES (ACT New Strands/ Crowded Fire); TAKARAZUKA!!! (Clubbed Thumb, East West Players, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Workshop); CYGNUS (WP Theater Pipeline, Kilroys List); SOLSTICE PARTY! (Live Source); THE THINGS ARE AGAINST US (Washington Ensemble Theatre); MOANA, JR (book) for Disney Theatrical Group, among others. Her reimagined TURANDOT, music by Puccini and Christopher Tin, will be produced by Washington National Opera in 2024.

Susan worked on all four seasons of HBO's SUCCESSION as a writer/producer, for which she has received Emmy, Writers Guild of America, and Peabody Awards.

Jennifer Rumberger (Playwright, The Fires) is a playwright and essayist. Her notable productions include The Locusts at The Gift Theatre Company and Night in Alachua County with Wildclaw Theater in Chicago and Open Blue Sky at Tisch School of the Arts in New York. She is a two-time selectee and finalist for Seven Devils, a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award, a semifinalist for the P73 Fellowship, and a 2022 Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference. She's published her nonfiction in The Deadlands and performed her essays and poetry live with 2nd Story, You're Being Ridiculous, and Brooklyn Poets. She is an Associate Artist with Second Site in Chicago and has an MFA in dramatic writing from Northwestern University.

Season Subscription Information

To purchase subscriptions, contact the box office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 773-283-7071.

Preview-Only Subscriptions: $90

Perfect for those who want the full Gift experience at the best discount offered. Includes a ticket to Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks and the world premiere of Cygnus by Susan Soon He Stanton, as well as 3 readings from the In the Works program.

GiftFlex Subscriptions: $120

Includes a ticket to any performance of Topdog/Underdog, Cygnus, TEN, and three staged readings from the In The Works program.

About The Gift Theatre

Since 2001 and with over 70 productions, The Gift Theatre has been dedicated to telling great stories onstage with honesty and simplicity. Our unwavering dedication to accessibility and intimacy as a professional equity theatre has garnered national recognition for both our company and ensemble. We strive to push boundaries, broaden perspectives, and ignite a cultural revolution on Chicago's northwest side. www.thegifttheatre.org

About Filament Theatre

Filament Theatre, on Chicago's Northwest Side, has been creating innovative theater for young audiences since 2007. Filament's mission is to create a more equitable society by celebrating and amplifying the perspectives and experiences of young people through the performing arts. www.filamenttheatre.org

The tiny Gift Theatre, occupancy 50, has bitten off a big challenge with its determination to present Hamlet. Featuring Daniel Kyri in the title role of Shakespeare’s classic, director Monty Cole has hewed to the melodious Elizabethan English of the script.

The production has contemporary touches that largely respect the genius of the playwright, while delivering a show that the author would recognize, and which conveys the crucial dramatic conflicts. And, a mark of a serious production, Cole and cast examine anew the mysteries that will ever surround the motives and actions of the characters.

In a nutshell, young prince Hamlet suspects his mother Gertrude and uncle Claudius are complicit in the recent death of his father, King Hamlet. The two have married, and for the rest of the play Hamlet works through his feelings of anger and guilt, goaded by ghostly appearances of his father. Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia, her brother Laertes and their dad Polonius are killed in the fallout. Likewise for Claudius and Gertrude.

Producing any play requires envisioning and mastering the drama, psyching out characters and motivation, getting the script down. With Shakespeare, you also must account for the specific challenge of a language in iambic pentameter, and at times florid or obscure.

So Shakespearean acting is its own special skill. The cast has largely nailed the motivation and inculcated it to their roles on stage, delivering moving performances with conviction. But, alas, the language suffers a few slings and arrows along the way – though there are bright spots – including a rap version of one monolog that was very successful.

From the moment she appears, silently regal, completely in touch with the Gertrude, Shanesia Davis shows how it’s done. Her every line is immediately clear, even when we are uncertain of an archaic word or phrase – we totally understand her. Davis acting background makes it clear why – she has a lot of experience with Shakespearean roles.

Daniel Kyri has captured young Hamlet, and we ride with him through his internal turmoil. But Kyri is still working through what is one of theatre’s most demanding roles. Of those seven famous Hamlet soliloquies, I felt he did best with the fifth (“Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out”) and the sixth (“Now might I do it pat now he is praying, And now I'll do it, and so he goes to heaven.”)

Netta Walker’s performance as Ophelia was balanced and well done. Martel Manning as actor Guildenstern and the very funny Grave Digger, had a magnetic presence on stage. Gregory Fenner as Laertes has all the passion and constrined fury required. Alexander Lane carries a military strength and sinister swagger in his three roles as Fortinbras, Valteman and Marcellus. 

Not everything works, though most things do. Cole, who spent a year in the development of the show, keeps the play in its historic setting, but the production is unconstrained by period dress. Several younger characters have smart phones, and somehow, these make sense. They are used as flashlights in some scenes, and Ophelia sings along with her earbuds in. Smart phones are now a normal human appendage, like eyeglasses, and are almost invisible in their roles in the show.

The set was nice – a classic paneled plaster hallway illuminated by sconces with decaying carpeting on the floor, the edges lined by weeds and smashed beer cans. William Boles did scenic design, but I do quibble with whoever made the decision to encase the stage in a box of acrylic sheets, so the actors play behind a “glass.” This muted the sound and an effort to mic the space was unsuccessful. 

Hamlet runs through July 29 at Gift Theatre.