Remember house parties after a show?
It’s like that, but digital! Scattered throughout the calendar year, Sideshow will broadcast five readings of plays we love, written by playwrights we love. Every party has to have a theme, darling, and we will not disappoint. A play is an event, and so each play will have a customized party experience to bring us together even when we're apart.
All readings are pay-what-you-can, and we strongly suggest RSVPing to secure your spot.
Follow our social media for details on each reading's party, including costume suggestions, drink recipes, games to play during the reading and other fun party surprises!
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
2021 SEASON
ONCE IN A BLEU MOON
THIN MINTS
Ellen Steves
Justin J. Sacramone
A HEAP SEE
Dawn Renee Jones
Arti Ishak
Mallory Backstrom
Regina Victor
FABULOSO!
Makasha Copeland
THE WHISPERER'S APPRENTICE
Walt McGough
ONCE IN A BLEU MOON
by Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom
directed by Regina Victor
As her stars realign and a fateful blood moon approaches on the eve of her thirty-third birthday, Bleu casts a forbidden spell. To undo the damage Bleu must master her ancestral demons by accepting that, with a dash of magick, she can have it all…If not all at once. Once in a Bleu Moon is a witchy fable about womb magick, self-forgiveness, and breaking generational curses.
CAST
Shariba Rivers - Bellamy "Grand" Moon
Wardell Julius Clark - Byonne Jerome Duvalier
Risha Tenae - Blythe "Mommy" Moon
Jyreika Guest - Bleu Bell Moon
Regina Victor - Belinda Moon
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom - Sabine/Stage Directions
Friday, May 21, 2021
7pm
THIN MINTS
by Ellen Steves
directed by Justin J. Sacramone
Thin Mints follows a troop of Bonfire Girls during a five-day woodland jamboree as they prepare for an important election. At the end of the retreat, one scout will be chosen to take over the Troop. The girls use torture, terror, and trauma to claw their way to the top... but who is really pulling the strings? The play scores 100% on the Bechdel Test and offers a warped perspective on the consequences of a community governed by abuse and manipulation.
CAST
Anah Ambuchi - Molly
Elena Maria Cohen - Scoutmaster Hardwick
Gabriela Diaz - Casper
Kayla Forde - Sandy
Helen Joo Lee - Drambley
Krystal Ortiz - Dakota
Sarah Price - Marjorie
Evey Reidy - Kennedy
Shariba Rivers - The Mallard
Friday, March 19, 2021
7pm
Ellen Steves
playwright
Ellen Steves is a writer and producer from Los Angeles. A graduate from Columbia University's MFA program, she studied under Lynn Nottage, David Henry Hwang, and Chuck Mee. She is the co-founder of Chap.Three, a production company that focuses on putting women in the spotlight.
Justin J. Sacramone
director
Justin J. Sacramone is the associate artistic director of Sideshow Theatre Company and a Chicago-based director who focuses on new work. Most recently, he directed the 2020 workshop of Ellen Steves’ Thin Mints. He has directed for Raven Theatre, Red Theatre, Orlando International Fringe Festival and has assisted Robert Falls at Goodman Theatre, Lili-Anne Brown at 16th Street Theatre, Steve Scott at Eclipse Theatre, and Derek Van Barham at Pride Films and Plays. He is currently developing new works with playwrights Ellen Steves and Preston Choi. He has dramaturged the world premiere of HeLa and the U.S. premiere of X, both at Sideshow. Justin holds a BFA in theatre from Salem State University. He spent 10 years with the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild. He is a member of the 20/21 Observership Class with Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and a nominator for the Kilroys List.
A HEAP SEE
by Dawn Renee Jones
directed by Arti Ishak
Koua is a fast-moving whirlwind. By age 24, she had survived the “American War” in Laos and refugee camps in Thailand. Now, this mother of six is on a quest to better the life of her children in St. Paul Minnesota where she will face her greatest obstacle. Her neighbor Anita witnesses the epic undertaking Koua must face to keep her family together.
CAST
Yuchi Chiu - Han
Hannah Marie Dahl - Xiong
Carmen Liao - Koua
Liam Oh - Jerry/Elder Two
Shariba Rivers - Anita
Stephanie Shum - Niam/Grandmother
Alex Wu - Loong/Elder One
Laney Yoo - Mim
Friday, April 23, 2021
7pm
Dawn Renee Jones
playwright
Dawn Renee Jones has been writing, directing and/or producing some form of media for a very long time. Her writing career began on Madison Avenue where she wrote print and broadcast advertising for a broad range of national products and agencies. A recipient of the Ruby Prize for Playwriting for her play A Heap See, and an alum of the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit, she has written screenplays for Warner Brothers, Bryanston Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Her feature screenplay Man of the Word, an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine, won the FilmColumbia Festival for Best Screenplay. Dawn Renee has directed main stage productions at numerous Twin Cities theatres. She is the founder and director of many arts initiatives including Midwest Jazz Society (Arts Midwest) and Alchemy Theatre (Minneapolis); the Burrell Fellowship, an academic residency for playwrights of color; and the Young, Gifted & Black Collective, a black theatre history and performance program for students of African heritage at Columbia College Chicago, where she teaches theatre history and playwriting. Dawn Renee’s MFA in creative writing with emphasis in playwriting is from Goddard College.
Arti Ishak
director
Originally from Detroit, Arti Ishak is a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer. Recent acting credits include Kiss (Haven), Witch and Buried Child (Writers Theatre), Men on Boats (American Theater Company), Venus in Fur (Circle Theatre), Fantastic Super Great Nation Numero Uno (Second City), and A Story Told in Seven Fights (Neo-Futurists). TV credits Chicago Med (NBC). As a filmmaker, Arti wrote and directed short film "Shukran Bas," a satire about Arab American representation. Arti has served on the board of the Muslim Writers Collective’s Chicago chapter and is currently a staff member with The Chicago Inclusion Project. She is one of the founding organizers with MENASA MidWest, an action network and advocacy group for Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian American artists working in theater, film, and television. She is represented by Paonessa Talent Agency.
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom
playwright
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom creates fairy tales for sun-kissed women. A mixed-media artist, writer, intuitive healer and entrepreneur, Mallory was a finalist for the 2019 National Playwrights Conference at The O’Neill and is the recipient of the Tutterow Fellowship through Chicago Dramatists Center for New Play Development. Her talents have been nurtured in writer’s rooms at Victory Gardens Theater, The New Colony, and Jackalope Theatre. Her play A Laying on of Hands was featured in The Story Theatre New Play Festival. Mallory is a contributing playwright to The Refracted Theatre Company’s podcast The Swell. She is the author of Fairy Tales for Sun-Kissed Women, an anthology of healing fables and immersive audiobooks. Windy City Reviews hailed her as a “craftsman of the English language” for her debut novel, Reasons for Being, going on to say that “Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom’s writing is as clear and beautiful as springtime in a meadow… You’re amazed at the beauty around you and inhale the delicate natural musk to make it a part of your very being.” Mallory was a guest lecturer at the University of California-Davis and Illinois Humanities. Her artwork was recently featured at The Freedom and Movement Gallery in Chicago. Mallory’s passion for diverse representation, mindfulness, and mysticism resonates across the vast universe of color she leaves on the page, the stage, and the canvas. For more information about this multifaceted artist, visit mallorybackstrom.com.
Regina Victor
director
Regina Victor (they/them/theirs) is a Black director, multidisciplinary artist, and arts critic. One of New City’s Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago two years running, they are currently serving as the inaugural associate producer at Court Theatre. Victor has helped develop world premieres by Antoinette Nwandu, Anna Deavere Smith, Sarah Ruhl, Loy Webb and more. They co-founded Rescripted, an arts journalism platform, in 2017 and have written for other publications including American Theatre, Playbill, and the Chicago Reader. Other notable artistic collaborations include work with Steppenwolf Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TimeLine Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, and Sideshow Theatre where they are an ensemble member.
FABULOSO!
by Makasha Copeland
Armed with All Purpose Cleaner and the resilience of that cockroach from Wall-E, three maids and a middle-schooler are tasked with removing the stains from Oak Hill Resort. When their boss is found dead in the master suite, this cleaning crew must launch their own investigation. Who killed whomst, and who gives a shit?
Friday, August 20, 2021
7pm
Makasha Copeland
playwright
Makasha Copeland is a playwright, actor, comedian and your babysitter during those formative years. Their plays Extreme Home Makeover and Fabuloso! have been developed and produced with San Diego REP, Vertigo Productions, the Agnes Nixon Festival, and Teatro Espejo (upcoming). They are a 2021 Ars Nova CAMP resident artist, a comedy residency where they are co-writing a televisual play with Chase Doggett and Gabrielle Silva. They are also a member of sketch comedy group Resting Witch Face at iO and Second City. They graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in theatre and Latinx studies, where they performed, wrote and improvised with The Titanic Players, Griffin’s Tale, Mee-Ow and Out Da Box.
THE WHISPERER'S APPRENTICE
by Walt McGough
In a world where storytelling is magic, an ancient kingdom is collapsing. Two young siblings flee to the forest to find the one woman who could help stave off chaos, but who now hides away, haunted by mistakes and regrets. Will the tale that shapes the world be left broken, once and for all? The Whisperer's Apprentice is a magical, theatrical story about stories themselves, focused on who wields narrative power, and what it costs them to keep it.
Friday, September 17, 2021
7pm
As a companion event to this reading, playwright Walt McGough will lead a group of hale and hearty Sideshow artists through a weekly, live-streamed and completely ridiculous campaign of Dungeons & Dragons. Capturing a different (and dice-rolling) kind of magic, this campaign will immerse audiences in an excited, serialized new form of collaborative storytelling, and highlight just how much is possible when some of the best artists in the city work together to save the world.
Walt McGough
playwright
Walt McGough is a Boston-based playwright and a founding ensemble member of Sideshow. He is the founder and lead dungeon master for First Time at the Table, a company that runs online sessions of Dungeons & Dragons for new players. As a writer, Walt has held fellowships with both the Huntington and New Repertory Theatre Companies, and was a finalist for the 2016 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award. His plays include Non-Player Character, Chalk, The Farm, Priscilla Dreams the Answer, The Haberdasher, and Dante Dies!! (and then things get weird). He has worked around the country with companies such as The Lark, San Francisco Playhouse, the Huntington, Red Theatre Company, New Rep, the Kennedy Center, NNPN, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Fresh Ink, Sideshow, Orfeo Group, Nu Sass Productions, Chicago Dramatists, and Argos. In 2015, his play Advice for Astronauts was selected as the winner of the Milken Playwriting Prize. He previously served on the artistic staffs of SpeakEasy Stage Company and Chicago Dramatists. Walt holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MFA in playwriting from Boston University.