Elk Grove Village native embraces crazy comedy of 'Cosmologies' at The Gift Theatre

Actress Darci Nalepa is shouldering a lot of stress.

The Elk Grove Village native is currently in previews for The Gift Theatre's Midwest premiere of David Rabe's absurdist comedy "Cosmologies." But on top of that, Nalepa and her fiancee, comedian Scott Elam, are also planning their wedding next month in his home state of Tennessee.

"I still have all my hair," Nalepa joked. "I haven't shaved my head - yet - so we're in good shape."

Nalepa is grateful once again to be performing the work of Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe ("Sticks and Bones," "Hurlyburly"). Back in 2015, Nalepa starred in Gift's world-premiere cast of Rabe's mental-health drama "Good for Otto." The experience proved to be so invigorating to Rabe that he asked to join the Gift's ensemble.

So it made sense for Gift artistic director Michael Patrick Thornton to look at some of Rabe's lesser-known works.

"For Michael, theater is meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable," Nalepa said. "I feel like that's kind of us to a tee, and maybe what David also finds familiar with us."

Rabe's "Cosmologies" soon rose to the top of Thornton's programming list after a table-read of the script more than a year ago.

"We were all busting a gut and laughing so hard. It was so absurd and wild and zany," Nalepa said. "Often we're doing dark material, but ('Cosmologies') felt like it lent itself in a way that we weren't afraid to get 'Looney Toons' and messy."

"Cosmologies" focuses on a high school student named Eric (Kenny Mihlfried). He journeys to Chicago for a date that goes horribly wrong, and then the play shoots off into weird directions.

"It's kind of an 'Oz'-type land with many conversations about the meaning of life and what is death," Nalepa said. "All the questions that are not answered because nobody really knows."

In "Cosmologies," Nalepa plays a character named "Teddy Bare" who functions first as a sex worker, and then as a mother figure. Nalepa says she's careful not to just play up stereotypes.

"My only job as an actor is to be honest under the circumstances that I'm given," Nalepa said. "I play a sex worker, but I'm also a mother who just basically tries to get her husband and son to love each other even though the house and their circumstances are kind of a mess."

For more than a decade, Nalepa has forged a dual career on Chicago-area stages as both a performer and as a teacher. Nalepa teaches with Black Box Acting and at The School at Steppenwolf, while her next professional acting gig is a return to Northlight Theatre in Skokie for the Midwest premiere of George Brant's World War II-era comedy "Into the Breeches!"

But Nalepa's other big performance, of course, will be at her wedding. Nalepa is grateful that her "Cosmologies" understudy, Emma Palizza, will go on for five performances after the show's official opening on Sunday, Oct. 28.

"One good thing about working with your theater family that as an actor, they understand that there's really never a good time for all the big life stuff," Nalepa said. "We fit it in when we can."

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"Cosmologies"

Location: The Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, (773) 283-7071 or thegifttheatre.org

Shows: 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; through Sunday, Dec. 9

Tickets: $25 previews through Saturday, Oct. 27; $35-$50 regular run