Writers Theatre serves up Anna Ziegler's 'The Last Match' online

Last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic loomed, playwright Anna Ziegler watched rehearsals for Writers Theatre's revival of her play "The Last Match," which unfolds during a tennis match between an American champ and a Russian phenom competing in the U.S. Open men's semifinals.

Ziegler thought the production was shaping up beautifully, and she hoped Writers would be able to complete the run before the pandemic worsened. But days before the first preview, Writers suspended the run in response to state coronavirus mandates.

"When it became clear it wasn't going to happen I was so disappointed. I assumed it would probably die," she said.

Months later, artistic director Michael Halberstam informed Ziegler that Writers intended to film the play. Completed earlier this year, according to strict coronavirus precautions, "The Last Match" streams next week.

"I was thrilled and moved that the artists and theater would go to those lengths," said Ziegler, a former tennis player and longtime fan whose play was inspired by American world champion Andy Roddick's 2012 retirement speech following his last U.S. Open match.

The idea of navigating a new chapter in life struck Ziegler - who was expecting her first child at the time - as a good subject for a play.

"The subject is tennis, but I think of it as a memory play, a meditation on time and aging and what we do with our time here," she said.

Ziegler believes the play resonates more profoundly in the wake of the pandemic, and director Keira Fromm agrees.

"Like the characters in the play, we're all in a period of self-evaluation and endeavoring to live our lives with greater purpose. The pandemic has forced us to recognize our own mortality, and take stock of who we are and what we're doing with our lives," Fromm wrote via email.

Embracing the challenge of adapting the play to a different format, Fromm was determined to balance the theatrical and the filmic. Among the more theatrical components is the match between Tim (Ryan Hallahan) and Sergei (Christopher Sheard), which takes place without tennis equipment. Choreographing the action fell to Steph Paul, who says it gave her an opportunity to honor "the excitement and magic that exists in tennis" as well as the people in the room.

She says body language tells the story of "The Last Match."

"We don't have tennis balls. We don't have rackets, but we do have us," she said. "I didn't want to get us stuck in playing a game of miming or mimicry."

There's nothing to hide behind in this production, Paul said, and Ziegler made that decision purposely. Otherwise the audience would have focused on the props and not the human experience.

"The movement is so intertwined with the language that you sometimes don't know where one starts and where one ends," Paul said. "That was the goal."

The play's theatricality also extended to the actors, who frequently speak directly to the audience.

"The characters regularly engage the audience, and we made a choice to really lean into talking directly to the cameras in these moments," Fromm said. "Blending that concept with our very theatrical environment will hopefully create an exciting experience that feels like a cool hybrid of both theater/film worlds."

Rehearsals began in February with frequent testing, masking, distancing, limited contact, self-quarantining and other safety protocols in place, said Heather Chrisler, who plays the girlfriend of Sergei.

After four weeks of rehearsal, the four-person cast filmed one day at the Glencoe theater, the only day they were without masks.

"We're doing it as if you're sitting in the front row," said Chrisler, a First Folio Theatre artistic associate.

Working on "The Last Match" made Chrisler more receptive to the possibility of theater on film.

"You're never going to replace the feeling of a live audience. But I don't think theater on film is without artistic merit," she said.

Like Ziegler and Fromm, Chrisler says she's reconsidered what the play means.

"Over the course of the pandemic all of us had a priority shift. We had to give up things to keep each other safe," she said. "People you love became the priority."

A global trauma can't help but inform the art that comes after.

"Everyone in the whole world is picking themselves up and dusting themselves off right now," she said.

Perseverance - healing, moving forward, continuing to play the game - that's the essence of "The Last Match."

"You keep going and you keep going ... despite loss and despite heartbreak," Chrisler said. "That's an important message now."

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"The Last Match"

When: Streaming Wednesday, April 28, through Sunday, May 30

Where: Writers Theatre

Tickets: $35 for Up Front Flex members and Pay As You Go members; solo viewer $40; duo $65; trio $85; ensemble (four or more) $100. (847) 242-6000 or writerstheatre.org