COD's College Theater opens 2019-20 season with 'The Wolves,' a play about soccer, adolescence and life Oct. 3-20
The College of DuPage College Theater presents "The Wolves" by Sarah DeLappe Oct. 3-20 in the Studio Theatre of the McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd. in Glen Ellyn.
A preview will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, followed by the opening at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.
On Thursday, Oct. 3, there will be a preshow discussion with director and designers at 6:45 p.m. in MAC 140.
A post-show discussion with director, actors and crew will be offered Friday, Oct. 11.
Tickets are $16 or $14 for students and seniors. For tickets or more information, call (630) 942-4000 or visit AtTheMAC.org. Please note: This play uses adult language and themes.
The Village Voice calls "The Wolves," "a smart, hilarious, delightful meditation on society," and the New York Times observes, "Girl power is atomic in 'The Wolves,' the incandescent portrait of an indoor soccer team." This 90-minute play, directed by COD Professor of Theater Amelia Barrett, is recommended for ages 14 and up, but contains some profanity.
"The Wolves" is about more than just a suburban indoor soccer team readying for practice. It is a portrait of the demands a teenage athlete, daughter, student and teammate deal with while working to win the game of life … and soccer.
"This will be a great play for everyone to see, whether they're soccer fans or not. When the audience enters the theater, they will be greeted with an indoor soccer field created by floor to wall AstroTurf," Barrett said. "This 'field' set design will serve to hone the focus on the young women's conversations and perspectives. I'm proud of the great cast we've assembled to portray these wonderful characters that are complicated, subtle, struggling, funny and compassionate as they work together in the context of the play to become a cohesive unit on the field and develop a bond they'll share for life."
The cast includes residents from Aurora, Bellwood, Bloomingdale, Darien, Glen Ellyn, Itasca, Medinah, West Chicago and Woodridge and includes Nicolette Caballero (#7), Stephanie Cox (Soccer Mom), Maya Grzywinski (#2), Helena Koczur (#00), Emilie Kroner (#8), Lucy LaPlaca (#14), Faith Ley (#46), Emily Martinez (#11), Kailey Nelson (#13) and Nora Zamora (#25).
The design team includes Michael W. Moon, scenic design; Kimberly G. Morris, costume and hair design; Jon Gantt, and lighting design. Stage manager Maya Robinson is the John Belushi Stage Management Scholarship recipient.
"The Wolves" was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in drama and premiered off-Broadway at The Playwrights Realm, following an engagement at New York Stage and Film, and development at Clubbed Thumb and Great Plains Theatre Conference.
"The Wolves" received the American Playwriting Foundation's inaugural Relentless Award, and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Yale Drama Series Prize. DeLappe is the Page One Playwright for The Playwrights Realm and has been a resident artist at the Sitka Fellows Program and SPACE on Ryder Farm.
Offering an Associate in Arts degree, the COD College Theater Department, under the direction of Department Chair Connie Canaday Howard, offers a variety of courses including Acting I and II, Acting for the Camera, Audition, Dance Theatre I and II, Directing, Improvisation, Stage Combat - Armed and Unarmed, Stagecraft, Stage Management, Stage Movement, Stage Makeup, Technical Production, Theater Appreciation and Voice Over Acting. Support is made possible by a generous gift from the College of DuPage Foundation's Dr. Donald and Helen (Gum) Westlake Fund for Student Productions.
For information, visit cod.edu/programs/theater.
The McAninch Arts Center (MAC) at College of DuPage is located 25 miles west of Chicago near I-88 and I-355. It houses three indoor performance spaces (the 780-seat proscenium Belushi Performance Hall; the 236-seat soft-thrust Playhouse Theatre; and the versatile black box Studio Theatre), the outdoor Lakeside Pavilion, plus the Cleve Carney Art Gallery, and classrooms for the college's academic programming. The MAC has presented theater, music, dance and visual art to more than 1.5 million people since its opening in 1986 and typically welcomes more than 75,000 patrons from the greater Chicago area to more than 230 performances each season.
The mission of the MAC is to foster enlightened educational and performance opportunities, which encourage artistic expression, establish a lasting relationship between people and art, and enrich the cultural vitality of the community. For more information, visit AtTheMAC.org or www.facebook.com/AtTheMAC.