Displaying items by tag: FLYING MONKEYS

Award-winning Redtwist Theatre, launching its 22nd season with Prayer Circle, September 17 - November 8, by Erik Gernand and directed by Executive Artistic Director Dusty Brown, announces today an added special engagement to its 2026 - 2027 season, the world premiere of Flying Monkeys, produced in collaboration with the New Theatre Project, December 6 - January 17, by L.C. Bernadine and directed by Robert Falls, at Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Preview performances are Friday, Dec. 4 and Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Regular performance schedule includes Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. Some dates adjusted for the holidays. Single tickets are on sale starting September 15 for $50 (seniors and veterans: $35; students: $10 and Fridays are Pay-What-You-Can) with subscriptions also available at RedtwistTheatre.org. 

Chicago is a city where, when all goes well, theater happens at every scale. Just weeks after his production of Don Giovanni will open at the almost 3,500-seat Lyric Opera of Chicago, Robert Falls will direct Flying Monkeys, a new play by Chicago playwright L.C. Bernadine, at Edgewater’s Redtwist Theatre, an intimate venue of just over 35 seats. 

Flying Monkeys follows two transport agents working in the so-called “troubled teen industry.” Hired by a desperate mother, they arrive in the middle of the night to legally take her 15-year-old daughter from her home and deliver her to a residential treatment program across the country. What begins as a job governed by contracts and procedure becomes increasingly complicated as everyone involved is forced to confront what they believe desperation can justify.

Falls read the play earlier this year and was drawn both to its subject and to the opportunity to stage it in an extremely intimate venue. “I’ve been an admirer of L.C. Bernadine’s plays for quite a while,” said Robert Falls. “She has a very distinctive voice — tough, funny, poetic and completely her own — and Flying Monkeys feels to me like an especially exciting new work. It takes on difficult, volatile material without reducing anyone to a type or telling us too quickly what to think. The play keeps shifting under you: your sympathies move, your assumptions get challenged and what at first seems morally clear becomes much more complicated. There are no easy villains and no easy answers, which is exactly what I find so compelling about it.” 

For Falls, the shift from Lyric Opera to Redtwist reflects something essential about Chicago theater. He continued, “I cut my teeth in Chicago at Wisdom Bridge Theatre, one of the city’s first storefront theaters, a small space up two flights of stairs over a bar and a violin repair shop on Howard Street. I spent more than a decade of my life there, so coming to Redtwist really does feel like a homecoming. It’s one of Chicago’s finest theaters and there’s something about being back in a room this intimate that takes me right back to where I began.” 

“L.C. Bernadine has been an incredible friend and collaborator over the past few years, welcoming me to Chicago when I first made the move,” says Redtwist Artistic Director Dusty Brown. “After working together on the Independent Productions Initiative, I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate artistically with L.C. on her new play. Bringing Bob Falls on to direct spoke to the very thing that drew me to Chicago in the first place, the most incredible artists in the world can be found in the least likely of places. Some of our country’s greatest artists started their careers in Chicago storefronts and Bob Falls’s return is a reminder that artistic merit can’t be judged simply by the size of the theatre.”

Redtwist Theatre is producing Flying Monkeys in collaboration with the New Theatre Project. Peter Handler and Spencer Huffman will serve as producers. Founder of the New Theatre Project Spencer Huffman said, "Since our first production in 2024, L.C. has been pivotal in New Theatre Project's success as a producer. When the opportunity arose to co-produce her excellent new play with Bob directing, we jumped at it. This collaboration captures something essential about the Chicago theatre: the city's most notable director teams up with two small storefronts to produce a new play by an under-the-radar Chicago playwright. It's so exciting."

ABOUT L.C. BERNADINE, playwright 

The author of numerous plays and a frequent collaborator with The New Theatre Project, Bernadine was recently profiled in Newcity's "50 Players" as founder of the Independent Productions Initiative, which supports work outside ongoing companies. Her plays include The Whole Seamus Thing, co-written with Ben Auxier (Bramble Theatre); Welcome J-1 Students (University of Alabama Theater); Is You Is, a musical co-written with Nik Whitcomb and Erik Olsen about the 1930s “Races of Mankind” exhibit at The Field Museum (DCASE’s Chicago Cultural Center New Play Residency and then Broadway Rose Theatre, Portland, Oregon) and The Virginian, co-written with Spencer Huffman (City Lit Theatre). 

ABOUT ROBERT FALLS, director

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Robert Falls has directed new plays and reimagined classics, large-scale musical theater and opera in the United States and internationally. He began his career at Chicago’s Wisdom Bridge Theatre and later served as artistic director of Goodman Theatre for 35 years. His most recent productions include Richard Greenberg’s Holiday at the Goodman and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Falls’ many Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida.

His honors include a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, Helen Hayes Award, multiple Jeff Awards and the Savva Morozov Diamond Award from the Moscow Art Theatre. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2015.

ABOUT NEW THEATRE PROJECT, producer

The New Theatre Project is an independent theatre collective based in Chicago. The New Theatre Project intends to put artists at the far edge of their abilities so that they must discover something new to succeed. They believe there is nothing more moving than an artist on the brink. This process of artistic risk and discovery defines their work.