"... the youthful, bare-bones operation that has staged laudable work in recent seasons ..."
Chicago Sun-Times
Production Detail
2009-2010
People We Know
A World Premiere by Robert Tenges directed by Adam Webster
May 7 - June 6
Thursday - Saturday 8pm Sunday 3pm Previews May 4-6 Added Performance! Sat, June 5 @4pm
It's been a year since Paul was sent away over what happened with the young girl in his class, and no one knows what to say. Or think. Did he do it? Could they have known? Did they know?
Do we ever know who people are, behind closed doors?
The director and playwright of 2005's staging of Strangers Knocking ("compelling" - Time Out, "strikingly resonant" - Tribune, "powerful" -Sun-Times and "startlingly true" - Reader) team up with a world-premiere team of emerging artists from across the city.
4 Stars! - TimeOut Chicago "delivers powerful, and often powerfully comic, insight into the resources and limitations of friendship and love."
[read more]
Recommended! - Reader "what Donald Margulies's Dinner With Friends could've been ... Tenges excels at truthy dialogue dipped in acid, and Adam Webster's cast of six could hardly be better at landing his lines with razor precision." [read more]
Recommended - Tip of the Week! - Newcity "Adam Webster's direction peels away emotional layers as the show progresses and gives the piece a cool complexity, showing us that no one knows anyone really, not all that well." [read more]
Critics Pick! - WBEZ's 848 "wonderfully performed and very, very thoughtful and provocative" [read more]
3 Stars! - Chicago Stage Review "a fascinating slideshow of relationships that are trying to hold out past the expiration date" [read more]
Special Pre-Show Event:
"Anatomy of a Rewrite" Thursday, June 3
Join director (and side project Artistic Director) Adam Webster, playwright Robert Tenges, actor (and Chicago Dramatists Resident Dramaturg and playwright) Robert Koon and Victory Gardens Associate Artistic Director Sandy Shinner for light dinner and conversation about People We Know's 10-year journey from page to stage.
Written in 2001, shelved until 2005, staged in a reading at Victory Gardens in 2006, rewritten from scratch at a retreat, and revised for the world premiere, get an inside look at how a script becomes a show.
The event begins at 6:30pm with heavy appetizers from the Caribbean-American Baking Company!
C. Sean Piereman, Robert Koon, Amy Johnson, Kirsten D'Aurelio, Elizabeth Bagby, and Andy Hager.
AND THE WORK OF
Kait Lamansky (Assistant Direction), Crystal Jovae Mazur (Costumes), Michelle Lilly O'Brien (Sets), Aaron Weissman (Lights), Claudette Perez (Sounds), and Dianna Driscoll (Management)
