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The Chicago Premiere of
The Flu Season

By Will Eno
Directed by Guest Artist Jeremy Wechsler

April 26 - May 31, 2009
At the Athenaeum Theatre

2936 N Southport Avenue


Cast & Crew | Production Photos | Press

The Flu Season is a reluctant love story, in spite of itself. Set in a hospital and a theater, it is a play that revels in ambivalence and derives a flailing energy from its doubts whether a love story is ever really a love story. Literate and lyrical, The Flu Season is a poignant and hilarious meditation on our failure to communicate, the absurdity of love, and our obsession with storytelling.


CAST
Prologue Cory Krebsbach
Epilogue John Henry Roberts
Man Matt Holzfeind
Woman Alice Wedoff*
Doctor William J. Watt
Nurse Darrelyn Marx

PRODUCTION STAFF
Director Jeremy Wechsler
Playwright Will Eno
Producer Vance Smith*
Stage Manager Jessica Fike
Scenic Design Roger Wykes
Lighting Design Jess Hapernau
Costume Design Brenda Winstead
Sound Design Vance Smith*
Assistant Director Chris Cantelmi*
Graphic Design Jenn Wideawake

*Black Sheep ensemble member  

Photos by Paul Metreyeon

Press

"This well-choreographed Chicago premiere strikes just the right balance, engaging us on multiple levels without veering toward either academic or twee. That’s largely thanks to a pitch-perfect cast. Krebsbach is dead-on as the confident, tweed-jacketed Prologue; he’s also convincingly shell-shocked as Roberts’s snappish, harrowed Epilogue gains control. As the lovers, Holzfeind and Wedoff have terrific chemistry as a pair of charming, credible open wounds. Watt and the superbly funny Marx provide support as self-absorbed and self-aware doctor and nurse. FOUR STARS" (Read the full review here)

—Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

"Chicago audiences currently can catch an earlier work called "The Flu Season," in a smart little production from Black Sheep Productions. It is a play full of sly humor and... like "Thom Pain," it is the playwriting equivalent of a magician who yanks the tablecloth off the table, leaving the plates and glasses unmoved... The cast (all quite good; Darrelyn Marx's nurse is a very canny piece of acting) is fully at ease with the stop-go rhythms..."

—Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune

"This gentle, chilly, heart-rending play, about a hospital love story that is continually re-edited by an onstage Prologue and Epilogue, is not just "daring" or "experimental." It's both truly entertaining and truly new."

Centerstage

"As riveting as the actors are, the real star of this play is the caged panther of a script. Ambivalent and rife with wordplay, "The Flu Season" is at once manic and strangely contained. In director Jeremy Wechsler's able hands, the play thrives... MUST SEE" (Read the full review here)

—Sarah Terez Rosenblum, Centerstage

"This is a rare chance to see the work of one of the more talked-about young playwrights of the new century."

Chicago Decider

"Matt Holzfeind and Alice Wedoff subtly produce sparks... The work creeps up on you and leaves you thinking about it long after you leave the theatre. Recommended."

—Tom Williams, Chicagocritic


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