Cast announced for The Thirteenth Chair

Ghostlight Ensemble announced the cast of its first endeavor of the 2019-2020 Season, a staged reading of The Thirteenth Chair, by Bayard Veiller.

The play, which is directed by Ensemble Member Chad Wise, stars: Emma Baker (Miss Eastwood), Noah Berman (Wales/Dunn), Justin Broom (Trent), Jean E. Burr (Miss Erskine), Norman J. Burt (Mr. Crosby), Elijah Cox (Will Crosby), Sean Harklerode (Tim Donohue), Casey Kramer (Rosalie), Miona Lee (Miss Standish), Allison McCorkle (Mrs. Crosby), Sean Peck-Collier (Mason), Jonathan Saucedo (Standish), Alina Taber (Helen O'Neill) and Michelle Ziccarelli (Mrs. Trent).

During a séance at the home of the wealthy Crosby family, a man is is murdered. All the doors and windows are locked and the murder weapon can’t be found. How will the real murderer be uncovered?

The Thirteenth Chair, which is presented as a whodunit, has strains of deeper social issues that still resonate today. By setting up Rosalie, the Irish immigrant medium, as a foil to the police Inspector Donohue, Veiller touches on issues of sexism, classism, prejudices and the way police dismiss immigrant populations - even ones they may be part of.

Ghostlight presents a staged reading of the original 1916 play over three nights.

Up Next: A Live Reading of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Ghostlight Ensemble presents the next installment of its ongoing live movie reading series with Don’t Call Me Junior: A Live Reading of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

So dust off that brown leather fedora, get that whip cracking and join us at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 6 at Carbon Arc Bar & Board (4614 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60625), located in the Davis Theater in North Center, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the movie’s release.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and is the third installment in the Indiana Jones franchise. It was release in the United States on May 24, 1989. In Last Crusade, the intrepid explorer Indiana Jones sets out to rescue his father, a medievalist who has vanished while searching for the Holy Grail. Following clues in the old man's notebook, Indy arrives in Venice, where he enlists the help of a beautiful academic, but they are not the only ones who are on the trail, and some sinister old enemies soon come out of the woodwork.

The live reading is directed by Chad Wise.

There is a suggested donation of $5 at the door, which will help Ghostlight fund its upcoming season.

Why Theatre Matters To Us: Chad Wise

Chad Wise (center) as Chet in Ghostlight's 2016 production of "Krampus!"

Ghostlight is sharing our personal stories of why theatre is so important to us and, in turn, to others. We hope you'll feel inspired to support the arts now and forever more.

Chad Wise, Managing Director, Ensemble Member

"After being big fish in a little pond in high school, I got to college and didn't know what to do. My parents insisted I have a 'fall back on' degree so I chose to be an education major, with theatre as a focus. But because of the education requirements, I couldn't go deep into the theatre classes I really wanted to take. So while I performed a lot, I didn't really have much of a path or the opportunity to discover a path. Then came In The Flesh.

"For Christmas my sophomore year I was gifted my choice of tickets to a show playing in Chicago. Being a Central Illinois boy and not knowing what I was doing, I poked through the newspaper (this was 1992 after all). There was the traditional fare, musicals, Shepard, etc. But nothing reached out and grabbed me. Until I saw Clive Barker's name. I had discovered the movie Night Breed the previous year and was enamored. So I chose a production of In The Flesh at the Organic Theater (back when they were on Clark Street).

"Up until this show I admittedly hadn't seen or experienced much theatre. The usual high school stuff (Grease, Little Shop of Horrors) mixed in with some edgier stuff by a great drama teacher (The Diviners, Breaking the Code) and then a year and a half worth of college theatre. But nothing had really jumped out at me yet. This show did. Set in a prison with a supernatural undercurrent, the palpable fear and anxiety I felt in the small studio theater was a far cry from singing along to Greased Lightning. And it affected me deeply. More than anything, it showed me that theatre had the capacity to trigger strong emotions in people beyond the usual joy and sadness and empathy. That a small space could be a help rather than a hindrance. And that the only way to truly do a genre justice is to embrace it completely.

"That show informed most of my choices from then on. It led me into directing and producing. When it came time to start a theatre company it inspired our mission. And to this day, giving people a new and different experience in the dark is the guiding force behind what I do. An app on your phone will never truly affect you like an actor staring straight at you from a few feet away. This is why I do theatre. Life is about experiencing new experiences. Theatre lets me do that for a room full of people every time the lights dim."

http://ghostlightensemble.com/get-funding-fundraiser

Meet the cast of your Nightmare

Ghostlight Ensemble has announced the cast of Nutcracker Nightmare, the main feature of Gingerbread Grindhouse, which takes over the Greenhouse Theater Center's downstairs studio after-hours in December.

In a nod to the lurid, violent films popular in the 1930s through 1970s, Gingerbread Grindhouse will feature a series of live “trailers” for grindhouse-style plays yet to be, before continuing on to the feature production, Nutcracker Nightmare – a holiday tale of children, the toys they love and the toys that try to kill everyone they love. It’s the perfect holiday entertainment.

Written by Ensemble Member Maria Burnham and directed by Ghostlight Managing Director Chad Wise, Nutcracker Nightmare stars Ensemble Member Jean E. Burr as Clara and Guest Artists Alexandra Alontaga as Balam, Sean Harklerode as Drosselmeier, Annie Hogan as Mother, Maura Hogan as Itzamna, Tatum Hunter as Marie, Kirk Jackson as Truncheon, Victoria Jacobson as Zipakna, Serina Johnston as Rose, Allison McCorkle as Dora and the Evil Doll Queen, P. Tyler Nielsen as the Nutcracker and Mark Pracht as Father.

Full bios of the actors and production team are available online.

Gingerbread Grindhouse will also feature grindhouse-style trailers by Babes With Blades, New Millennium Theatre Co., Improvised Twilight Zone, Improvised Jane Austen, The Stuntmen and Ghostlight Ensemble.

Gingerbread Grindhouse takes place at 10:30 p.m. on December 8, 9, 15 and 16, at the Greenhouse Theater Center (2257 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, 60614) in Lincoln Park. Tickets are $15 and are available now through the Greenhouse website at https://www.greenhousetheater.org/gingerbreadgrindhouse, via email at boxoffice@greenhousetheater.org or over the phone at 773-404-7336.

VIDEO: Meet the director of our Season 1 Holiday show

Reading is nice, but sometimes it's better to hear things directly from the directors mouth.

So we've put together a little teaser of Nutcracker Nightmare — part of Gingerbread Grindhouse that goes up this December at the Greenhouse Theater Center — and what your support means to this show.

Ghostlight featured on Chicago on Stage

Ghostlight was recently lucky enough to sits down with Karen Topham (aka chicagodramagirl) of Chicago on Stage and talk about our origin and what made us think we could make it in the crowded Chicago theatre scene.

According to the League of Chicago Theatres, there are about 200 theatre companies in the city of Chicago. Wikipedia also lists about this many, as well as thirty long-standing companies that are now defunct. And that doesn’t even begin to include the multitudes of companies that have appeared for a show or three only to vanish into the competitive haze of the Chicago theatre community, which is, without doubt, one of the most incredible live theatre markets in the country, but also one of the most unforgiving. 

Amid this whirl of dramatic achievement and failure, it must take a certain kind of people with a specific kind of audacity to start a whole new company from the ground up, yet that is precisely what Holly Robison and Maria Burnham, late of Strangeloop Theatre, and Chad Wise, founding member of New Millennium Theatre, and seven other founding members including co-artistic director Michael Wagman, are doing with Ghostlight Ensemble Theatre.

Read the entire article here.

Ghostlight holding auditions for Nutcracker Nightmare

Ghostlight Ensemble will hold auditions for its production of Nutcracker Nightmare, part of our ongoing Gingerbread Grindhouse holiday horror series on, Tuesday, October 24 and Wednesday 25 from 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Theater Momentum (1803 W Byron St #216, Chicago, IL 60613) .

Nutcracker Nightmare is a holiday tale of children, the toys they love and the toys that try to kill everyone they love. It's the perfect holiday entertainment. The play is written by Maria Burnham and will be directed by Chad Wise.

Time Commitment:
Performance Dates: Friday, December 8; Saturday, December 9; Friday December 15 and Satuday, December 16 at 10:30 p.m. at the Greenhouse Theatre Center.

Material To Prepare:
Please prepare a 1-2 minute comic or serio-comic monologue and don't take yourself too seriously. Submit H/R to Jean at casting(at)ghostlightensemble.com, and she will be in touch to schedule an audition appointment.