Up Next: Make A Move & The Bunny Gets It: A Con Air Live Reading

Ghostlight Ensemble presents the next installment of its ongoing live movie reading series: Make A Move & The Bunny Gets It: A Con Air Live Reading.

Join us at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 7, at Carbon Arc Bar & Board (4614 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60625), located in the Davis Theater in North Center.

Con Air is the 1997 action film starring Nicolas Cage as former war hero Cameron Poe. Poe is sentenced to eight years in prison when he accidentally kills a man in a barroom brawl. When his release comes through, he's eager to see the daughter he's never met, but he finds himself aboard a flight transporting ten of the most dangerous men in the American penal system. When the criminals hijack the plane, Poe has to find a way to get home, keep himself alive, look after his cellmate Baby-O — who will die without proper medicine  — and try to help the cops on the ground.

There is a suggested donation of $5 at the door, which will help Ghostlight fund its upcoming season, AND an additional donation for Chicago Veterans, a non-profit that helps service members and their families in the Chicagoland area transitioning back to civilian life.

Why Theatre Matters To Us: Holly Robison

Holly Robison, second from left, at a production meeting for Ghostlight's 2016 festival of new works, "Six Authors in Search of a Character."

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.
 

Holly Robison, Co-Artistic Director, Ensemble Member

"When I was in the second grade, I played a bunny who choked on a cookie.  I remember that I prepared. We didn't have to memorize our lines, but I was the only kid who did. While it seemed all that was expected was to step forward and read our lines, I thought about how to create the moment, how to choke on the cookie — how to bite the cookie like a rabbit would, the timing of the bite, when to say my line, when to start coughing, etc. I was a painfully shy kid and usually went out of my way to avoid attention  — to avoid talking to people at all, really  — but, man, was I into creating that character. All that scary stuff went away because I had to be a bunny, and I had a cookie to choke on, darn it. I loved it. (OK, full disclosure: repeated teacher-sanctioned cookie consumption may have contributed to my 8-year old joy. But really, that is still part of the joy — those silly, fun, crazy things you get to do and learn as actor. ) 

"Even though it was many, many years before I fully realized and embraced that part of myself, I know now that this was probably the first sign that I was a 'theatre person' at my core. It's my first memory of a love for performance, for crating a character, for telling a story."