Playwrights: The Ensemble. At: About Face Youth Theatre at Chicago Cultural Center's Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 E. Washington St. Tickets: 773-784-8565 or AboutFaceTheatre.org; Pay-what-you-can admission. Runs through: July 31
More and more LGBTQ youth have bravely started to come out at earlier ages from the generations before them. So it's great that Chicago's About Face Youth Theatre ( AFYT ) serves as an artistic resource to capture and theatricalize some of their stories.
The latest AFYT world premiere is AD HOC [HOME], and its diverse 13-member ensemble ( who range in age from 14 to 23 ) are posed the simple question "What does home mean to you?"
The answers are very specific and individualespecially to each performer who self-identifies along the LGBTQ spectrum or as heterosexual allies. But the answers in AD HOC [HOME] can also be universal, especially if audiences find reflections of their own experiences of negotiating relationships within birth families throughout time or in creating chosen families of friends and loved ones.
A big credit goes to Ali Hoefnagel and Kieran Kredell. This co-directing duo help to theatrically shape the performers' personal stories into an hour-long series of fragmentary monologues and dialogues that serve as snapshots into the lives of those onstage.
Framed against an idealized house-shaped backdrop with a series of explanatory text and animated images ( a credit to set designer Arnel Sancianco and projection designer Paul Deziel ), AD HOC [HOME] wisely weaves the performers' stories along a chronological progression from before infancy to where they are today. This provides a firm structure to the piece even as it jumps around from actor to actor.
Some ensemble members dig very deep into the past and current hurts they're experiencingparticularly trans performers like Isis Mendoza and Elliot Hobaugh who relate stories of disdainful parental glances or arguments over preferred pronoun usage. All the performers also tap into the notion of safe spaces, which for many was shaken in light of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando this past June.
Toward the end, the ensemble spends a good portion of time sharing how AFYT itself served as a supportive family of friends through the rehearsal process. Though it does appear that some performers are more comfortable onstage than others based upon their engaging stage personas, it is very good that AD HOC [HOME] proves to be so inclusive in bringing together actors with so many different backgrounds and experiences.
The run of AD HOC [HOME] may be short, but pieces of the show will live on via a condensed outreach version that will be performed in the coming months at schools and other places by About Face's Youth Task Force. The message of the show resonates, especially since there is such a need among LGBTQ people to find and create supportive homes through preexisting and constructed families of friends and allies.