ROLE CALL: July 2024 @ The Understudy

Part book club, part performance, part debate and part community healing, this year Refracted Theatre Company partners with locations across Chicago to offer Role Call, a community play exploration event coming a neighborhood near you!

At ROLE CALL, we bravely dive into a play by reading it cold, and then we engage in and practice the complicated conversations that often follow challenging art. This series is not a performed reading. That’s the best part – no preparation is necessary! All participants take part reading through the script together for the first time before we jump into a variety of activations and discussions based on our reading. It’s a space for everyone: actors, non-actors, theater lovers, ex-theater lovers, and especially the theater-curious.

And this year, we’re shaking it up a bit!

Last year we met in the same space for each event but this year, we’re bringing the theatre to you! We’re excited to be partnering with various venues and hosts throughout the Chicago area to bring this accessible engagement into different neighborhoods to meet people where they are at.

We’ll also be featuring some special guests, experts, and educators based on our location and the play/subject matter we explore. Part of the fun of Role Call is that it depends on the people who show up!

All participants are given the chance to read throughout the course of the evening, helping to bring the play to life as everyone reads the play aloud together. It’s low-stakes and no pressure, and nobody is forced to read.

This is followed by a series of questions, exercises, and discussions led by the Refracted team, in which the play’s most divisive, nuanced questions are explored from a place of curiosity and empathy.

6:45 – doors open + drinks and snacks provided by Pizza Lobo

7:00 – casting begins

This event is BYOB! Please bring your own bevvy, and perhaps some to share! We’ll provide some food and dishwares! This event it sponsored by Pizza Lobo!

A $10 suggested donation is encouraged, but not required! All are encouraged to attend (we will accept cash or Venmo at the event, or you can donate now at www.refractedco.com/donate)

About The Play:

Marian is visited by a Marian Apparition (just call her Mary, thanks) who tells them to write a play about the Blessed Virgin considering an abortion. Miryam is visited by the angel Gavri’el, who tells her she’s to bear the son of God. And pomegranates keep fruiting up all around, asking them to choose.

About The Playwright:

Katherine Gwynn (they/them) is a non-binary lesbian, CODA, and Chicago playwright who writes about the mythic and violent spaces between queerness, disability, and the divine. Gwynn is the winner of the 2022 UCROSS + The Blank Theatre – Future of Playwriting Prize and a 2023 Venturous Fellowship Nominee. Gwynn also won the 2015 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award and Second Place for the EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights festival 2022. Their work has been developed and produced by Flint Rep, Jackalope Theatre, The New Coordinates, The Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Terra Femina Collective, Commission Theatre, The Fishtank, and Rockhurst University. Gwynn has been a 2024 American Blues Blue Ink Award Semi-Finalist, a 2021 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist and 2x Semi Finalist, 2021 Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series Finalist, a 2x Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist and 4x Semi-Finalist, a 2020 Parity Productions Commission Finalist, a 2020 Story Theatre Resident Playwright Semi-Finalist, a 2019 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship Semi-Finalist, a 2x Ashland Play Festival Semi-Finalist, a 2x New Works Festival at Kitchen Dog Theater Finalist, a 2019 LezPlay Finalist, and a 2x invited Submission for the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

About Refracted:

Refracted’s mission is to disrupt socially accepted narratives by telling the “other side of the story.” By upending audience expectations through innovation and adaptation, Refracted inspires meaningful discourse centered on empathy and humanity.

Refracted is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that was founded in 2019 in New York City by Graham Miller and Tova Wolff. As a four-year old company, Refracted is proud to have been one of the only theaters in the country that produced two full seasons of live theatre during the pandemic, harnessing its powers of creativity and innovation. Now in its fourth season in its new home of Chicago, Refracted invites you to get involved as it redefines what theatre can be in order to build a world fueled by curiosity and compassion. Please visit www.refractedco.com for more information and follow Refracted on social media @refractedco.