2010
A Gala fundraiser hosted by Silk Road Theatre Project’s Board of Directors, featuring cuisines inspired by cultures along the Silk Road. Guests also enjoyed Silk Road Cocktails, created exclusively for Threads of Silk by Adam Seger, one of Chicago's most famous mixologists.
Read MoreConfession is set in Spain towards the end of decades of dictatorship and civil war in the 1930s. On a late winter afternoon, an old American Priest sits waiting to hear confessions in a derelict church. As he begins to fall asleep, the Priest is disturbed by a presence entering the church. Not sure at first if it is real or part of a dream, the Priest eventually recognizes the figure as the Dictator come to say his final confession and receive absolution. The Priest has, however, no intention of granting absolution to a tyrant whom he has always despised. But the Dictator is not used to being thwarted, and an intense power struggle ensues with the characters locked in a deadly embrace.
Read MoreEffectively presented through multiple time frames and nonlinear action, the plot unspools like a curse that spares neither innocents nor killers. The audience itself seems caught in the crossfire that detonates Dale Heinen’s Chicago premiere until detachment becomes impossible.
Read More[Theatre’s] strong suit is its ability to evoke empathy. A well told story can bring home the plights of vastly different people and circumstances. And that’s where Scorched succeeds.
Read MoreThis $10,000 grant was awarded to ten theatre companies across the nation, including Silk Road Theatre Project (Silk Road Rising) toward its general operating expenses.
Read MoreThis $15,000 award was received by Artistic Director Jamil Khoury for playwriting, as 3Arts strives to enrich, strengthen, and sustain the arts and the community.
Read MoreScorched is that rare play that truly manages to convey the spirit of Greek tragedy in a contemporary setting. That's exceedingly hard to achieve... Here, that Sophoclean sense of everything coming together, that paradoxical enigma of how the harder and harder you try to climb out of the muck, the deeper and deeper you sink in the swamp. All that somehow feels logical in this world, where your childhood gets stuck in your throat for life.
Read MoreThe production values of Scorched are excellent. Tom Burch creates a stylized authenticity with his impressive scenic design. Dialect Coach Eva Breneman beautifully supports the uncanny rendering of Lebanese accents. Projection Designer Mike Tutaj stunningly enhances the conception of the show with haunting imagery.
Read MoreScorched is one of those rare plays that successfully crosses over into multiple genres, from historical fiction to family drama to mystery. If you want to see a great story beautifully told, see this show.
Read MoreWhile the topic of “Civil war” is essential to the play, this is not really a “war story” but rather an exploration of some of the results of war, as well as a love story that is difficult to comprehend at first, but once you view this masterpiece of theater, you will see that this type of thing may not be fiction at all.
Read More[Mouawad’s] laserlike vision and heated language, combined with the actors’ prowess and the very handsome design work [...] result in genuine “scorched earth” theater.
Read More[Playwright Wajdi Mouawad's] poetic flourishes (rendered from the French by prolific translator Linda Gaboriau) are compelling, and his themes build to a climax that’s gut-wrenching—even to those paying attention to his Greek allusions.
Read More[The] twisting tales [the script] tells are important and compelling. And the superb Chicago premiere production, directed by Dale Heinen, succeeds completely. The first-rate ensemble totally invest themselves in their multiple roles, while a crack design team transforms the intimate, low-ceilinged basement theater into a convincing replica of a desert village.
Read More2010 Fall Theatre Preview: Eleven plays to buy tickets for now
Read MoreModern warfare has erupted in an increasing number of plays on Chicago’s stages of late.. The trend ramps up this season, beginning with this week’s Scorched at Silk Road Theatre Project.
Read MoreInspired by classical Greek tragedy and the devastating effects of the Lebanese civil war, the internationally-renowned play Scorched was originally written in French by the acclaimed Lebanese French Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad. Carried aloft by poetic language and evocative imagery, Scorched unfolds in a dreamlike atmosphere connecting the origins of one family in startling and unforgettable ways. A brother and sister raised in Quebec must return to their mother's war-torn country to carry out her last wishes—finding the father and brother they never knew they had.
Read MoreTalib (Arabic for student) is set amid the aftermath of the Iraq War. Famous Iraqi actress Hannan Al-Najaf is invited by her friend Aida Al-Masri to stage her war drama at a major American university. When she discovers that an Iraq War veteran has been cast in her play, Hannan must confront her past and decide whether or not she can go on with the show. Talib explores the complicated dichotomies of war from the point of view of the soldiers and civilians and asks if, after so much loss on both sides, reconciliation is possible.
Read MoreSilk Road Cabaret Singers Christine Bunuan, Dipika Cherala, Joseph Anthony Foronda, Erik Kaiko, Govind Kumar and David Rhee, under the musical direction of Peter Storms, sang the National Anthem for Asian Heritage Night at U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox.
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After his Buddhist mother dies of cancer, a college-circuit comedian on the road has 100 days to marry in order for his mother's spirit to transition in peace. Reluctant to fulfill this superstitious condition, the man awkwardly reunites with his estranged and married high school sweetheart. The death that reconnects these two as adults turns out to be their source of salvation.
Read More[Playwright Jamil Khoury says,] "Seeing that such a distinguished group of playwrights agreed to take this journey with me (responding affirmatively to my invitation typically within the number of seconds it took to explain the concept) is testimony both to the power of ancestry and our innate desire to discover something new and unexpected about ourselves.”
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