Invictus Theatre Company has announced cast and production team for its 2026 season opener, Tennessee Williams’s CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. The 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama will be the company’s 20th onstage production since the company’s founding in 2017. It will open to the press on February 24, 2026, following previews from February 17, and play through March 29.
Founding Artistic Director Charles Askenaizer will direct a cast including actors who have been some of the most prolific and lauded on the Chicago storefront theatre scene in recent years, including two members of the cast of Invictus’s epic ANGELS IN AMERICA (named by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Chris Jones as the best Chicago theater production of 2025). Joe Bushell, who played Joe Pitt in that production, will appear as Brick, the troubled ex-football star grieving the loss of his best friend. Brick’s wealthy parents — called “Big Daddy” and “Big Mama” — will be played by Matt Rosin (Mike in City Lit’s PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD) and Renae Stone (Hannah Pitt, Ethel Rosenberg and others in Invictus’s ANGELS IN AMERICA). Michael B. Woods (a Jeff Award nominee for his Macduff in Invictus’s THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, and a winner for BoHo’s CYRANO) and Andrea Uppling (a Jeff Award nominee for her Martha in Invictus’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?) have been cast as Brick’s older brother Gooper and Gooper’s wife Mae. The role of Margaret, Brick’s wife who is determined to save their marriage so they can inherit the family fortune, will be played by Katherine Wettermann (seen most recently as Jackie in MAURITIUS with Parker Players Theatre Company). Also in the cast are James Lewis (Ben Jonson in Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s THE BOOK OF WILL) as Doctor Baugh, and Bryan Nicholas Carter (Invictus’s THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND) as Reverend Tooker. Olivia Mulder, Parker Secco, Emerson Secco, and Seamus Flynn will play Gooper and Mae’s children, Dixie, Trixie, Polly, and Sonny.
Understudies are Shane Roberie (u/s Big Daddy, Doctor Baugh, Reverend Tooker), Elizabeth Rude (u/s Big Mama), Christopher Ratliff (u/s Brick, Gooper), Caitlin Jemison (u/s Margaret, Mae), and Anya Treviño (u/s Buster, Dixie, Trixie, Polly, and Sonny).
Top row (l-r): Joe Bushell, Bryan Nicholas Carter, Seamus Flynn, James Lewis
Second row (l-r): Olivia Mulder, Matt Rosin, Emerson Secco, Parker Secco
Third row (l-r): Renae Stone, Andrea Uppling, Katherine Wettermann, Michael B. Woods
Fourth row (l-r): Caitlin Jemison, Christopher Ratliff, Shane Roberie, Elizabeth Rude
Bottom row: Anya Treviño
The production team that will recreate the world of the elegant southern plantation mansion in which the play is set will include Jeff Award winners Kevin Rolfs (Scenic Designer) and Petter Wahlbäck (Sound Designer), and three-time Jeff nominee Levi J. Wilkins (Lighting Designer); Anika Splettstoeszer (Costume Designer and Wardrobe Supervisor), Beep Trefts (Production Manager), Kate Parry (Production Associate), Mark Brown (Production Electrician), Randy Rozler (Properties Designer), Jay Donley (Violence and Intimacy), Susan Gosdick (Dialect Coach), Isis Elizabeth (Assistant Director), Sam Flipp (Stage Manager), Laura Courtney (Assistant Stage Manager), Ollie van den Heuvel (Child Liaison), Tom McNelis (Technical Director), River Wise (Scenic Charge), and Becca Holloway (Casting Director). Invictus staff includes Charles Askenaizer (Artistic Director), Todd Henry Faulstich (Executive Producer), MC Dougherty (Marketing Director), and Ana Schedler (Graphic Design).
All performances will be at the Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. Tickets for CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and season subscriptions for the 2026 season are on sale now at www.invictustheatreco.com.
LISTING INFORMATION
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Charles Askenaizer
February 17 - March 29, 2026
Previews: February 17 at 7 p.m., February 21 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., February 22 at 1 p.m., February 23 at 7 pm
Press Opening: Tuesday, February 24 at 7 p.m.
Press Opening: Tuesday, February 24 at 7 p.m.
Performances Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays at 7 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m.
No performance Monday, March 23.
Additional performance Tuesday, March 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Performances at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago
Ticket prices: Previews $25. Monday $25. Friday through Sunday $45. Season subscriptions available.
www.invictustheatreco.com
As the Pollitt family gathers in their Mississippi Delta plantation house to celebrate the birthday of their patriarch, Big Daddy, the mood is somber, despite the festivities. Big Daddy’s favorite son Brick is struggling with alcoholism and grieving the loss of a teammate on his high school football team who may have been more than just a friend. Brick’s wife Maggie is desperate for his affection and for security within the family. Secrets, lies, and the looming threat of mortality drive the characters to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves and each other.
BIOS
BIOS
Charles Askenaizer (Artistic Director, Director CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, INDECENT) is the Founding Artistic Director of Invictus Theatre. He directed Invictus’s 2025 production of ANGELS IN AMERICA, named the best Chicago theatre production of the year by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Chris Jones. Askenaizer won the 2023 Jeff Award (Non-Equity Wing) for his direction of the company’s WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, which also won Jeff Awards for Production of a Play, Scenic Design (Kevin Rolfs), and Performer in a Supporting Role – Play (Rachel Livingston). Other recent Invictus directing credits include: THE WINTER’S TALE, NETWORK, THREE SISTERS, THE CRUCIBLE (Jeff Award Nominations-Director, Production), JULIUS CAESAR, HAMLET, 'NIGHT, MOTHER (Associate Director), THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, and OTHELLO: THE MOOR OF VENICE. Directing credits outside of Invictus include TITUS ANDRONICUS (Bare Knuckles Theater), JULIUS CAESAR (Associate Director- Brown Paper Box), THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (Reutan Collective) and readings with Chicago Dramatists and Piccolo Theater. Since 2018, Charles has also directed several productions for Invictus's outreach programming in partnership with the Cook County Juvenile Justice System and Lawrence Hall, a community based service agency embracing at-risk youth and their families. In 2024, Charles was named one of New City Magazine’s “Players 50 2024: The Rising Stars and Storefront Stalwarts.”
Tennessee Williams (Playwright, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF) was an iconic American playwright whose works are central to 20th-century theater. Born Thomas Lanier Williams III, he rose to fame with plays like THE GLASS MENAGERIE, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, and CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, each exploring complex themes of human vulnerability, desire, and societal pressures. Williams’s poetic dialogue and deeply drawn characters have made his plays enduring favorites on stage and screen. His literary accomplishments earned him numerous awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, and his influence on both American drama and global theater remains profound.
ABOUT INVICTUS THEATRE COMPANY
Invictus Theatre Company has been one of the most notable success stories among Chicago’s storefront theatres in spite of the challenges facing the theater community in recent years. Founded in 2017, they were an itinerant company until the fall of 2021, when they established residency in the former Jackalope Frontier Theatre in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, renaming it the Reginald Vaughn Theatre in honor of a deceased founding member. In that space, they continued to build a reputation for intimate and honest interpretations of classics with fidelity to the original texts and close attention to character development. The company’s extraordinarily successful 2021-22 season netted the company five Jeff Awards for its 13 nominations. When a fire gutted the Thorndale Avenue building housing the Reginald Vaughn Theatre in July 2023, the company was again homeless until early 2024, when they took up residence in the Windy City Playhouse on Irving Park Road. The company’s inaugural season in that space included highly regarded productions of TOPDOG/UNDERDOG, Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS, the Chicago premiere of NETWORK, and Shakespeare’s THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH. The company’s 2025 season, in addition to the two parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA (named by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Chris Jones as the best theater production of the year), included THE WINTER’S TALE and THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND. The company’s leadership team — Founder/Artistic Charles Askenaizer and Executive Director Todd Henry Faulstich — were recently named among NEWCITY STAGE’s “Players 2026: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago.” Invictus was also the proud recipient of the League of Chicago Theatres’ 2024 Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theatre Award.
At Invictus Theatre Company, our mission is to create theatre that promotes a better understanding of language: its poetry, its rhythm, its resonance; through diverse works by diverse artists. We respect the power of heightened language: spoken, written, sung; to express the breadth of the human condition. We work to harness the power of language: to promote diversity, to engender respect, to foster collaboration; and to empower our communities to share their voices.
Invictus Theatre Company incorporated in January 2017 and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in February 2017. A diverse group of Chicago actors and directors founded Invictus with the vision to empower their communities through theatrical productions of heightened language. We are committed to the idea that our productions should reflect the communities we represent, and, to that end, we are committed to non-discriminatory hiring practices. In working with local artists, designers, and production teams, Invictus Theatre Company does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, nationality, citizenship, religion, or any other status protected by law.
Invictus Theatre Company is generously supported by Michael and Mona Heath of The Heath Fund, The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Untouchable Times Tours, Inc., and the Illinois Arts Council.