Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) announces its collaboration with CIRCA Pintig, the Filipino American community arts organization, for a night of “Hope and Humanity.” The double feature event features T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, adapted, directed and choreographed by CDE Executive Director Ellyzabeth Adler and CIRCA Pintig’s world premiere production of Daryo’s All- American Diner, written by Conrad A. Panganiban, directed by Louie Pascasio with music by Demetrio Maguigad, May 5 - 20, at The Auditorium at Ebenezer Lutheran Church 1650 W. Foster Avenue. The performance schedule is Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with the art gallery and doors opening at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the venue box office with student and senior discounts available. Tickets and more information are available at DanzTheatre.org.
CDE will exhibit a 20 year retrospective of images, posters and art from the company’s performance history as well as their arts education programs. Included in the exhibit, which will be open for viewing in the gallery space at The 30 minutes before and after each performance, will be original print images from artist David Sarallo, who has his work featured in The Wasteland. Bar and concessions will also be available during this time.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble
The Wasteland
T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, has a cast of four illuminating “the lost generation” of post World War I European society and the human soul’s search for redemption using CDE Founder and Executive Director Ellyzabeth Adler’s unique style of danztheatre that blends together dance, theatre, music and video imagery, featuring the illustrations of David Sarallo, into a visceral theatre experience. Written in a stream of consciousness, it seeks out what humans are looking for, a constant connection in life. Cast for The Wasteland includes Ellyzabeth Adler (Fortune Teller), Courtney Reid Harris (performer), Joshua Hogan (performer) and Peyton Hooks (performer).
The creative team for The Wasteland includes Ellyzabeth Adler (director and choreographer), David Sarallo (video imagery).
The Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble aims to address the social issues and injustices within the theater community through performances of activism. Their efforts challenge the status quo, to shine light on a restructured, diverse and equitable theater community both on stage and in the classroom.
Circa Pintig
Daryo’s All-American Diner
Written by Conrad A. Panganiban, Daryo’s All-American Diner is a new play about resilience seen through the lens of a Filipino family who struggles to keep a family business, Daryo’s All-American Diner, open at the height of the pandemic. May, the 40-year old daughter of the late founder, Daryo, manages the diner and is torn between keeping the business afloat despite mounting expenses or sell the business altogether. As she tiptoes on navigating these choices, her mother April and her African American surrogate aunt Alberta suffer the brunt of racial hatred. May is forced to revisit her decision as family and friends redefine what binds them together as a community. The play sets the tone for how a traumatic act of violence can lead to an act of grace when Daryo’s family and friends find new joy in honoring the legacy of Daryo, the late father whose culinary prowess makes Daryo’s All-American Diner all American.
The play finds its strength through a multiracial assembly of characters creating a montage on which to view the ongoing anti-Asian hate from a perspective that engages cross-cultural healing and understanding.
Cast for Daryo’s All-American Diner includes Heather Jencks (performer), Ginger Leopoldo (performer), RJ Silva (performer), Cary Shoda (performer), Amanda Payne (performer) and KC Khan (performer).
The production team for Daryo’s All-American Diner includes Conrad A. Panganiban (playwright); Louie Pascasio (director); Demetrio Maguigad (music and sound designer); Larry Leopoldo (set designer) and RJ Silva (graphic designer).
ABOUT CHICAGO DANZTHEATRE ENSEMBLE
Founded in 2001, Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is Chicago’s only multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to social justice and socially conscious work that builds community through the arts “one voice, one story, one person at a time.” CDE’s mission is to engage, inspire, and challenge the community, both onstage and in the classroom, through innovative and collaborative multidisciplinary storytelling to illuminate aspects of social issues. We do this in the genre of Tanztheatre, "which unites all art media to achieve an all-embracing, radical change in humankind.” Through our school-based art and performance programs, CDE helps students in Chicago schools explore their own creativity, supporting their social and emotional learning. CDE provides a physical and emotional space where community conversation and cultural change can happen.
For our performance series, CDE is dedicated to creating performances that blend together dance, theatre and visual art to tell stories about the human condition. We give an artistic voice to those who are not always heard.
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Dedicated since our founding to diverse casting of age, body type and ethnicity.
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Consistently listed as a “Top Theater and Dance Performance to See” by New City and Chicago Reader.
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Unique collaborations with the Veterans Art Museum, Poetry Center Chicago, Cantigny Museum, Neighborhood Writing Alliance, Voice of the City and numerous dance and theater companies.
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MacArthur Award Grantee for International Collaborations.
ABOUT CIRCA PINTIG
CIRCA Pintig’s (CP) mission is to engage community members in addressing the critical needs of immigrant communities in creative, participatory and empowering ways. As its name underscores, CP’s mission is two-pronged. The Immigrant Resources focus is on providing access to much-needed resources and services through grassroots activities and campaigns primarily for, from and by immigrant communities. The Community Arts focus is on developing, nurturing and popularizing community arts aesthetic and pedagogy that speak of the immigrant experience within the changing multicultural American landscape as well as celebrating the histories and artistic legacies of America’s diverse cultural terrain through participatory art creation.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) in collaboration with CIRCA Pintig, the Filipino American community arts organization, presents a night of “Hope and Humanity.” The double feature event features T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, adapted, directed and choreographed by CDE Executive Director Ellyzabeth Adler and CIRCA Pintig’s world premiere production of Daryo’s All- American Diner, written by Conrad A. Panganiban, directed by Louie Pascasio with music by Demetrio Maguigad, May 5 - 20, at The Auditorium at Ebenezer Lutheran Church 1650 W. Foster Avenue. The performance schedule is Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with the art gallery and doors opening at 7:30 p.m. Bar and concessions stay open 30 minutes before and after the performance. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the venue box office with student and senior discounts available. Tickets and more information are available at DanzTheatre.org.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is supported by The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation; The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Innovation 80; smART Growth of the Chicago Community Trust; Farny Wurlitzer Foundation; Mardi Gras Fund and the annual support of individual donors.
This production of CIRCA Pintig is supported in part by Asian Giving Circle, Crossroads Fund, DCASE City Arts Grant, Illinois Arts Council, an agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and RESIST.