Santa Fe’s celebrated physical theater ensemble, Theater Grottesco, proudly announces a limited Chicago engagement for Action at a Distance … in 2025, November 13 - 16 at Facility Theater, 1138 N. California Ave.
Action at a Distance … in 2025 is a bold theatrical experiment from Fay|Glassman Performance crafted in collaboration with Theater Grottesco. This new production, graphically scored in detail, offers a kaleidoscopic theatrical experience that is closer to music composition and dance, blending six simultaneous plays performed on a 10ft x 10ft stage by four actors. In 2018, the two companies received a national grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters for five weeks of outlandish theatrical research and development. After four months of intensive work in 2025, the fully-developed production comes to Chicago for a limited engagement. The performance schedule is Thursday, Nov. 13 - Saturday, Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 16 at 3 and 8 p.m. Press are invited to attend Thursday, Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. Theater Grottesco and Fay|Glassman Performance are committed to making the performances accessible. As part of this commitment, the companies welcome audiences with a sliding scale of ticket prices from $15 - $30. Tickets are on sale now and available at: LisaFayAndJeffGlassmanDuo.org/tickets.
Action at a Distance ... in 2025 is an original work of new theatrical form that breaches several of theatre’s conventional boundaries. Using techniques often found in film, musical composition and dance such as innovative physical “jump cuts” and “gestural choreography,” characters and actions depart from common representations of time and space, to create moments of astonishing synchronicity, while actors fluidly transform among multiple characters and interact across disparate scenes.
This dynamic, multilayered performance challenges traditional storytelling, immersing audiences in a constantly shifting mosaic of interactions and emotions. Action at a Distance … in 2025 follows the structural truths when people distraught and disconnected from one another live together, in imperceptible yet finely-tuned synchronicity, as do the actors on this stage. Much like the bustle of a crowded airport, Action at a Distance captures the unpredictability within human connections.
Six original plays happen simultaneously as performed by four dynamic actors who seamlessly switch between narratives using some of the techniques invented by the Fay|Glassman Performance duo, creating an ever-shifting structural mosaic of simultaneous stories, with juxtaposition, montage, irony and satire, brought to life on a 10ft x 10ft stage.
Six plays. One tiny stage. All happening at once. But what does that actually mean?
The plays:
1. A family with a crying child frantically prepares to evacuate their home in advance of a hurricane.
2. An international human rights lawyer flees her international arms-dealing partner.
3. A filmmaker interviews a doctor who volunteered at the Occupy Wall Street tent camp in 2011.
4. A union local hosts an address by a revolutionary Venezuelan union leader.
5. An artist prepares a gallery installation of the UN negotiator's office for the 1948 Palestine Mandate, just before the negotiator’s assassination by the Stern Gang.
6. A financial mogul is unnerved by a rock, with a photo attached, smashing his window.
The Action at a Distance … in 2025 cast includes John Flax (he/him), Apollo Garcia Orellana (he/they), Elizabeth Glass (she/her) and Danielle Louise Reddick (she/her). The creative team includes Jeff Glassman (he/him, composition/director); Lisa Fay (she/her, composition); Elizabeth Glass (she/her, Santa Fe directing assistance); William Miglino (he/him, Santa Fe rehearsal manager); Richard Norwood (he/him, lighting, Chicago); Joshua Billiter (he/him, lighting, Santa Fe); Julie Williams (she/her, production manager and consultant, Chicago); Stefan Brun (he/him, production manager and consultant, Chicago); Marc Romanelli (photography) and Mariah Olesen (she/her, media materials, consulting and photography).
ABOUT THE LISA FAY AND JEFF GLASSMAN DUO (FAY|GLASSMAN PERFORMANCE)
The Lisa Fay and Jeff Glassman Duo are known for creating theatre that ranges from humorous and disarming to mesmerizing and disorienting. Their work applies composed structures to ordinary human behavior, just as electronic music applies composed structures to ordinary sounds. The techniques they’ve developed over 40 years allow us to observe methodically re-organized behavior in social space. The reflections can be cathartic and awakening, opening windows on new ways of seeing humanity. New doubts and new truths arise about what’s happening “right now.”
ABOUT THEATER GROTTESCO
Founded in Paris in 1983, Theater Grottesco is known internationally for visual and explosive physical productions. The Grottesco Ensemble rekindles interest in live performance by juxtaposing classical and modern theatrical styles with daring, poetic research of culture and imagination, giving voice to marginal elements of contemporary society and taking audiences to the brink of emotional wonder and soulful reflection. Theater Grottesco is celebrating its 29th year in Santa Fe and is a 2017 award winner of the National Theater Program.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Both companies create collaboratively, involving intensive workshops, improvisation and experimentation with an eye toward making a new work of art instead of crafting an already existing play. Devising a new play often takes years. As for the work's rigorous movement, Glassman has said, “Theater Grottesco is the only company I know of that could handle the strange physicality of this work.”
Special thanks for media and publicity materials and advising to Mariah Olesen, Santa Fe; to artists Myriah Duda and Koppany Pusztai, Santa Fe; to Estevan Vigil on lights, Santa Fe; Fay|Glassman Performance for their production support and to Lisa Fay for her keen and cracking good, decades long, artistic consultation and enduring support for this project.
Lisa Fay, Jeff Glassman and Fay|Glassman Performance acknowledge support from the Illinois Arts Council.
L to R: Elizabeth Glass, Danielle Louise Reddick, John Flax and Apollo Garcia in ACTION AT A DISTANCE … IN 2025 from Fay|Glassman Performance crafted in collaboration with Grottesco Theater. Photo from Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during May - June 2025 performances. Photo by Marc Romanelli
L to R: John Flax, Danielle Louise Reddick, Elisabeth Glass and Apollo Garcia in ACTION AT A DISTANCE …IN 2025 from Fay|Glassman Performance crafted in collaboration with Grottesco Theater. Photo from Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during May - June 2025 performances. Photo by Marc Romanelli
(L to R) Danielle Louise Reddick and John Flax in ACTION AT A DISTANCE … IN 2025 from Fay|Glassman Performance crafted in collaboration with Grottesco Theater. Photo from Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during May - June 2025 performances. Photo by Marc Romanelli
(L to R) Danielle Louise Reddick, John Flax, Elisabeth Glass and Apollo Garcia in ACTION AT A DISTANCE … IN 2025 from Fay|Glassman Performance crafted in collaboration with Grottesco Theater. Photo from Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during May - June 2025 performances. Photo by Marc Romanelli