The Den Theatre is pleased to welcome back Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees, the most high-brow show about blow jobs you’ll ever see! Novak’s critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway hit will play two performances February 1 & 2, 2023 at 7 pm on The Heath Mainstage, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 20, 2023 at 10 am at thedentheatre.com or by calling (773) 697-3830. Regular, mezzanine and VIP table seating available. Drink service is provided for all seats (two drink minimum).
Comedian Jacqueline Novak spins her material on the femininity of the penis and the stoicism of the vulva into an unexpectedly philosophical show that’s part feminist outcry, part coming-of-age tale of triumph. Ira Glass calls it a “nearly Talmudic dissection of a subject. Really funny and just really like nothing else.”
About Jacqueline Novak:
Jacqueline Novak (writer/performer) is a comedian whose Off-Broadway, one-woman stand-up show, Get on Your Knees is a New York Times “Critic’s Pick.” Recognized by the Times on “Best Theater of 2019” and “Best Comedy of 2019” lists, the show has been extended six times in New York City and earned Jacqueline a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. In the most recent NYC extension, the show ran for six sold out weeks. Jacqueline is a regular on Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. She has appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden, HBO’s 2 Dope Queens, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and in her own half-hour stand-up special on Comedy Central’s The Half Hour. Jacqueline’s memoir How to Weep in Public: Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows was published by Crown in 2016 and is now available as an audiobook. New episodes of POOG, a podcast Jacqueline co-hosts with Kate Berlant, come out every Tuesday. Jacqueline grew up in Chappaqua, New York and went to Georgetown University. Instagram: @jacnov Twitter: @jacquelinenovak
What people are saying:
“Critic's Pick! Brilliant on the absurdity of having and being a thinking, feeling, desiring body. Shrewd, explicit, though not exactly raunchy, this is the funniest show about Cartesian dualism you will see all year!” – The New York Times
"Clearly her masterwork." – New York Magazine
“An overthinker’s delight, and a reminder that a woman’s humor can cut as deeply as her rage." – The New Yorker
“The true subject of Get on Your Knees is language and its beautiful, delusional attempts to make amends for human finitude. I’m not kidding. Over eighty minutes of manic soliloquy, Novak transfigures the clumsy corporeality of fellatio into a sparkling ode to poetry itself.” – New York Review of Books, by Andrea Long Chu
“A dissection of the art of the blowjob, with all the critical faculties and language of a graduate-level seminar… In a moment when the boundaries between high and low culture have all but dissolved, Novak has found one of the few remaining tensions to play with." – Paris Review
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seen the Muhammad Ali of comedy.” – John Mulaney
“The jokes are tremendous and hilarious, but also the exposure of it – it’s big boy stuff. It really is.”
– Natasha Lyonne for Interview Magazine
“It was a staggering show, the kind of thing that changed everyone in the room. I laughed beside a stranger and in laughing together we knew that we had both experienced the very thing Jacqueline was talking about. She’s major.” – Miranda July
“Never in my lifetime could I imagine seeing such a hilarious, rigorous, and gut tingling semiotic deconstruction of the phallus in the theatre. This felt as if Andrea Dworkin and Spaulding Gray had a child they made listen to only Moms Mabley and read only Mary Oliver.” – Jeremy O. Harris
“I felt my teenage self seen and heard. I hope a lot of young women, older women, young men, older men, and also non-binary peeps of all ages see this show because it is funny and healing.” – Ilana Glazer
"A must see!!! I howled the whole time." – Amy Sedaris
Performance schedule
- Wednesday, February 1, 2023 at 7 pm
- Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 7 pm
COVID safety: Effective November 21, 2022, The Den Theatre will no longer require patrons to offer proof of vaccination for COVID-19 to gain entry into the facility. For the most up-to-date information on our venue’s COVID precautions, please visit thedentheatre.com/covid19-policy.
About The Den Theatre
The Den Theatre opened in 2010 in the Wicker Park neighborhood with just a single theatre space. Now celebrating its thirteenth year, Co-owners Ryan Martin and Carol Cohen, along with their talented and dynamic staff, have developed The Den into a multi-level, live entertainment venue that boasts five intimate and unique theaters ranging from 50 – 300 seats. In addition, the first floor houses The Den Bar & Lounge – a full-service bar where audiences gather before and after performances to share a drink and commune with like-minded culture-hounds. Today, The Den is focused on providing world-class stand-up comedy and cultivating its first love – the theatre. The Den is home to six resident theatre companies including About Face Theatre, The Artistic Home, Broken Nose Theatre, First Floor Theater, Haven and The New Coordinates. Hundreds of other companies, artists and comedians from Chicago and beyond have called The Den home – from national names to local stars, and The Den consistently plays host to a lineup of exciting and diverse talent. As a building created for interdisciplinary arts, The Den has accommodated a wide variety of programming, including plays, musicals, stand-up comedy, improv, dance, film screenings, seminars and speaking engagements. For additional information, visit www.thedentheatre.com.