Arranging for a Performance

Fees and rates are based upon the number of actors your program requires. All programs are available as either an abbreviated or full production.

For current rates and date availability please call the Outreach Coordinator at 773-882-2283 or contact:

outreach@shawchicago.org
ShawChicago Outreach Coordinator
1016 N. Dearborn
Chicago, IL 60610

For educators, ShawChicago offers students a chance to work with Chicago’s top actors in a program that may include workshops, text studies, and performance. Connect the play to your curriculum. We’ll engage your students intellectually while entertaining them and introducing
them to the magic of theater.

“...I was astounded. The amount of skill and perfection that I witnessed blew me away.”
—Michael Damian, Whitney Young High School student

Photos by Lila M. Stromer

Programs We Offer

SHAW LECTURE
Have ShawChicago’s Outreach Coordinator come to your venue to talk about George Bernard Shaw and his life. The lecture will include readings from various Shaw letters and writings. Approximately 1 hour, $100.
2 ACTOR PROGRAMS
Love Scenes
Some of Shaw’s most entertaining love scenes from titles such as Androcles and the Lion, Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, Village Wooing, and You Never Can Tell. The thrill, heartbreak and general confoundedness of love are brought to life. This program is ideal for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, as a special addition to a wedding or anniversary party, and other celebrations.
Address Unknown
This addition to ShawChicago’s repertoire consists of a series of letters between friends and business partners from Nazi Germany to California from 1932 to 1934. The letters depict life during Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. A heart breaking and empowering story from two perspectives, as can only be shared between best friends. Village Wooing
A love affair that begins on the high seas aboard the pleasure ship Empress of Patagonia, reaches its climax in a village shop on the Wiltshire Downs. A laugh-out-loud comedy.
Saint Joan
In Shaw’s great play depicting the life and trials of Saint Joan, we see Joan progress from the simple country girl obeying her saints’ voices, to the warrior and political strategist who transforms the contentious feudal states of medieval France into a united nation. Shaw creates the persuasive conversations between the heroine and the men who enable her dream of a unified France.

3 ACTOR PROGRAMS
Santa Claus’s Partner
A joyous and thoughtful program for the Holidays that contains three stories from the late 19th Century: Santa Claus’s Partner, Nibsey’s Christmas, and Christmas Everyday. Santa Claus’s Partner centers on a modern day Scrooge who, with the help of his assistant’s daughter turns his miserly attitude around. Nibsey’s Christmas describes the tale of a poor newsboy and his wish to have his own Christmas celebration. Last in the group is Christmas Everyday. Just as the title states, a little girl rejects her usual bed time story and requests a story from her parent about a girl who wants it to be Christmas every day of the year. Her wish is granted, with comic but disastrous results.
Shaw vs. Shakespeare
Who is the greatest writer, Shaw or Shakespeare? The two playwrights face off in a good-natured battle with scenes on war, love, and politics from their best works, for comparison. The intelligence and wit of each author is demonstrated until the final knockout punch when the winner is declared.
Shakespeare’s People
This program was designed with the student audience in mind. Hamlet, King Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth are all represented with their most memorable speeches. This program is designed to reinforce the typical reading curriculum of junior high or high school students, or can just as easily be enjoyed by adults at a special event.

4+ ACTOR PROGRAMS
Dark Lady of the Sonnets
(four actors)
Shaw wrote this short play to explain why England should have a national theater. In this performance Shaw connects Shakespeare with his Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Other characters come into the scene, and in the course of conversation Shakespeare discovers his most famous lines and quips.
Shaw’s Women: Smart, Strong, and Rebellious
(four actors)
Brilliant and fascinating female characters of all ages and professions from a variety of Shaw’s plays are part of this performance. In the scenes selected, Shaw’s women use their wit and honesty to dismantle society’s conventional views on love, money, war and motherhood. Don Juan in Hell
(four actors)
A meeting between two formidable characters: Don Juan and The Devil. They discuss their experiences in society and ask where the afterlife is most preferable: in heaven or in hell? We quickly find the answer isn’t as clear-cut as it would seem.
Pygmalion
(five actors)
Shaw’s timeless tale of the transformation of Eliza Doolittle from a poor flower girl, to an accomplished woman capable of besting her teacher, Professor Henry Higgins. This story never fails to touch and delight audiences.
You Never Can Tell
(eight actors)
Tension, drama, comedy, and family hilarity ensue when a divorced woman takes her children on Holiday and runs into her ex-husband after 18 years apart.