Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill By Lanie Robertson Cast and Creative Team.  The time is 1959. The place is a seedy bar in Philadelphia. The audience is about to witness one of Billie Holiday’s last performances, given four months before her death. More than a dozen musical numbers are interlaced with salty, often humorous, reminiscences to project a riveting portrait of the lady and her music. Featuring iconic songs like “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit,” Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is an all-access pass to Billie Holiday’s final concert. With humor and hopefulness, the legendary singer takes us on a journey through the highs and lows of her tumultuous life,

Thur-Sat & 7:30pm

Sunday- 2:00pm

January 26th - February 9th

Tickets:  $16

 All You Care To Eat: A Comedy Thingy Podcast, the latest venture from the sketch and improv comedy troupe, Comedy Thingy, is a monthly-recurring sketch comedy series performed in the style of a radio play with live sound effects, music, and readings by actors with scripts-in-hand.

Following successful recordings of Seasons One & Two, Comedy Thingy will be recording Episodes 13, 14, & 15 for Season Three on the evening of Saturday, March 9th at 7:30 p.m. in front of a live studio audience at The Black Box Theatre. The audience will get three distinct, original, unique comedy shows in one night with two brief intermissions. Content will be uncensored and is recommended for audiences 18 and over.

In these episodes, Comedy Thingy will be once again joined by Chicago comedian/actor and host of the podcast, Patrick Brennan; special guest announcer, Mark Allen (WHO Radio 1040); special guest and Chicago musician, Kathryn Sander; and keyboardist, Mike Brose. The whole shebang is audio engineered by Gunnar Malstrom. For more information on the podcast as well as the troupe, please visit ComedyThingy.com. 

Saturday March 9th at 7:30pm

Tickets: $7

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Jason Robert Brown's Drama Desk winner, The Last Five Years, has been translated into a handful of languages and was named one of TIME Magazine's ten best shows of 2001. A testament to the show's longevity, and spurred by the show's regional popularity, The Last Five Years enjoyed an Off-Broadway revival at Second Stage in 2013.  

An emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years, the show's unconventional structure consists of Cathy, the woman, telling her story backwards while Jamie, the man, tells his story chronologically; the two characters only meet once, at their wedding in the middle of the show.  You won't want to miss this unique story.

Thursday-Saturday 7:30pm

Sunday 2pm

March 28th - April 7th

Tickets:  $16

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 'Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story', an award winning musical with book, music, and lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff. Based on the true story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the so-called "thrill killers" who murdered a young boy in 1924 in order to commit "the perfect crime." 

Told in flashbacks, beginning with a 1958 parole hearing, it examines the relationship between Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb – both wealthy, normal and intelligent Chicago students, about to commence training to become lawyers. We are taken on a journey of two young men, one who believed he was above the law - obsessed and fuelled by the philosophy of Nietzsche to the point he believed he was a 'Superman' beyond good and evil. The other - a loner - became a willing accomplice, empowering Loeb in his crimes. Together, they both believed they had perpetrated the perfect murder, or was one more certain than the other?  

April/May Dates TBD

Tickets:  $16

Based on Louisa May Alcott's life, Little Women follows the adventures of sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March. Jo is trying to sell her stories for publication, but the publishers are not interested – her friend, Professor Bhaer, tells her that she has to do better and write more from herself. Begrudgingly taking this advice, Jo weaves the story of herself and her sisters and their experience growing up in Civil War America.

Little Women embodies the complete theatrical experience, guaranteeing a night filled with laughter, tears and a lifting of the spirit.  The powerful score soars with the sounds of personal discovery, heartache and hope – the sounds of a young America finding its voice.

June 20th - 30th

Tickets: $16

 A multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical tour-de-force, Assassins combines Sondheim's signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music with a panoramic story of our nation's culture of celebrity and the violent means some will use to obtain it, embodied by America's four successful and five would-be presidential assassins. Bold, original, disturbing and alarmingly funny, Assassins is perhaps the most controversial musical ever written.

Assassins lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, in a one-act historical "revusical" that explores the dark side of the American experience. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, writers, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, bend the rules of time and space, taking us on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in which assassins and would-be assassins from different historical periods meet, interact and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream.

August 8th - 17th

Tickets: $16