Steppenwolf Theatre Company has revealed the three theater companies that will make up the sixth annual Garage Rep lineup, to run in repertory, February–April 2015. The three include Cold Basement Dramatics, Pride Films & Plays and Red Tape Theatre.
Cold Basement Dramatics, a five-year-old company that "has been dedicated to producing shows that expose the truth and tell stories that have not been told," will mount a new staging of Heat Wave, Steven Simoncic's docuplay about the deadly Chicago summer of 1995, adapted from Eric Klinenberg's book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. The play premiered in a 2008 co-production by Live Bait Theater and Pegasus Players. Rinska Prestinary will direct for Cold Basement.
The LGBT-focused Pride Films & Plays will produce the Chicago premiere of Angry Fags, a dark comedy by Atlanta playwright Topher Payne, in which two gay men go on a violent revenge streak after a friend falls victim to a hate crime. Derek Van Barham directs.
Red Tape Theatre will stage The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, a commedia dell'arte–style 2011 piece by the New York artist Taylor Mac about a ragtag troupe of radicals protest-marching across the country. The director remains to be announced.
In its first five years, the Garage Rep—which boosts the profiles of up-and-coming theaters, with production and marketing support from Steppenwolf—has produced a number of standouts, including the Inconvenience's Hit the Wall, Pavement Group's punkplay, Buzz22 Chicago's She Kills Monsters, Sideshow Theatre Company's Heddatron and Strange Tree Group's The Three Faces of Dr. Crippen.