2019-2020 Season

​Created from witness and survivor stories, newspaper reports, and other accounts; Chicago Fires: Never Before, Never Again, Never Forget tells the stories of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903, and the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in 1958.  These three devastating fires each had a significant and lasting impact on fire safety laws and codes across the country and around the world.  This haunting piece of documentary theatre reminds us that action in the aftermath of tragedy leads to increased safety and prevents the same horrific events from happening time and time again.

​A group of actors gather to tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the 20th century. We Are Proud to Present… takes place largely in a rehearsal room that descends from collaborative to absurd as a group of idealistic actors—three black and three white—attempt to recreate the extinction of the Herero tribe at the hands of their German colonizers. Along the way, they test the limits of empathy as their own stories, subjectivities, assumptions and prejudices catalyze their theatrical process. Eventually the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, and what seemed a faraway place and time comes all too close to home. (from Dramatic Publishing)

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After a successful career on Broadway, Chicago-born actress Cornelia Otis Skinner toured the United States and England for over two decades performing shows comprised entirely of monologues.  Her first one-woman show was The Wives of Henry VIII.  These six monologues show each of the Tudor queens at a single important and defining moment in their lives.  Instead of imitating Ms. Skinner’s signature style and legendary quick changes, this production is viewed through the lens of watching her writing process and includes her original notes, stage directions, and edits.

Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable true story of Irena Gut Opdyke and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy. 19-year-old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of: the basement of the German commandant's house. Over the next two years, Irena uses her wit, humor, and courage to hide her friends until the end of the German occupation, concealing them in the midst of countless Nazi parties, a blackmail scheme, and even the birth of a child. Her story is one of the most inspiring of our time.
​(from Playscripts.com)

About Ghostlight Readers Theatre

     On January 19th, 2017, RLHS Theatre took a pledge along with hundreds of other theaters across the nation.  That pledge was to join in solidarity through our shared commitment to greater inclusion, participation, and compassion in our theaters and our communities through the creation of “brave spaces.”  When a theater goes dark at the end of the night, we turn on a “ghostlight” - offering visibility and safety for all who might enter. This is a theatrical tradition - and our inspiration. Like a ghostlight, Ghostlight Readers Theatre will represent our commitment to safeguard and create safe harbor for our values and for those who find ourselves targeted because of race, class, religion, country of origin, immigration status, (dis)ability, gender identity, or sexual identity. 
 
     The following day, our first production of “Poetic Justice” took the stage.  Without sets or costumes, and just employing the power of words, we shared our message and collected donations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit that fights hate, teaches tolerance, and seeks justice for the most vulnerable people in society.  From those performances, our model was born.
 
History of Productions:
January 2017: Poetic Justice – donations collected for Southern Poverty Law Center
March 2017: SEVEN – donations collected for Vital Voices
April 2017: Dialogs – donations collected for the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
September 2017: Paperless/Sin Papeles (presented in English and Spanish)– donations collected for the RLHS Senior Dreamer Scholarship
October 2017: The Laramie Project – donations collected for the Matthew Shepard Foundation
March 2017: Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie – donations collected for the Illinois Girls Collaborative Project
May 2018: I Never Saw Another Butterfly – donations collected for the National Jewish Theater Foundation
September 2018: We're Not Making a Scene - donations collected for the Southern Poverty Law Center
October 2018: The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later - donations collected for the Matthew Shepard Foundation
December 2018: Chicago Fires: Never Forget - donations collected for the Illinois Fire Safety Alliance
January 2019: Poetic Justice - donations collected for the Southern Poverty Law Center
March and May 2019: Who Will Carry the Word (presented in English and French)
​April 2019: 12 Angry Men – part of the 12,000 Voices national initiative