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Victory Gardens Theater (2433 N. Lincoln Avenue), an historic incubator for new play development, proudly announces the World Premiere staging of The Humanities, a contemporary new work by acclaimed playwright Zayd Ayers Dohrn, directed by veteran Chicago talent Eddie Torres. The Humanities is a provocative, ripped-from-the-headlines story that explores the events after a controversial speaker is invited to lecture at an elite American university. Performances of The Humanities begin Thursday, September 10, and continue through Sunday, October 4, 2026; the official Opening is Sunday, September 13, at 6 p.m.

The all-Chicago cast of The Humanities includes Ernest Bentley, Steve Pickering, Isa Arciniegas, Naomi Evans, Daniil Krimer, Devaughn Asante Loman, Piper Murphy, Derrick Sanders III, and Sabine Wan with understudies Alexander Chance, Avery-Slade Fountain, and Clara Imon Pedtke, while the creative team includes Edward D. Richardson (Stage Management), Jayce Lewis (Assistant Stage Management), David Woolley (Fight Choreography), Julie Granata-Hunicutt (Intimacy Direction), Maren Rosenberg (Production Management), Brian Sydney Bembridge (Lighting/Scenic Design), Myron Elliott (Costume Design), and Johnny Johnathan (Sound/Production Design).

"I wrote The Humanities years ago, thinking about the forces that seemed to be tearing America apart and leaving the country vulnerable to an authoritarian takeover," said Ayers Dohrn. "If anything, the themes of the play – identity, race, protests on college campuses, and political violence – have only become more relevant, and this feels like the perfect moment to premiere a new play about the impulses that divide us and about our collective search for a more perfect union."

"For over 50 years, Victory Gardens Theater has nurtured and produced relevant, new work that reflects the diverse stories of the community and contributes to the vitality of American theater.  Hiring an all-Chicago cast to perform The Humanities further reinforces Victory Gardens' commitment to investing in the city's exceptional artistic talent and elevating Chicago voices," added Torres, also Victory Gardens Interim Artistic Director.

Zayd Ayers Dohrn is the author of the acclaimed national bestselling memoir Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young and creator of the hit podcast Mother Country Radicals. His plays include Revolution(s) (the Goodman), The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Outside People (The Vineyard), and Reborning (The Public/SPF). Ayers Dohrn is the Daniel Hale Williams Professor and Director of the MFA in Writing for Screen + Stage at Northwestern University. The Humanities was developed by Ayers Dohrn during a residency at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference in 2019, under Preston Whiteway, Executive Director, and Wendy C. Goldberg, Artistic Director, and in partnership with the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, in the 2019 New Stages Festival, under Robert Falls, Artistic Director, and Roche Schulfer, Executive Director. 

Eddie Torres is an acclaimed director & performer. He has won five Jeff Awards, notably for Best Director for the premiere of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, a Latin ACE Award, and an ATI Award. He is a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, the Artistic Director Emeritus of Teatro Vista Productions, and is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Performance schedule & ticket pricing

The Humanities will be performed in a limited engagement Thursday, September 10, through Sunday, October 4, 2026, with its official Opening on Sunday, September 13, at 6 p.m. Performances take place on Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.; and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. (with the exception of September 13). Please note, this work contains mature themes including sexual content, strong language, and partial nudity, and is not suitable for children under 17 without parental guidance. Tickets, which start at $55, are now on sale by visiting eventbrite.com. Use promo code PREVIEW to receive 25% off all Adult and Senior tickets for performances on September 10, 11, and 12. For information about group rates and discounted ticket packages, please contact the Victory Gardens Theater Box Office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

About Victory Gardens Theater

Victory Gardens Theater serves as a sanctuary for fearless artistic exchange, producing new work that ignites the imagination and challenges the mind. Since its founding in 1974, the nonprofit theater company Victory Gardens Theater has produced more world and Chicago premieres, worked with more living playwrights, and exported more new plays for production elsewhere than any other theater in the region. Victory Gardens Theater strives to be a national leader in bringing stories to the stage that ignite social change and strengthen community, creating a more just and compassionate world. Victory Gardens Theater is currently under the direction of Interim Executive Director Archana Vaidya and Interim Artistic Director Eddie Torres. For more information, please visit victorygardens.org.

Mia Chung’s Catch as Catch Can, which premiered with Page 73 in New York in 2018, arrives at Steppenwolf Theatre - one of Chicago’s most dynamic and daring artistic institutions - with a production that immediately embraces the play’s slippery, shape-shifting nature. Chung’s script thrives on emotional volatility and fractured identity, and Steppenwolf’s staging taps into that energy from the outset, preparing the audience for a world where the familiar can tilt, distort, and reassemble without warning.

Catch as Catch Can begins with the familiar comfort of kitchen-table talk between two New England mothers, Roberta Lavecchia and Theresa Phelan. Under Amy Morton’s direction, those early scenes feel lived-in and deceptively ordinary - two longtime friends trading stories, worries, and family updates with the shorthand of people who have known each other for decades. But as the play unfolds, that everyday warmth becomes the launching point for a story that veers into far more disorienting territory. The return of Tim Phelan unsettles the delicate balance between the Lavecchias and the Phelans, stirring up old assumptions, unspoken resentments, and long-dormant family myths. What begins as a simple homecoming slowly reveals itself as a catalyst for emotional slippage, where memories blur, loyalties shift, and the characters’ sense of who they are - and who they have been to each other - starts to fracture. Morton guides this progression from domestic realism to psychological unraveling with remarkable control, allowing the play’s humor, tension, and creeping dread to coexist in the same breath.

The production’s boldest device - three actors portraying all six characters - becomes the heartbeat of the evening. Gary Cole (as Roberta and Robbie Lavecchia), Audrey Francis (as Lon and Daniela Lavecchia), and Tim Hopper (as Theresa Phelan and Tim Phelan) deliver performances that are nothing short of remarkable. Morton directs them with a sculptor’s precision, shaping each transformation through voice, posture, and energy rather than costume changes or props. The actors rarely add so much as an apron, a pair of glasses, or a purse to differentiate roles; instead, they rely on the smallest shifts in breath, cadence, or physical weight. Even the simplest physical actions - threading a needle, folding laundry, lifting a heavy picture onto a wall, or a mother rolling out her famous meatballs - become character markers, subtle cues that signal who is speaking without ever breaking the flow of the scene. At times, it feels as though six fully realized people are occupying the room, even though only three bodies ever stand onstage.

After the opening scene, it took me a few minutes to recalibrate to the production’s rhythm, especially as the actors began switching characters with such speed and minimal visual cues. But that adjustment period is brief. Before long, the doubling feels not only natural but essential, a kind of theatrical language the production teaches you how to read. Once you settle into its cadence, the transformations become thrilling rather than disorienting, sharpening the play’s emotional stakes and deepening its sense of unease.

The rapid-fire switching becomes its own kind of theatrical whiplash. An actor may leap from one character to another every other sentence, often without a single visual clue, and Morton ensures each pivot lands cleanly without losing an ounce of emotional clarity. The play becomes a fault line in constant motion, where identities slide, collide, and splinter beneath the surface.

Gary Cole, Tim Hopper and Audrey Francis (L-R) in Steppenwolf Theatre's Catch As Catch Can. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

All three performers - Gary Cole, Audrey Francis, and Tim Hopper - are longtime Steppenwolf ensemble members, bringing a shared artistic vocabulary that sharpens every transformation onstage.

Cole toggles between Roberta’s brittle warmth and Robbie’s restless bravado with astonishing finesse. This production marks his first return to a Chicago stage in more than 25 years, and it is a triumphant homecoming. He is known to many for Office Space, Talladega Nights, HBO’s Veep, NCIS, and one of my favorite roles - Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel. Cole reminds audiences that his stage roots run deep. As Roberta, he carries a soft, fluttering concern that sits right behind the eyes; as Robbie, that same gaze sharpens into something quicker, hotter, and more impulsive. His ability to pivot between those energies with nothing more than a shift in breath or a recalibrated stance makes each transition feel both seamless and startling. It is a performance built on precision, but it never feels mechanical.

Francis brings an equally impressive duality to Lon and Daniela. In addition to being a Steppenwolf ensemble member, she now serves as the company’s artistic director alongside Glenn Davis, a role that underscores her influence on Chicago’s theatrical landscape. Known for standout performances in The Herd, Dance Nation, her work on Chicago Med, and directorial skill in You Will Get Sick, she grounds Lon with a quiet, blue-collar steadiness, a man who absorbs the world before reacting to it. Daniela, by contrast, is all edges and alertness, her movements tighter and her voice pitched with a nervous brightness that hints at deeper cracks. Francis masterfully switches entire gravitational centers. The clarity of her physical vocabulary makes each character instantly legible without a single costume change.

Hopper’s pairing may be the most haunting of the three. With Steppenwolf credits that include The Crucible, The Flick, and Buried Child, he brings a raw, unsettling honesty to both Theresa and Tim. His Theresa is a portrait of unraveling vulnerability, a woman whose emotional seams are beginning to split in ways she can barely articulate. His Tim, meanwhile, carries the quiet desperation of someone trying to hold himself together even as the ground shifts beneath him. Hopper plays both roles with a volatility that feels almost dangerous. The characters mirror and distort one another, creating an emotional echo that deepens the play’s sense of unease. Watching him slip between them is like watching a reflection break apart and reassemble in real time.

Together, these performances form the core of the production’s power. With Morton’s direction guiding every pivot, the trio creates the uncanny sensation that the stage is populated by twice as many people as are physically present. Their transformations are so quick and so clean that the audience must stay alert, tracking identities as they slide, collide, and reform. It is a feat of acting that is both technically dazzling and emotionally resonant, and it is the reason the play’s unstable world feels so alive.

As the story darkens - touching on mental health, racism, cultural tension, and the fragile scaffolding that holds families together - the doubling amplifies the instability. Chung threads moments of racial bias and coded language into the fabric of these families’ interactions, revealing how prejudice can hide inside the most casual exchanges and how easily it can rupture long-standing bonds. Morton understands that the play’s power lies in this slippage, and she allows the actors to push into the unsteady terrain without ever losing emotional truth. The result is a production that feels intimate yet vertiginous, a domestic drama that slowly cracks open into a haunting exploration of identity and the roles we inherit, perform, and sometimes cannot escape.

Andrew Boyce’s scenic design is a quiet marvel, giving the production a sense of dimensionality that feels both naturalistic and subtly disorienting. The main playing space is an open living room, flanked on one side by an entryway and a partial view into the kitchen, and on the other by a long hallway that suggests the deeper interior of the house. Just beyond the living room, another room is visible past a second hallway, creating the impression of a home that extends well beyond the edges of the stage. Boyce’s layout allows the audience to feel as though they’re peering into a fully lived-in environment, one with corners, thresholds, and unseen rooms that hold their own histories. Yuki Nakase Link’s lighting deepens this effect, subtly sculpting each corridor and doorway so the house seems to breathe with possibility - sometimes warm and inviting, sometimes shadowed with tension. It is a multidimensional design that grounds the play’s domestic realism while subtly reinforcing the sense that something inside this home - and inside these families - is evolving.

In their Artistic Director note, Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis frame Catch as Catch Can as a rare convergence of timing, artistry, and ensemble history - a production long delayed, now finally realized with the team that first set out to make it in 2020. They speak to the play’s uncanny pull, describing how Chung’s story has embedded itself in the company’s imagination, refusing to loosen its grip. For them, the doubling is not just a theatrical device but a test of the ensemble’s virtuosity, a chance for Steppenwolf to stretch its actors toward the edges of what performance can hold. And at the heart of their message is the idea that the play’s exploration of identity, home, and the selves we construct makes it a fitting capstone to the theatre’s 50th anniversary season - a reminder of how Steppenwolf’s long-standing commitment to family drama, artistic risk, and shared storytelling continues to shape its legacy.

Catch as Catch Can ultimately lands with the force of a quiet detonation, its emotional aftershocks lingering long after the final blackout. Morton and her trio of actors craft a world that feels both intimate and treacherous, a place where identity slips, refracts, and reforms in ways that are as unsettling as they are compelling. It is the kind of production that rewards close attention and invites conversation long after you’ve left the theatre - about family, perception, and the narratives we inherit without realizing it. Catch as Catch Can runs at Steppenwolf through July 12, with performances throughout the week, and it is very highly recommended for anyone who craves theatre that challenges, unsettles, and stays with you.

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