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Articles tagged with: Joe Jahraus

Theater 2015-16: Reveling in discomfort zone, Profiles leads off with the off-beat ‘Jacksonian’

Aug 23, 2015 – 9:37 pm | 891 views
'The Jacksonian' feature image (Profiles Theatre)

First in a series of season previews: Profiles Theatre opens its 27th season with an off-the-wall, grimly humorous, borderline surreal gem of a play fraught with wacky characters and murder, Beth Henley’s “The Jacksonian,” that might have been tailored expressly for this devoutly edgy company. It launches a lineup that finds Profiles in its high-intensity groove.

Role Playing: Lia D. Mortensen’s intense portrait of a mentally failing scientist holds mirror to life

Mar 29, 2015 – 9:41 pm | 1,335 views
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Interview: A very hard personal experience helped actress Lia D. Mortensen get into the skin of the brilliant scientist she portrays in Sharr White’s play “The Other Place” at Profiles Theatre. She had watched her father, Dale T. Mortensen, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in economic sciences, suffer the mentally eroding effects of brain cancer, which took his life.

‘The Other Place’ at Profiles: Brilliance provides no defense when dementia lays its dark siege

Feb 26, 2015 – 11:38 pm | 2,120 views
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Review: Julianna knows that her husband, a doctor, is cheating on her. He sometimes slips and refers to a fellow physician – who has been consulting with Julianna about her episodes of disorientation, forgetfulness and anger – not as Dr. Teller, but as Cindy. That should tell you something. It’s plain enough to the betrayed wife, and she’s outraged. The mental decline and crash of this fiftyish woman, a biophysicist, is the substance of Sharr White’s play “The Other Place.” But it’s not the sum. Experiencing its totality, at Profiles Theatre, afforded one of the most rewarding nights in recent Chicago seasons. ★★★★★

‘The Cryptogram’ at Profiles: Waiting up for Dad and absorbing a harsh message about life, lies

Oct 18, 2014 – 8:00 am | 2,349 views
Michael Brosilow

Review: David Mamet’s eerie play “The Cryptogram” is the kind of stage experience that follows you home. Certainly in the wake of a hyper-intense account at Profiles Theatre directed Joe Jahraus, it continues to work on you, this brief, emotionally fraught and fractured tale of a little boy who’s so excited about a promised camping trip with his dad that he can’t sleep. For that matter, neither can his mother, or an old friend of the family who drops in. ★★★

Theater 2014-15: Profiles opens a new chapter with familiar face of LaBute and world premiere

Aug 15, 2014 – 10:58 pm | 4,391 views
'Reasons to Be Happy,' by Niel LaBute, at Profiles 2014 feature image 2

Fourth in a series of season previews: With 25 years on the books and a second performing space established and offering new flexibility, Profiles Theatre heads into its second quarter-century this season with an opening production of resident artist Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to Be Happy.” Also on tap is the world premiere of Kate Walbert’s “Genius,” intertwining the secrets and alliances of two creative couples from different generations who find their lives changed at a dinner party.

‘Gidion’s Knot’ at Profiles: Answers hit hard when mother seeks cause of child’s suicide

Feb 5, 2014 – 8:53 am | 12,403 views
Amy J. Carle plays the mother of a fifth-grader who has committed suicide in 'Gidion's Knot' by Johnna Adams at Profiles Theatre. (Michael Brosilow)

Review: While it isn’t exactly a monodrama, Johnna Adams’ play “Gidion’s Knot,” about a mother looking for answers after her fifth-grade son kills himself, is a provocatively detailed – and less than flattering — portrait of the mom, with the only other character, the boy’s teacher, serving essentially as interlocutor. And Amy J. Carle’s performance at Profiles Theatre as the self-absorbed, reluctantly self-questioning mother is wrought with painful precision. ★★★

Theater 2013-14: Charting course back to its earthy roots, Profiles celebrates 25th season

Aug 13, 2013 – 12:27 pm | 3,629 views
Playwright Neil LaBute

Second in a series of season previews: Profiles Theatre will mark its 25th anniversary this season by getting back to what co-artistic director Joe Jahraus calls the lean, mean style that has set this company apart. That’s lean as in Neil LaBute’s “Wrecks,” a one-actor narrative about the devastation of a man’s life wrought by the death of his wife, and mean as in Rhett Rossi’s “In God’s Hat,” which plays out through the taut, charged reunion of two estranged brothers when one of them is released from prison.

Role Playing: Darrell W. Cox sees theater’s core in closed-off teacher of ‘Burning Boy’

Apr 24, 2013 – 5:50 pm | 5,723 views
Actor Darrell W. Cox plays high school teacher Larry Morrow in The Dream of the Burning Boy by David West Read at Profiles 2013

Interview: The central character Larry, an English teacher, in David West Read’s “The Dream of the Burning Boy,” is a smart, inspiring mentor to the kids around him. But when they need him as consoling father-figure, after one of their classmates dies, Larry can’t engage their pain or embrace them emotionally. For Darrell W. Cox, who delivers a wrenching portrait of the teacher at Profiles Theatre, such a closed-off, deeply complicated soul is the touchstone of great drama.

‘Dream of the Burning Boy’ at Profiles: Loss, loneliness and anger shroud a student’s death

Apr 16, 2013 – 11:54 pm | 34,623 views
Marilyn Bass, Darrell W. Cox, Alaina Stacey in The Dream of the Burning Boy by David West Read directed Joe Jahraus Profiles Theatre 2013 credit Michael Brosilow

Review: ★★★★

Profiles’ ‘Sweet and Sad’ laces remembrance of 9/11 into a family’s tangle of joy and grief

Sep 18, 2012 – 12:58 am | 5,934 views
Darrell W. Cox, Harmony France, Kristin Ford and Eric Burgher in Richard Nelson’s Sweet and Sad at Profiles Theatre 2012 photo credit Michael Brosilow

Review: ★★★★

The New Season: Teaming with Neil LaBute, Profiles readies 24th year on the gritty fringe

Jul 29, 2012 – 11:33 pm | 4,983 views
The longtime Profiles Theatre association of Joe Jahraus, Neil LaBute and Darrell W Cox continues

First in a series of season previews: Profiles Theatre will open its 24th season Aug. 24 with playwright Neil LaBute officially inducted into the family, a second performing space in use and a new mantra that crystalizes the company’s founding philosophy: “Whatever the truth requires.”

Profiles explores psychological shadows as LaBute drops siblings in deep, dark woods

Apr 26, 2012 – 1:15 pm | 13,536 views
In a Forest Dark and Deep feature image Profiles Theatre CHicago 2012 Natasha Lowe as Betty credit Wayne Karl

‘In a Forest, Dark and Deep.’ 4 stars!