Eat Your Heart out
Written by Courtney Baron
Directed by Hallie Gordon, Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Young Adults Program
A MidWest Premiere!
Featuring RTE member Mary Cross; with Andrew Goetten, Anne Joy, Katherine Keberlein, Charlie Strater and Michael Szeles
Alice and Gabe are desperate to adopt a child. Single mom Nance is desperate to connect with her obese teenage daughter Evie. And Evie is desperate for her best friend to fall for her despite the incredible odds. Alternately heartbreaking and hilarious, Courtney Baron’s whip-smart comedy weaves these stories together to delve into the complexities of family, body image, and hearts and minds consumed by longing. This Midwest premiere was the hit of the 2012 Humana Festival of New Plays.
About Playwright Courtney Baron:
Courtney’s play Eat Your Heart Out was part of the 36th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays and was developed at Perry Mansfield. Her play A Very Common Procedure has been produced at the MCC, the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, and as a part of the 2005 Cherry Lane Mentor project. Her play Here I Lie was produced as part of the Rising Phoenix Rep’s Cino Nights, and her plays Consumption and Purge are both commissions from the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, with Consumption produced at the Guthrie Lab.
Her play Confidence Man was featured as part of Theater For One (Christine Jones, Artistic Director). Her play EarlStreetman was a part of the Larson Project at New York Theatre Workshop and at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference; These Three Here was a finalist for the 2003 Heideman Award as part of the 24-Hour Plays at the Atlantic Theatre in NYC; John Brown’s Body was part of Keen Americana at the Jose Quintero Theatre in NYC; Black Fish was part of the Backstory Project at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the
About Director Hallie Gordon:
Hallie is currently the Artistic and Educational Director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. She is also the founder and co-creator of Now Is The Time, a citywide initiative that inspires young people to make positive change in their communities and to end youth violence and intolerance. As a theatre artist, Hallie has directed Eclipsed at Northlight Theatre, and the following productions at Steppenwolf: Leveling Up, the world premiere of The Book Thief, To Kill A Mockingbird, the world premiere of a new production of The House on Mango Street (adaptation by Tanya Saracho), and Harriet Jacobs (adapted by Lydia R. Diamond), a new premier of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (also adapted by Lydia R. Diamond) which won a Black Excellence Award from the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago and moved Off-Broadway at The New Victory Theatre. She has directed staged readings for The Goodman Theatre, Timeline Theatre, Chicago Dramatists and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Hallie is the recipient of The Helen Coburn Meier & Tim Meier Achievement Award.
Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2000; In the Widows’ Garden was part of the 2000 ChekhovNOW Festival in NYC.
Other productions include: The Blue Room, awarded a 1999 Heideman Award and nominated for the American Theatre Critics’ Association’s Osborn Award and premiered at the Humana Festival in 1999; Dream of Heaven and Hell for Reverie Productions, NYC; Dear Anton for the 1999 ChekhovNOW Festival, NYC; The Good Night, a finalist for the 1998 Princess Grace Award, was workshopped at Theatre for the New City and as part of the First Light Festival at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, NYC; Love as a Science at the Seattle Fringe Festival; and Clip at the FronteraFest in Austin, Texas. Courtney’s play Preserve won the Women at the Door Award and received a workshop at Famous Door Theatre in Chicago, a workshop at Rattlestick Productions, and was given a reading at Manhattan Theatre Club in NYC.
Courtney holds an MFA from Columbia University and is currently under commission with the Sloan Foundation and Manhattan Theater Club, NYC.