Jim Lehrer and the Theater and Its Double and Jim Lehrer's Double
A new play by Mickle Maher
EXTENDED!
through MARCH 12, 2017
Thursdays, Fridays, & Saturdays at 8 pm;
Sundays at 3 pm;
at The Chopin Theatre
1543 W. Division St.
Chicago IL
Tickets are $15, more if you’ve got it, free if you’re broke
Some pay-what-you-can tickets are available only at the door for each performance. First come, first served.
In this sequel to Theater Oobleck’s 2007 hit The Strangerer, Jim Lehrer, the legendary news anchor and Presidential debate moderator, is now retired and sitting alone of a gloomy evening in his cavernous DC suburban home, when his double, Jim Lehrer the unsuccessful playwright, arrives home from the opening night of his first produced play.
The premiere of that play did not go well, and Jim Lehrer II fled the theater, chased across dark fields and streams by a violent audience strangely angered by the staging of his script. He now must convince his twin their lives are in danger, and to lock and barricade the front door to stem the imminent invasion. But something—or someone—keeps making odd noises from deep within the house.
A comic-gothic horror tale that relates the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Antonin Artaud to the politics and theater of our day, Jim Lehrer and the Theater and Its Double and Jim Lehrer’s Double is a play unlike any other.
Featuring Colm O’Reilly and Brian Shaw. Photos by Evan Hanover.
We’ve got you covered with two brand new books from your Oobleckers… The Jim Lehrer Plays by Mickle Maher from Plays Inverse, and Red State Blues, Stories from Midwestern Life on the Left, edited by Martha Bayne (order it from Belt Publishing & Belt Magazine).
posted 07/11/2018
Ingenious, eccentric, and quietly devastating
Writing for the Chicago Reader, Tony Adler says “Jim Lehrer and the Theater …” is “hilarious” AND “terrifying,” that Colm O’Reilly and Brian Shaw are “two extraordinary actors,” and that Mickle Maher “is as good a playwright as any working in America today.”
Read the full review here: What Does Chicago Playright Mickle Maher Got Against Jim Lehrer?
Meanwhile, at New City, Alex Hunstberger says the play is “an odd, hilarious, and ominous tumble down the rabbit hole.”
Read his review here: Double Double Jims In Trouble
posted 01/27/2017
