BROKEN FENCES

is an urban drama in two acts set in Humboldt Park, a Chicago ghetto neighborhood in transition, as the speed of gentrification accelerates and property taxes rise.  The story centers on two young couples, Hoody and D, who have been in the neighborhood for years, and Czar and April, who have saved for years to buy their first home.  As Hoody struggles to cover his property tax bill, and Czar struggles to join the community, and both struggle to maintain separate identities and accept the changes surrounding them, Broken Fences examines culture, race and socio-economics in the modern American Village with humor, humanity, dignity and pathos.  Broken Fences is written in a naturalistic style with ironic humor and elements of surrealistic imagining.  The action of the play incorporates music and dancing in the rap/ghetto idiom.  Interior/Exterior, Unit Set. 

Cast of Characters

Hoody:African-American, auto mechanic, works for chain auto parts service company, struggling to hold onto his family home; D’s man.

D: African-American, no nonsense hairdresser, owns her own shop, wants to settle, raise a family; Hoody’s woman.

Mars: African-American, coffee shop barista, working his way out of the “Hood”; Hoody’s half-brother

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Trooper: African-American, former Marine, big guy, tough and responsible, runs “Boot Camp”, a weekend workout class.

Esto: Caucasian but grew up in a Black neighborhood, works at chain restaurant, former small-time drug dealer trying to escape the “Hood”.

Czar: Caucasian, art director for ad agency, expectant father, wants to fit into the neighborhood; married to April.

April: Caucasian, systems analyst, former social worker, expectant mother, accepting, definitely not suburban; married to Czar.

Spence: Caucasian, art director for ad agency, hopeful father, moving to suburbs to start a family; married to Barb.

Barb:Caucasian, VP of Brand Awareness for large packaged goods health industry company, future mother-to-be; married to Spence.

STEVEN SIMONCIC

Steven Simoncic is a Chicago playwright whose past stage productions include Heat Wave, Words with C, Something Blue, and Discovery Channel.  Steven is currently a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and his fiction has appeared in The Chicago Reader, New Millennium Writings, Spork Magazine and Drift.  He has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and has written several short films.  Steven holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, an MFA in writing from Warren Wilson College, and an MLA from the University of Chicago.  When he is not writing you can find him playing in his band, Supra Genius, or dancing in the kitchen with his kids (Johnny & Gracie) and wife Karen.

TOM FERRITER

directed and produced the world premieres of Kathleen Anderson Culebro's The Crying Woman/La Llorona, a cross-cultural drama on international misunderstandings, Off Broadway at the Beckett Theatre, Paul Enger's In The Air, a love story during the Great Flu epidemic of 1918, Off Broadway at Theatre 315, James MacGuire's Nanny (also co-producer), an American comedy of extended families at the Nottara Theatre-Bucharest, and the European premiere of Harding Lemay's From A Dark Land, a World War-II drama of complicity, at the National Theatre of Romania-Craiova (co-producer), after having produced and directed the premieres of Marlene Shyer's First Wife, at the Emelin Theatre (Mamaroneck), Diane Leslie's and Mary Orr's family musical, Enchanted Afternoon, and Frank O'Donnell's Twisters, Off Broadway at the Nat Horne Studio Theatre on New York's Theatre Row. Tom is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actors' Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute's Master Producing Class.

Tom Ferriter has been a visiting professor to the Academy of Theatre in Bucharest, and a guest professor at the Academy of Theatre in Oslo. He was Performance Coach to America's Health Network, a 24-hour cable TV network transmitted by satellite to more than 10 million households across America, and was a member for three years of the faculty of The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where his classes included Acting for Film and Television, TV Commercial Acting, and Basic Acting Techniques. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Business Management from California State University - San Francisco and an Associate of Arts degree in Economics from Santa Barbara City College.

 

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