Content Advisory: This production is intended for adult audiences. For more information about the content of this show, please click here. Haze and flashing lights will be used in this production.
The Leopard Play
or sad songs for lost boys
A world premiere by Isaac Gomez, directed by Laura Alcalá Baker
All families have secrets, but some live in an underbelly too dark to even whisper about. After ten years of walking away, Son returns to his home along the U.S./Mexican border searching for answers about his uncle’s mysterious death, but what he finds there are the men he tried to escape and the memories he thought he left behind. The Leopard Play, or sad songs for lost boys is an excavation of truth amidst lies, intimacy amidst violence, and a reckoning of learning how to love the very thing you hate the most.
Extended through March 14.
“an electrifying and emotive piece of theatre” Rescripted
Production Sponsors: Susan Burland & George Plumb, Ken Burlington, Karen Shankman & Jim Fruehling, Timothy Sherck
Additional Production Support: The Pauls Foundation
Performance Schedule
Previews: January 18, 19, and 23
Press Opening: Friday, January 24
Performances: January 24 - March 14, 2020
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 8pm
Sunday afternoons at 3pm
Full Performance Calendar
Accessibility
Audio Description and a Touch Tour will be available at the 8pm performance on Saturday, February 15.
Open Captioning will be available on Saturday, February 22 at 8pm and Sunday, February 23 at 3pm.
Contact us at access@steeptheatre.com or 773-649-3186 for more information or to reserve tickets.
Running Time: One hour, fifty minutes with no intermission
Late Seating: Please note that late seating is not possible and that all tickets not claimed by the scheduled performance time may be released to the wait list. For questions about this, please contact our box office.
Cast
Sebastian Arboleda*
Alec Coles Perez
Eduardo Curley-Carrillo
Arash Fakhrabadi
Dennis Garcia
Victor Maraña
Juan Muñoz
Brandon Riveraˆ
Production Team
Director – Laura Alcalá Baker
Stage Manager – Jon Ravenscroftˆˆ
Set Designer – Arnel Sancianco⁺
Lighting Designer – Alexander Ridgers
Sound Designer – Thomas Dixonˆ
Costume Designer – Uriel Gómez
Props Designer – Emma Cullimore
Intimacy & Violence Director – Micah Figueroa
Choreographer – Breon Arzell
Dramaturg – Lucas Garcia
Production Manager – Catherine Allenˆˆ
Technical Director – Evan Sposato
Casting Director – Lucy Carapetyanˆ
ˆ Steep Company Member
ˆˆ Steep Artistic Associate
* Member of Actors' Equity Association
⁺Member of United Scenic Artists
In the Press
“I haven’t been so touched by a play in, in I don’t know how long. It’s an amazing piece of work.”
-Rick Bayless on The Arts Section
“…the past squares off against the present for an electrifying and emotive piece of theatre.”
-Sierra Carlson, Rescripted
“Worthy of the ache you feel during and after, worthy of periodic laughter and fear, and worthy of as much time as we are willing to devote to dismantling the generations of wrong that has been done. What’s more, this play is worthy of the praise it will receive from here onward.”
-Amanda Finn, Newcity Stage
“A brilliant cast and powerful storytelling make The Leopard Play, or sad songs for lost boys a must-see.”
-Lauren Katz, Picture This Post
“I was struck by how well Baker’s direction complements Gomez’s poetry and impressed by how her cast fills the intimate Steep stage…”
-Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
“There is harshness and anguish, but also wit, empathy, and beauty woven throughout Gomez's script … the ensemble commits to all of it with such rawness and vulnerability that The Leopard Play is hard to shake off after leaving the theater.”
-Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
“In a uniformly strong cast, Brandon Rivera glows as the torn, soulful and defiant Son.”
-Nancy Bishop, Third Coast Review
“Thank you. To every person who has touched this heartwrenching work. It stopped me utterly in my tracks.”
-Amanda Finn, FootNotes
“I can’t get this play out of my head.” -Kerry Reid
”A very well acted and visceral production.” -Jonathan Abarbanel
-The Dueling Critics, WDCB 90.9 FM
Join the Conversation
Isaac Gomez
Isaac Gomez is an award-winning Chicago-based playwright originally from El Paso, Texas / Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. His play La Ruta received its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theater Company this past Winter. His one-woman show the way she spoke will be receiving its Off-Broadway premiere at the Minetta Lane Theatre (produced by Audible) in Summer 2019. He is currently under commission from South Coast Repertory, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Steep Theatre. His plays have been supported by Steppenwolf, Primary Stages, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, Albany Park Theater Project, WaterTower Theater, Haven Theater, Greenhouse Theater Center, Pivot Arts, and many others. He is the recipient of the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award, the 2017 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award at Primary Stages, an inaugural 3Arts “Make A Wave” grantee, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Artistic Associate with Victory Gardens Theater, Ensemble Member with Teatro Vista, Artistic Associate with Pivot Arts, and an advisory committee member of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC). He is a Professional Lecturer at The Theatre School at DePaul University, and is represented by The Gersh Agency and Circle of Confusion.
