Gepetto

press release: Geppetto will run at Broom Street Theater on Thursdays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm April 28^th- May 20. More details will be available on the theater's website bstonline.org . Tickets are $11.00.  For more information contact Broom Street Theater at (608) 244-8338 or reserve at bstonline.org/reserve

This isn't the story your mother read to you. Geppetto is an angry drunk who creates a puppet out of boredom. Pinocchio of course is magically brought to life but sadly rejects him and runs away. Geppetto, alone once again, has a decision to make: stay at home and continue in his dead-end life or risk it all and go after a puppet who may once again reject him. As they both search the whole wide world for what defines them, their journeys ultimately lead them back to each other. Along the way they meet many shady and magical characters that push them to their limit. After they emerge from the belly of the whale with their lives transformed, they can face their new adventures together.

This stories combines elements of the classic children’s tale combined with other familiar myths and fables (such as the biblical tales of the prodigal son and Jonah and the whale) and mirrors the challenges we face every day as we strive to shake off our own woodenness and become more human.

Broom Street's production will build on the work of the 2014 In the Works Residency through the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The laboratory helped writer-director Stephen Murray incorporate clowning, puppetry, music, and masks into the construction of this play for a magical evening of theater.