JEFFERSON PARK — The Gift Theatre's 2017 season will feature the world premieres of three works by female playwrights.
The season begins in February with "Unseen," written by Mona Mansour and directed by Gift ensemble member Maureen Payne Hahner.
The play seeks to unravel the mystery of what happened to Mia, a conflict photographer, after she is found unconscious at the scene of a massacre she photographed, theater officials said.
The Jefferson Park theater at 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave. will celebrate its 16th season in 2017.
"From a pioneering spacecraft to explosive Istanbul to intimate spaces in New York, our 2017 season is about wounded lovers trying their best to recover from trauma," founder and artistic director Michael Patrick Thornton said. "I'm ecstatic that this will be our first season comprised entirely of world premieres by women playwrights."
Applications to be a part of the theater's new play research and development wing will be available at thegifttheatre.org.
Dubbed 4802 — an homage to the theater's address — the project will give artists or artistic teams space in the Gift Theatre's and support for their work.
"4802 exists for one purpose: to nurture the creation of vital works of theater that explore and explode what is possible in a storefront space," 4802 co-director Andrew Hinderaker said. "We want to nurture the development of theater pieces that celebrate the strengths of storefronts while dreaming the boundaries of our form bigger."
"Ten," the Jefferson Park theater's annual celebration featuring the world premieres of 10-minute plays will take place Jan. 5-8 and Jan. 12-15.
In June, Thornton and Jessica Thebus will direct "Pilgrims," written by Claire Kiechel.
The play focuses on a a soldier and a young girl quarantined in a spaceship and forced to confront their traumatic pasts in a dying society, theater officials said.
The final production of the season, which starts in October 2017, is "A Swell In The Ground," written by Janine Nabers, directed by Chika Ike.
The play centers on four friends in New York who are trying to reconcile the lives they imagined with the lives they live, theater officials said.
For more information, go to thegifttheatre.org or call 773-283-7071.
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