Theatre Y Ensemble Member Héctor Álvarez directs a musical memento mori from  Obie Award-winner Young Jean Lee—and like life itself, it’s only here briefly.

September 18-October 25, 2020

WE’RE GONNA DIE — by Young Jean Lee

Theatre Y is proud to present a film re-imagining of WE’RE GONNA DIE, Young Jean Lee’s poignant and life-affirming stage play-cum-indie rock concert in which a female singer alternates can-you-top-this stories of the awfulness of life with sweet, peppy tunes like “Lullaby for the Miserable” and “Horrible Things.” Reviewing the 2011 premiere production, Christopher Isherwood of the New York Times made WE’RE GONNA DIE a critic’s pick and called it “a kind of collective consolation for life’s unavoidable woes.”

Starting September 18 Theatre Y will release online its unique take on WE’RE GONNA DIE, a film conceived for our current state of social isolation. A team of 12 artists rehearsed, composed, designed, recorded, shot, edited and produced this film remotely, with each artist navigating how to work from their home. The film includes freshly re-imagined versions of the show’s original songs by composer Kyle Gregory Price, orchestrated for a contemporary chamber ensemble that includes pedal steel guitar and harpsichord amongst its instruments. 

As the global pandemic continues to claim lives and ravage communities, denying us the gift of shared presence, we want to offer a visual meditation on absence, a musical memento mori that helps us mourn what has been lost and find comfort in the beauty of what we still have.

This film will be released September 18-October 25, much like a normal theatrical run (Fri-Sun at 7pm) only virtually. The audience will be invited to RSVP (for free!) for a particular showing, and will enter into a virtual lobby with that evening's guests, watch the film individually, and re-convene for our traditional talk-back session over zoom.

Featuring Emily Bragg, filmed by Justin T. Jones, edited by Kevin Hurley, dramaturgy by Evan Hill, sound design by Kimberly Sutton, musical arrangement and stop-motion animation by Kyle Gregory Price, costumes by Rebecca Hinsdale, and produced by Melissa Lorraine.

Much like a theatrical production, this film will not be available for viewing after October 25, 2020!

Free of charge as part of the FREE THEATRE MOVEMENT!  

WE’RE GONNA DIE runs Friday-Sundays at 7pm from September 18 - October 25, 2020. 

For more information email info@theatre-y.com or call 773-908-2248.


"A wonderful triumph for Theatre Y...the visuals just pop, it feels like you're going through an instillation in a gallery...There's more to discover with each viewing. 
Can't recommend it highly enough. 
A Complex, rich, and serious piece of visual work." - Dueling Critic Kerry Reid

"I can't imagine it being any more perfect than what Theatre Y is presenting to us. Evocative, Inspired, Moving...Visually gorgeous and fullsome, so rich and sensitive in detail, that viewers will be struck with admiration and surprise. Hit me like a ton of bricks. Award quality cinematic work. Still-lives worthy of Renaissance Painters...Deserve high praise for the imagination and painterly beauty of their effort...Full of visual surprises, too numerous to detail...Good writing, good acting, good directing, good theater." - Dueling Critic Jonathan Abarbanel

Dueling Critics on WDCB  (We recommend listening to it after seeing the film! Lots of SPOILERS!! The segment starts 20 minutes and 40 seconds into the program.)

"[Theatre Y] takes this moment to stare right into the eyes of the remote viewers to share this intimate, honest piece of self-reflection. Creative design and a striking relevant script make Theatre Y’s production of We’re Gonna Die
a distinctly original virtual offering."

- Lauren Katz, Picture This Post - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

"Kudos to Theatre Y for making this wait a tad more bearable. That director Hèctor Àlvarez is able to transform this work into a minimalist, edgy film is a testament not only to his talent, but also the understated power of the work." - Noel Schecter

Newcity Stage - Enjoy it while you can
A review of Theatre Y's WE'RE GONNA DIE 

"I felt strangely at peace and comforted by it."

"A poignant portrait of mortality."

"[Emily] Bragg’s articulate body [...] almost seems to become another one of these objects [...] The sense of her absence and thus of all we miss of theater and each other is poignant and potently present." 
- Irene Hsiao, Chicago Reader Recommended

"An ensemble of talented artists—most notably, actor Emily Bragg as our questioning pilgrim, along with cinematographer Justin Jones and film editor Kevin Hurley—delivers a mesmerizing contemplation on the great mystery even science has never been able to solve."

- Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City Media


"In the days of a life-destroying virus, it seems perverse to stage a production titled We’re Gonna Die. Yet Theatre Y bravely undertakes this work, a one-woman play by Young Jean Lee, in a visually intriguing and very unstage-y way."

- Nancy Bishop, Third Coast Review
 

Playwright: Young Jean Lee is a Korean-American playwright and director. She has been called "the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation" by Charles Isherwood in The New York Times and "one of the best experimental playwrights in America" by David Cote in Time Out New York. With the 2018 production of Straight White Men at the Hayes Theater, Lee became the first Asian American woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Other shows include: Untitled Feminist Show, The Shipment, Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, and Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.

Director: Héctor Álvarez is a Theatre Y Ensemble Member, writer, actor and director from Spain based in Chicago. He has studied non-Western theater traditions in China, Japan and Indonesia, and in 2008 received a Watson Fellowship to research community-based performance in Latin America. He has a BA in Theater from Macalester College and an MA in Modern English Literature form University College London.He has trained with Augusto Boal, Peter Schumann, Malte Lambrecht, Guillermo Heras, Georges Bigot and Anne Bogart, and has performed in more than 20 productions. He has been an ensemble member of Theatre Y since 2015. In 2017 he presented his one-man show about gun violence The Ghoul Exhibition (directed by Melissa Lorraine), described by The Chicago Reader as “A deeply affecting solo show. Truly audacious.” Most recently he co-directed Theatre Y’s productions of Malaga and Self-Accusation with Lorraine.



Singer: Emily Bragg grew up in Silver Spring, MD and graduated from Occidental College in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre. In 2016, she moved to Chicago to experience all that this city has to offer. After working with Theatre Y as a stage manager for The Camino Project (2019) and a production stage manager for Juliet (2020), Emily joins her third TY production, We’re Gonna Die,  as an actor for the first time! She feels incredibly fortunate to be able to navigate the highs and lows of creating theatre during a quarantine with this insanely talented and supportive group of artists.

Production Dramaturg: Evan Hill is a freelance dramaturg.  He writes for and about theater, sometimes as critic and sometimes as artist.  A DFA candidate at Yale School of Drama in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Evan’s writing can be seen in Theater Magazine, where he previously served as managing editor.  Evan conceived and developed the performance text for The Camino Project—a six-hour, post-religious pilgrimage through the streets of Chicago, which explored collective walking as a social ritual.  Other production credits include Alice, Seven Spots On The Sun, and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Yale School of Drama); For Your Eyes Only and The Rules (Yale Cabaret), Gentle (TUTA Theater); The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez, The Ghoul Exhibition, My Body’s Image Delayed (Theatre Y).  As a writer, Evan contributed to original and devised works including On Blue by You (Linkup Artist Residency with Josh Hoglund); 3Sisters, and The Binding (Theatre Y).  He’s the proud recipient of the John W. Gassner Prize for critical writing (Theater Magazine).  

Costume Designer: Rebecca Hinsdale started costuming as part of her photography exploration while getting her bachelors in fine arts at Western Michigan University. A labor of love, she is self taught and takes pleasure in creating costumes with recycled materials. Theatre Y has been the perfect alchemist for this preference. Naturally Halloween is her favorite time of year, and each year gets more complex and elaborate. This is her 6th Theatre Y production and first to be produced in a quarantine situation, which has provided additional challenges in sourcing and creativity. She is also an avid pinball player and is a co-founder of Chicago’s first Ladies Pinball League, Belles and Chimes, a division of the original Belles started in Oakland, CA. She is currently practicing appropriate social distancing with pinball at home, hoping for public play as soon as it's safe for all of us!

Editor: Kevin Hurley, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, is a writer/filmmaker whose artistic practice began as a painter. He received his BA in Film and Media Studies from the Washington University in St. Louis and is currently an MFA candidate in Film Directing at DePaul University. Kevin’s film work includes documentary, commercial and fiction. He is currently in post-production on a film made in collaboration with Theatre Y that blurs the lines between documentary, fiction and performance. Kevin lives in Albany Park with his wife Cara and their three children.

Cinematographer: Justin Jones is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer working and studying in Chicago. His award-winning shorts have screened at festivals worldwide, including the BEA Festival of Media Arts, Ethnografilm Paris, DePaul's Premiere Film Festival, the 41 North Film Festival and the Fresh Coast Film Festival.  

Justin is currently finishing his MFA in Documentary at DePaul University. Originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, his thesis work is focused on personal stories of the relationship between people and place in the rural Midwest. His most recent documentary short "Totalité", with co-director and co-producer Laurie Little, is about the art and philosophy of rock and roll photographer Richard Bellia. "Totalité" is currently on the festival circuit and will be screening at the Arizona International Film Festival and Ethnografilm Paris in April 2019.

Composer: Kyle Gregory Price is a genre-fluid composer, percussionist and turntablist by trade. He regularly produces work in other mediums including stop-motion animation, jewelry making, costume design and dance/movement. In 2014, he and Deirdre Harrison co-founded The Lucky Trikes, a story-telling chamber band for children that has performed for everything from birthday parties to the Art Institute of Chicago. Kyle has brought his music to a range of audiences at landmark Chicago venues including the Green Mill, The Hideout and Empty Bottle as well as numerous DIY venues across south, west and north Chicago. In 2018 he was featured on Experimental Sound Studio’s Oscillations series and was a recipient of an Illinois Art Council Agency IAS grant to support the production of The Lucky Trikes first album, We Are The Lucky Trikes. He has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art with the Merce Cunningham Dancers on the opening day of MCA’s 2017 Merce Cunningham: Common Time exhibition and for Make Music Chicago 2016, as well as at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center for John Cage: Lecture on the Weather in Buffalo, NY. Kyle composed, curated and served as music director for Theatre Y’s 2016 production of MacBeth at The Chopin Theater, as part of Shakespeare 400 in Chicago. He also performed in the world premiere of The Bell Ringers, an epic participatory work by Danny Clay, commissioned by Third Coast Percussion, at Millennium Park on September 9, 2019. 

He resides in Rogers Park where he produces events for other artists all over the city. Kyle is leading the development and production of The Lucky Trikes’ second album, slated for release in 2020 and funded by a 2020 IACA grant.

Sound Designer: Kimberly A. Sutton is a sound artist, cellist, and sound designer living in Chicago, Illinois. Her installations and sound design work explore the connections between the physical properties of sound and the cultural signifiers of its content. As a cellist her practice is improvisatory and explores the possibilities of expression and reflection through sound and the immediacy of a meditational connection to her instrument. Recent installations have been shown at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Chicago Home Theater Festival. She has performed at Experimental Sound Studio, the Hideout and the Empty Bottle in Chicago, Yoshi’s in Oakland,  Detroit Contemporary, and the Technosonics Festival at the University of Virginia. She has a BA in Political Science and Music from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Electronic Music and Recorded Media from Mills College.

For more information email info@theatre-y.com or call 773-908-2248.

Theatre Y creates radically hospitable spaces for communion through intimate and critical participation. This can not be accomplished through live theater right now, but we are no less determined to be with you somehow. We affirm the theater as a ritual and catalyst of public dialogue, and make our experiences free and accessible to all.

Seating is guaranteed for Theatre Y Members, who generously underwrite the company and enable each show to be offered free of charge. Members of the public are admitted at the door at no charge. Membership contributions can be made here or, by phone at 773-908-2248.