World Premiere

April 25 – July 1, 2018

“Everything in the world, that all just rushing right past you, like you a signpost stuck straight in the ground.”

Inspired by true events, this compelling new play exposes a flawed law enforcement operation that walks the line between good intentions and deceit, testing the bonds of a family and community. In a low-income, residential neighborhood of Milwaukee, Terry Kilbourn has just begun a new job passing out flyers for a discount warehouse. When his bosses start asking more of him, the stakes rise quickly and his loved ones begin to question what is really going on. This play’s vibrant mix of family, romance, and danger swirls with mysteries about who to trust and what to believe. And its story confronts society’s fluid definition of justice—and the truth about who benefits from it.

This world premiere is the first play to be produced that was written and developed through TimeLine’s Playwrights Collective, launched in 2013 to support Chicago-based playwrights in residence and create new work centered on TimeLine’s mission.

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Blood and Gifts

Chicago Premiere

Apr 30, 2013 - Jul 28, 2013

This spy thriller—named one of the Top 10 plays of 2011 by The New York Times — goes deep inside the secret United States intrigue that powered the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s. A CIA operative struggles against conditions on the ground and politics in the halls of Washington to stop the Soviet Army’s destruction of Afghanistan. As alliances shift and the outcome of the Cold War appears to hang in the balance, he and an Afghan warlord find that the only one they can trust is each other. This bold new play unmasks the actions of men behind one of recent history’s greatest events — the repercussions of which still shape our lives.