Collaboraction Theatre Company is proud to present the Chicago debut of Exhibit, a weekend event series featuring Regina Taylor, one of the greatest playwright-actors of our time, in her new one-woman play, with accompanying original visual art also created by Taylor.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to witness a theater icon perform the newest version of her compelling new exploration of erasure, memory, and the ongoing battle to preserve history. Exhibit will be presented in a limited engagement, one-weekend-only, November 20-22, at Collaboraction’s new home in the Kimball Arts Center, 1757 N. Kimball Avenue, in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Performance times are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.
In Exhibit, Taylor portrays Iris, an African American artist who relives memories from her youth of a violently fractured Civil Rights era in America, triggered by witnessing something she never thought she would see again in her lifetime—the rollback of today’s social tides of change. Exploring the echoes of the Civil Rights Movement in the midst of one of the most horrific denials of human rights in America's history, Exhibit is a piece of resistance and an artist's urgent reminder to be strong and push back, now or never.
Reminiscent in style to that of monologist Spaulding Grey, Taylor’s riveting performance will be paired with a visual art presentation in Collaboraction’s new cafe/lounge, showcasing original works of art and multimedia by Taylor and others. With its singular combination of live performance and visual art, Exhibit underscores the significance of remembering our past, which will be the jumping off point for the Crucial Conversation after every show.
Regina Taylor in Exhibit. Photo by Emily Whalen/Curious Theatre, Denver.
Regina Taylor is an internationally acclaimed actress, director, playwright, educator and activist. Her TV credits include playing Lily Harper in I'll Fly Away, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actress, three NAACP Image Awards and two Emmy Award nominations. Taylor was the first African American lead in Masterpiece Theatre’s Cora Unashamed and starred as Anita Hill in HBO’s Strange Justice (Gracie Award). Other TV credits include A Good Day to Die (Sidney Poitier), The Unit, CSI Vegas, Justified, First Lady, Love Craft Country and The Wonder Years. Taylor’s stage credits include being the first Black woman to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. Playwright credits include Crowns (one of the country’s most produced plays/four Helen Hayes Awards), Oo-Bla-Dee (Jeff Award, Steinberg-ATCA award), Drowning Crow (Broadway, MTC), The Trinity River Plays (Edgerton Award), stop.reset (Signature Theater Residency Five) and Bread (Edgerton Award). Taylor is an Artistic Associate at Goodman Theatre, recipient of Northwestern University’s Hope Abelson Award in 2010, an honorary doctorate from DePaul University, and was named Chicagoan of the Year by Chicago Magazine in 2012. Film credits include The Negotiator (Samuel Jackson), Courage Under Fire (Denzel Washington), Clockers (Spike Lee), Losing Isaiah (Halle Berry), Lean on Me (Morgan Freeman) and Saturday Church. thereginataylor.com