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The National Pastime Theater, Chicago’s most fearless theater company, opens this season with a rare revival of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene, which ran for a total of 601 performances on Broadway and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1929. This ambitious, groundbreaking piece takes place on the front stoop of a New York City tenement mere months before the stock market crashed and The Great Depression began. Street Scene depicts first generation immigrant families struggling every day to reach the American dream.
             
Street Scene is co-produced by The National Pastime Theater and Clock Productions. The production opens March 19 with previews March 15 and 16 and runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm until April 25.  Tickets are $25.  Date night stimulus Thursdays two-for-one. (PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN DATES FOR STREET SCENE)
             
The National Pastime Theater’s annual Naked July Festival celebrates the joys of heat. Featuring The National Pastime Theater’s original “Emperor’s New Clothes,” based on the classic work by Hans Christian Anderson, this year’s festival promises to knock more than just your socks off. Back by popular demand, The Living Canvas will perform their work of body art. Also appearing are other theme related acts from the world over. Beginning July 2 and running until August 7, tickets are $20 per show. Festival Passes include entrance into each of the five productions for $75.
             
The fall primetime show is the premiere of Terry Abrahamson’s “Doo Lister’s Blues”, in a script revised for The National Pastime Theater. This powerful play looks back at the meeting of the political turmoil of the 1960s with the rise of an emerging Black music experience. Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, Doo Lister’s Blues traces a songwriting Chicago barber's creative metamorphosis from Motown to militant, with results that challenge the validity of the evolution of Black popular music. “Doo Lister’s Blues” runs from October 1 to November 21. 

The National Pastime Theater is offering the opportunity to become a professional supporter of the arts.  For a limited time only, donate $100 to The National Pastime Theater and receive a season ticket package that includes tickets to the opening night performances of Street Scene, Doo Lister’s Blues and a Festival Pass to the one and only Naked July Festival.