Theatre Y Presents
CHARGES (The Supplicants)
German title: Die Schutzbefohlenen “those entrusted to protection”
Written by Elfride Jelenek
Translation by Gitta Honnegar
English-Language Premiere by Theatre Y
A powerful elegy for the plight of refugees, from ancient times to the present.
Chicago, IL — Join us this Winter for CHARGES (The Supplicants) –
Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek’s Charges (The Supplicants) is a cry for the displaced. Originally written to address the global refugee crisis, Theatre Y’s production—co-directed by Melissa Lorraine and Héctor Álvarez— turns the lens squarely on modern-day America. In Chicago’s own neighborhoods,
the threat of removal looms over our neighbors every day.
“Nobody can make his own suffering sound convincing.”
- Peachum in The Threepenny Opera
“One should open one’s eyes and take a new look at cruelty.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
“The point of art is to show people that life is worth living by showing that it isn’t.”
- Fanny Howe
“Our raft-making won’t stop the fires from flaring up,
but it may teach us how to sit with the heat without burning away.” –Báyò Akómoláfé
February 26-March 29th, 2026 / Thursday- Saturday 7 pm & Sundays 5 pm
Location: Theatre Y - 3611 W Cermak Rd, Chicago, IL 60623
FREE and open to the public. PLEASE RSVP - LIMITED SEATING!
All performances are FREE to the public thanks to members who donate as little as $5/month ($60/year).
We welcome DONATIONS and MEMBERS!
Elfriede Jelinek (Playwright) was born in Mürzzuschlag, Austria in 1946. As a child and adolescent she took lessons in piano and organ playing at the conservatory in Vienna. She studied art and theater at university while also completing her musical studies. By then she also had developed an interest in composing texts, which would eventually be her main form of artistic expression. She married in 1974.
The authorship of Elfriede Jelinek includes drama and poetry as well as prose. Among her most famous works we find the novels The Piano Teacher and Lust, both of which are characterized by a satirical sharpness, an experimental urge and an uncompromising outspokenness. Through her work she has made herself known as a harsh critic of modern consumer society, uncovering hidden structures of sexism, sadism and submission. She has expressed that she taps on language to hear its hidden ideologies, much as a doctor might tap on a patient’s chest.
Héctor Alvarez (Co-Director) is an interdisciplinary artist from Spain working in performance, theater, film, and opera. His work has been praised as “visually gorgeous and fulsome, so rich and sensitive in detail” (The Chicago Reader) and has been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Mexico City. He is a Princess Grace Award Winner, Drama League Directing Fellow, Watson Fellow, and was artist in residence at the Antonio Gala Foundation (Spain). In 2025 he was awarded Opera America’s Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Award. Recent directing credits include the operas Umbra by Elliot Menard and Here Be Sirens by Kate Soper; the plays My Foot My Tutor, Antigonick, Roberto Zucco and The Water Station; and We’re Gonna Die, a film re-imagining of Young Jean Lee’s existential cabaret about mortality. The film was created in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and was named one of 2020’s Top Cultural Picks by WDCB’s The Arts Section.
Melissa Lorraine (Co-Director) Theatre Y Co-Founding Artistic Director
Born and raised in France, graduating from Northern Illinois University with a degree in acting, Lorraine became a company member of Studio K in Budapest, Hungary, which led her to co-founding Theatre Y in 2006 with Director Christopher Markle, who died in 2007.
Lorraine premiered the English language version of Transylvanian writer András Visky’s Juliet with over three hundred performances worldwide. She starred in Visky’s I Killed My Mother, earning a Chicago’s Best Actress Orgie Award in 2010. For her first Directorial work on Vincent River in 2011, she was lauded by The Chicago Reader for turning even an “overwritten” and “implausible script” into “probing, harrowing, hallucinogenic truth”. Collaborating with Georges Bigot for one year (2015-16), Lorraine developed the Theatre Y Ensemble of 16 actors, according to the traditions of the Theatre du Soleil. Her production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros earned two Jeff Awards in 2024.
In addition to working with fresh and seasoned talent, Lorraine now also collaborates with buried talent, working with incarcerated men who have rehabilitated themselves, obtained multiple degrees inside, and who work tirelessly to re-humanize our punitive justice system through artivism.
About Theatre Y:
Theatre Y is a Chicago-based international incubator that creates connections between diverse artists seeking mutual growth through collaboration. Since 2006, Theatre Y has been a point of convergence for diverse activisms and all of the uncomfortable conversations that happen as a result. Artistic director Melissa Lorraine and the Theatre Y ensemble are committed to continuously re-thinking the practice of theater as a tool of liberation and a revolutionary practice, bringing Theatre Y to venues ranging from La MaMa’s historical theater to Illinois prisons. Newly and permanently relocated to the West Side (on the border of North Lawndale and Little Village), Theatre Y, now in its 20th year of experimental productions, challenging international content, and with a member-based FREE theater model occupies a unique place in Chicago's theater community.
More about our history and mission.
stateville correctional center - photo by Karl soderstrom
Quinn Chisenhall- Lighting Designer
Selected credits: Confederates (Redtwist); House of the Exquisite Corpse V (Rough House); Puppet Lab 2023-25 (Chicago Int'l Puppet Festival); Heaven, Lady Di, and Best Actress (Grelley Duvall); and A Picasso (Elsinore). BA Theatre Design & Technology from Columbia College Chicago. QuinnChisenhall.Com
Terreon Collins - Costume Designer
A Chicago local artist who’s assisted and appeared in an array of projects. Ranging from community art projects across North Lawndale, acting & puppeteering for television and theatre productions, to now expanding his talents behind the curtains with costume design. His most notable works being in Theatre Y’s two time Jeff Award-winning production of Rhinoceros (2024) taking the responsibilities as co-lead and costuming.
Kaitlyn Hettinger -Stage Manager
Kaitlyn is a Stage Manager, Scenic Designer, and fabricator from Wyoming. She has worked on a large variety of theatrical productions and cultural events across the United States in addition to work in the nonprofit field. Her theatrical credits across various roles include WITCH, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Eurydice, and Roz and Ray among others.
Keondre Owens -Youth Scenic Artist / Assistant Stage Manager
Keondre is an artist that values character and presence over all. Things that stack out and are pieces with deliberate space usage in framing and story elements, which is also his specialty. Usually the art Keondre makes involves complex systems and stories that he uses to create a vast world of interesting locations; areas and stories that he’s built alone since he was six.
Kaniya (Kai) Redmond -Youth Assistant Stage Manager / Assistant Director
Last seen in Theatre Y’s In Good Company as a dancer, Kai is learning the Navajo language and knows the entire periodic table and the first 100 digits of Pie.
Steven Stoll - Set Designer
Steven is an accomplished Chicago-based set designer, multifarious craftsman, visual artist, musician, and sound engineer. In his professional career, Steven has designed and built every type of imagined environment ranging in context from commercial to fine art to retail to theatrical. Recently, in 2024 he collaborated with Theatre Y to design and build the Jeff Award winning sets for their production of Rhinoceros.
Kimberly A. Sutton - Sound Designer
Kimberly 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.
Roesha (Ro) Townsel -Youth Ensemble since 2022, Youth President, Front of House (they/them) has been involved with Theatre Y since 2022 when they first opened their youth workshops at The Firehouse Community Arts Center. Since then Ro has performed in Laughing Song: A Walking Dream (2022), All 4 editions of Little Carl (2022-2024), The Wiz Walk (2024), Jeff award winning Rhinoceros (2024), and Frontieres Sans Frontieres (2025). Along with being an actor in these productions, Ro was stage manager for The End Of Reality (2025). Before discovering Theatre Y Ro knew they had a passion for performing because of their hip-hop dance group that they have been a part of since 3rd grade called “The Microphone Misfitz”. They have experience with acting, dance, puppets, masks, set design, singing, box office and house management, sound and lights (along with prop management and the billion other duties that come with being stage manager).
For press inquiries, interviews, or more information, please contact:
Managing Director Dan Christmann: 616-947-4455 / Dan.Christmann@theatre-y.com
Artistic Director Melissa Lorraine: 773-908-2248 / melissalorraine@theatre-y.com
info@theatre-y.com /www.theatre-y.com
