Pine Box Theatre will return to the boards this summer

When I wrote a profile of Pine Box Theatre in fall 2007, the company founded by members of the 2004 class of the School at Steppenwolf was one of the city's most promising young groups. After achieving success with a number of one-off productions of such plays as Life and Limb and This Is Our Youth, the company was gearing up to produce its first new work, Egan Reich's The Most Liquid Currency in the World, and attempting to move into planning full seasons. It wasn't to be, however; with many of its members turning Equity and/or departing from Chicago, Pine Box went on hiatus after one more production in the spring of 2008.

After three years off, Pine Box says it's ready to come out of the casket, so to speak. The company is relaunching with founding member Vince Teninty as its new artistic director; the revivified Pine Box's first production will be a world premiere by Chicago actor and playwright Joshua Rollins, A Girl with Sun in Her Eyes. Described as a reinvention of the police procedural and set on Chicago's South Side, Rollins's thriller will star Pine Box's Teninty and Audrey Francis along with Karen Aldridge, James Vincent Meredith, Sean Parris and Lucy Sandy. This Is Our Youth director Matt Miller returns to helm the production, which will run June 25–August 2 at the the Second Stage. Tickets will go on sale on May 14, the day Pine Box's new website is set to launch at pineboxtheatre.org.