Lance Baker

Thom Pain

Lance Baker (Thom Pain) won the 2007 solo performance Jeff award for the Chicago premiere of Thom Pain (based on nothing). His other solo work includes the Chicago premieres of The Santaland Diaries, Nocturne, and The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Other shows include Henry VIII and Amadeus at Chicago Shakespeare, The Fox and the Fairway and Sleuth at Theater at the Center, Doubt and Speed-the-Plow at ATC, Ten Chimneys and Mauritius at Northlight, Invisible Man and Travesties at Court, Dollhouse and Lobby Hero at Goodman, and Becky Shaw and The Mandrake at A Red Orchid Theatre, where he is an ensemble member. He has appeared in the premiere of Fanny Brice at the Maltz and Asolo in Florida, Lookingglass’ Around the World in 80 Days at KC Rep, and Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy at LA’s Odyssey Theater.

Will Eno

Playwright

Will Eno (Playwright) is a Residency Five Fellow at the Signature Theater, where his play Title and Deed premiered in May 2012. His play Gnit, an adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, premiered at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville in 2013. His play The Realistic Joneses had its premiere at the Yale Repertory Theater, in April 2012. His play Middletown was a winner of the Horton Foote Award and was produced at the Vineyard Theater in New York and Steppenwolf in Chicago. His play Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into many Romance languages and several Slavic ones. He was recently awarded the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Award. His work is published by TCG, DPS, playscripts, and Oberon Books, in London. Other work has also appeared in Harper’s, The Believer, and The Quarterly.

Jeremy Wechsler

Director

Jeremy Wechsler (Director) is the artistic director of Theater Wit where he has directed COMPLETENESS (Itamar Moses), TIGERS BE STILL (Kim Rosenstock), THIS (Melissa James Gibson), THE FOUR OF US (Itamar Moses), SPIN (Penny Penniston), FEYDEAU-SI-DEAU (Georges Feydeau), MEN OF STEEL (Qui Nguyen), THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING) (Will Eno), TWO FOR THE SHOW (James Fitzpatrick and Will Clinger) and THE SANTALAND DIARIES (David Sedaris and Joe Mantello). He has directed over forty shows in the last fifteen years at various theaters, including: THE FLU SEASON (Will Eno), A TASTE OF HONEY (Shelagh Delaney – best show of 2007, The Wall Street Journal), THE PLAY ABOUT THE SQUIRREL (Mia McCullough), THE WHITE DEVIL (John Webster), THE REAL THING (Tom Stoppard), SZINHAZ (Itamar Moses), TITUS ANDRONICUS (Shakespeare), THE ROARING GIRL (Thomas Middleton), THIS IS THE RILL SPEAKING (Lanford Wilson), HAY FEVER (Noel Coward) NOW THEN AGAIN (Penny Penniston), A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY (Brian Friel), EUROPE (David Grieg), HENRY VI: BLOOD OF A NATION (Shakespeare), THE PROMISE (Jose Rivera), LIFE IS A DREAM (Calderon), THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA (David Edgar), CABARET (Masteroff/Kander/Ebb) and THE THREEPENNY OPERA (Brecht/Weill). He has taught at several universities, is an artistic associate at Collaboraction and currently serves on the board of the League of Chicago Theatres. His productions have been nominated for and won multiple awards for design, performance, adaptation and best new work.

John Kelly

Lighting Design

John Kelly (Lighting Design) is very excited to be working to with Theatre Wit. John is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago and has been designing in the city for 5 years. Previous credits include Beyond the Horizon, A Woman In Mind (Eclipse Theatre), Elling, That Face (Red Twist Theater), Fucking A (Urban Theater), Scent of Flowers (Backstage Theater Company) and Thirst (Cold Basement Dramatics). Upcoming he will be designing Great Expectations (Strawdog Theater), Inventing Van Gogh (Strange Bedfellows), The Birds (Hell in a Handbag Productions) and Mr. Marmalade (Dream Sequence Theater). For more information on him visit www.johnkellydesigns.com.

Alexia Rutherford

Costume Design

Alexia Rutherford (Costume Design) is thrilled to design her first show for Theater Wit. Other recent credits include Showgirls: The Musical Darlin’ for A Touch Too Much, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill for Porchlight Music Theatre, Assassins for The Hodel Stage, Fiddler on the Roof and Young Abe Lincoln for Lincoln Ampitheatre. She also assistant designed The City and the City for Lifeline Theatre and was the “Shopper” for Sweet Charity at Writers’. A graduate of Northern Michigan University, she spends most of the year building costumes for Court Theatre and is currently the Costume Shop Manager of the CHERUBS program at Northwestern University.

Sarah Luse

Stage Manager

Sarah Luse (Stage Manager) is extremely excited to be working with Theater Wit again. Some of her favorite Chicago credits include THE RUBY SUNRISE, W;T, LONESOME WEST, and NIGHT AND HER STARS (The Gift), BONHOEFFER’S COST (Provision), CORONADO (Steep), and HEY! MR. SPACEMAN! (Strange Tree). Along with stage managing Sarah also does production management. Some of those credits include SPIRIT PLAY and GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD (Strange Tree) and A DOLL’S HOUSE and THE GRAPES OF WRATH (Infamous Commonwealth). Sarah is an artistic associate of The Strange Tree Group.

Lance Stuart Baker

Thom Pain (2007)

LANCE STUART BAKER (Thom Pain) was last seen at Northlight Theatre in the world premiere of Craig Wright’s Lady. Before that he performed the monologue The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris at the Theatre Building for Theater Wit. He has also been seen in A Red Orchid’s Hunger and Thirst and The Grey Zone; Victory Gardens’ Young Lady From Rwanda; Goodman’s Dollhouse and Lobby Hero; Court’s Travesties, Importance of Being Earnest, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pericles, Cymbeline, Piano, Twelfth Night, Cyrano, Guys and Dolls, Hamlet and The Invention of Love; Naked Eye’s Nocturne; Steppenwolf’s No Place Like Home; Remains’ Mad Forest; Lookingglass’ Up Against It; and Roadworks’ This Is Our Youth, Ecstasy, Betty’s Summer Vacation, sic, Dealer’s Choice, and Was. Directing credits include last year’s late night hit The Earl at A Red Orchid Theatre, written by Brett Neveu and starring Danny Goldring. Film credits include Road to Perdition, Repetition, Treasure Island, and Payback. He is an ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre and an artistic associate of Collaboraction.

Steve O’Connell

Understudy for Mr. Baker (2007)

STEVE O’CONNELL (Understudy for Mr. Baker) Recent credits include Barefoot in the Park (Paul) and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Man #2) both with Metropolis Performing Arts Center. Regional credits include A Moon For The Misbegotten with Madison Rep., Misalliance with The Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Sweeney Todd with Four Seasons Theatre Company and Great Scientists Through the Ages with National Theatre Company. Other favorite credits include roles in Sight Unseen, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, Lucky Stiff, Good Night Irene, The Three Penny Opera and Hair. Steve is a graduate of the MFA actor-training program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Love and thanks to his new wife Megan.

Jeremy Wechsler

Director (2007)

JEREMY WECHSLER (Director) in addition to his role as Theater Wit’s artistic director, has been a freelance director in Chicago for the last fourteen years. His previous productions include over thirty plays, including work at Bailiwick Repertory (The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Now Then Again, A Month in the Country, Henry VI: Blood of a Nation and Playing by the Rules, Prelude and Liebestod, A Merry Jewish Christmas); Theater Wit (Two for the Show, The Santaland Diaries); Eclipse Theatre (This is the Rill Speaking); Shakespeare’s Motley Crew (The White Devil, The Coarse Acting Show, The Duchess of Malfi, The Roaring Girl, Titus Andronicus); Metropolis Performing Arts Center (Barefoot in the Park); Mary-Arrchie (Europe); and Magellan Theatre (The Threepenny Opera, The Promise, Life is a Dream). He has taught at the Lewis University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Latin School, is an artistic associate with Collaboraction Theatre, Bailiwick Repertory and Shakespeare’s Motley Crew and and was artistic director of Magellan Theatre from 1990 to 1993. His productions have been nominated and/or won multiple awards for design, adaptation and best new work. He extends special thanks to Penny and super cute little Zoe.

Daniel Cook

Scenic Design / Technical Director (2007)

DANIEL COOK (Scenic Design / Technical Director) Among other things, Daniel J. Cook is the guy who climbs inside the Crown Fountains at Millennium Park (the ones that piss water at children) to make them piss water at children better. He has also worked with MTV Video Music Award Winning Red Van Pictures of Los Angeles as Set Decorator on several music videos which corrupt young minds all over the world. Cook last worked for Theater Wit as Assistant Technical Director of Santaland Diaries. He hates Theater Wit, and is very bitter to be involved with them at all. Mr. Cook also currently works with Strawdog Theatre Company, Thodos Dance Chicago, Chicago Ballet, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story at Mercury Theater, Down Stage Designs, Barbizon Lighting, and multiple other horrible Chicago institutions. He is a founding member and former board member of the Echoes of Chicago Artists’ Collective. He sometimes exhibits art at galleries which sell you art by getting you drunk and coming on to you. Mr. Cook has watched hundreds of world-class dance performances, but has never seen a single one from the front—always from stage right—which is very disorienting. Cook maintains another production name. You may have bought that stuff un-knowingly at Borders Books, Walden Books, Target or Tower Records. You’ll just never know.

Keith Parham

Lighting Design (2007)

KEITH PARHAM (Lighting Design) is thrilled to be working at Theater Wit on Thom Pain (based on nothing); previously with Theatre Wit he has designed Two for the Show. He has also designed numerous productions for TUTA Theatre Chicago (where he is a company member), Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Goodman Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Opera Theatre, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Next Theatre Company, European Repertory Theatre, Timeline Theatre Company, and Rivendell Theatre Ensemble.

Joey Wade

Scenic Design (2007)

JOEY WADE (Scenic Design) is happy to return to work with Jeremy Wechsler, for whom he previously designed The Santaland Diaries and A Month in the Country (Jeff Citation) at the Bailiwick, during which Jeremy accidentally killed a whole bunch of birds. Joey hopes no animals are harmed in the making of this production. Recent work in Chicago includes The Dazzle for Steppenwolf (Studio), The Price for Writers’ Theatre (Jeff Nomination), Quills and about ten other shows for Trap Door, and The Grey Zone at A Red Orchid. Also: Uncle Vanya (Steppenwolf Studio); Marat/Sade(The Hypocrites); Kingdom of Earth (Walkabout Theatre); Book of Mercy, Beat the Jester, Blue Moon and Liquid Moon for Chicago Dramatists; The Cairn Stones (Bailiwick); Translations and Chekhov In Yalta (Seanachai); Thanatos, Rhinoceros & The Possessed (National Pastime); Madame Desade, Woyzeck, Ivanov, The Duel, And Stars In The Morning Sky (European Rep); Bent (Gilead); Suicide In B Flat (Center Theatre); Fool For Love (Playhouse); and Of Mice And Men, The Crucible, The Seagull and Dancing At Lughnasa as former resident designer for the Bog Theatre. Joey has assisted internationally renowned master designer Ralph Koltai on designs for Nottingham Playhouse (UK), the Scottish National Opera, Teatre de l’Orange (Italy), the Ralph Koltai Retrospective Exhibition at Lethaby Gallery (London), and Timon of Athens at Shakespeare Rep (now CST). A native of Atlanta, his other credits include designs for theatre, film, opera and dance there as well as in New York, North Carolina, Indiana and the Virgin Islands. He teaches stagecraft and design to high school students at the Francis Parker School in Lincoln Park and is madly in love with “the lovely LSW” and wonder-baby Lincoln.

Kelly McDowell

Stage Manager (2007)

KELLY MCDOWELL (Stage Manager) is pleased to continue working with Theater Wit, where she last stage managed the past 3 productions of The Santaland Diaries, as well as W! the Musical. Prior Stage Management experience includes Henry V, Love’s Labours Lost, and Faust with The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, Seanachai Theatre Company’s A Whistle in the Dark, and Bark! the Musical at CCPA. She worked at Writers’ Theatre as the Assistant Stage Manager and Stage Management Sub for The Subject Was Roses and Benefactors, and the House Manager for The Chosen. Prior to that, Kelly was a stage management intern for The Zoo Story and The Death of Bessie Smith at the Goodman Theatre. She spent time working backstage at the Apollo Theatre Chicago and The Lakeshore Theatre. She has also enjoyed several summers at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. Kelly is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University with a degree in Theatre and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Fascinating! Beautiful, clever and darkly comic. Gives a feverish brilliance to the ordinary.

Be advised at the start about the title of playwright Will Eno’s soliloquy, “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” now receiving its Chicago premiere courtesy of actor Lance Stuart Baker, director Jeremy Wechsler and Theater Wit. It is a red herring.

There is absolutely nothing about old Tom Paine, that firebrand pamphleteer of the American Revolution, to be found in Eno’s poetic, erotic, self-mocking, anguished and altogether twisted and twisting existential meditation. Yet by the end of this 75-minute show, Eno certainly has put a unique spin on Paine’s famous cry: “These are the times that try men’s souls,” for what consumes Eno is profoundly personal rather than political.

The title, like much about this fascinating piece, is clearly designed to divert, mislead, manipulate, undermine and trick. Yet by the time it’s all over, there is a distinct countersensation — that the man who has been playing with the audience has simultaneously been baring his shattered soul.

Eno’s writing is beautiful, clever, blackly comic and, as has often been remarked, “Beckettian,” right down to its man-in-the-dark opening moments. And, magically, the writer’s own discomfort level with self-revelation carries over to both the actor and audience. The play is seductive; it also triggers nervous laughter.

On the surface, “Thom Pain” — which debuted in Britain in 2004, opened Off Broadway in 2005, and was named a finalist for that year’s Pulitzer Prize — is an exercise in self absorption of the one-man show variety. A cradle-to-grave saga of lost innocence, psychic scarring, passionate love gone amok and hope-turned-to-despair, it even indulges in a shaggy dog cliche (and the dog is paired with a small boy in pajamas). But Eno is far too smart and self-aware to go down such a road in any pedestrian way. Instead, he gives a feverish brilliance to the ordinary.

Baker, an actor with precise musical timing and dry delivery that can grow shockingly sensual, is an ideal choice of interpreter. Handsome in an F. Scott Fitzgerald sort of way, he finesses the work’s many levels of extreme difficulty. The more he performs it, the more intriguing it is bound to get.

As Eno muses, life might just be a winning raffle ticket of the cosmic sort. His play is a winning ticket in its own way.

— Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times (original production)

★★★½ Sharp and profound. Powerful!

Sharp and profound. It would take multiple viewings to fully appreciate Eno’s impressively smart writing and all of Baker’s subtle nuances. I’m constantly torn between wanting to laugh at Baker or hold his hand in these dark times. Thom Pain (based on nothing) is a powerful contemplation. Listening to Baker unravel his character’s personal history parallels into our own self reflection. ‘When did your childhood end?’ The show will echo in your mind long after lights out on the stage and later lights out in your bedroom.

— Katy Walsh, Chicago Theater Beat (2013 encore)

★★★★ Resonant and captivating

What makes Will Eno’s monologue on the alienated modern man so resonant is that Lance Baker doesn’t play him as such. Both Baker and director Wechsler resist the temptation to treat Thom Pain’s “based on nothing” as a disaffected manner covering empty matter — which would be the temptation with this Beckettian one-man show, an Off Broadway hit in 2005. Telling a sad boy’s sad story and his own sad love affair, Baker’s alienated self isn’t an empty self but one reeling against such emptiness; Baker reels captivatingly. More than the every-no-man of absurdist literature, Baker’s Thom Pain is a specific one. He’s that guy, the creepy, abject guy you don’t exactly like but can’t quite dislike, whose dyspeptic, disenchanted and self-consciously clever worldview intrigues as much as it distances. He reflects, and knows he does, your own sad soul.

— Novid Parsi, Time Out Chicago

Critic’s Choice! Baker’s intelligence, sensitivity and command of language suit Eno perfectly

Will Eno’s Pulitzer-nominated play is being billed as a send-up of one-man shows, but that only begins to describe it. Premiering in Chicago after successful runs in Edinburgh and New York, this stream-of-consciousness monologue makes a floppy felt hat of the confessional form, beating the material into numerous conventional shapes, from expressionist fable to romantic elegy to rickety, denial-choked consideration of the whole communicative undertaking. It holds any given shape only for fleeting moments, and trades mightily on the hoarse shadow laughter that trails every “heartfelt” declaration in the Theater of Me. But it’s also undeniably earnest in its irony, creating a palpable sense of the aching self-consciousness behind it. Eno’s real subjects — the mysteries of corporeal life, the way our adult selves are cast in patterns born of early, arbitrary injuries — find haunting expression in his lyrical but cutting style. Lance Stuart Baker, who’s recently channeled David Sedaris and Adam Rapp, is a no-duh call for the role of Thom in this Theater Wit production. His intelligence, sensitivity, and command of language suit Eno’s tricked-out head games perfectly, and his fragile intensity has never been in sharper focus.

— Brian Nemtusak, Chicago Reader

Superb comic theater!

As Pain, Lance Stuart Baker navigates the many levels of Eno’s script with gilded finesse. He masterfully underplays, guiding each moment to its comical height. As skillfully guided by director Jeremy Wechsler, Baker’s Pain is shifty and indulgently downtrodden. Baker also backs up the unusualness of the proceedings with a firm emotional connectedness. His character actually aches and seemingly represents all the confusion and contradictory emotion that every human being experiences.

At one point in time, Pain exclaims… “Isn’t it great to be alive?” It may be an even greater achievement to witness superb comic theater like Theater Wit’s Thom Pain (based on nothing).

— Chicago Free Press

Highly Recommended! Deeply sad and richly funny. Superb!

So it is with Thom Pain, the bitterly funny man at the center of this sardonic playlet based (its subtitle says) on nothing. The work is a metaphysical comedy routine, colorful and specific enough to hold our interest yet vague enough to touch some sense memory in everyone. Call it purposeful obscurity.

Although just 75 minutes, the material requires a superior actor with both comedy chops and a sharp edge. Fortunately, Lance Stuart Baker is a superb comic actor with a deep dark streak. His completely naturalistic and self-deprecating manner, as he leaps from point to point and always circles back, reminds one of Robin Williams on meds, slowed down from 90 miles an hour to a sedate 35 but still dangerous behind the wheel. Indeed, when Baker invites audience involvement, we aren’t sure what would happen if we really responded. Thom is in control, but possibly just for the moment. Director Jeremy Wechsler clearly is a man Baker has been wise to trust in developing the relaxed tension of his performance.

Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) is filled with emotional pinpricks, but has no sum of its parts. Thom is deeply sad and richly funny. Your own personal pain will establish the balance.

— Jonathan Arbabanel, Windy City Times