Michael Allen Harris

A new play by Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Michael Allen Harris ’11, a graduate of the Columbia College Theatre Department’s Acting program, is featured in Bechdel Fest 6: Revolution, a festival of new short works presented by Broken Nose Theatre July 29 through 31 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s intimate, flexible 1700 Theatre, located at 1700 N. Halsted, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Called For the Culture, the play concerns a secret spy organization founded, funded, organized, and run by black women with plans to change the world. Harris is Broken Nose Theatre’s resident playwright. His play is one of nine featured in the festival, which is inspired by cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s “test” of whether a work of entertainment features at least two women in conversation about something other than a man. Tickets for all Broken Nose Theatre productions are available on a “pay-what-you-can” basis, allowing patrons to set their own price and ensuring theatre remains economically accessible for all audiences. Suggested price is $25. For tickets, call 312-335-1650 or click here.

Founded in 2012, Broken Nose Theatre is Chicago’s premier “Pay-What-You-Can” organization, allowing patrons to set their own ticket price to ensure that theatre remains accessible to all audiences, regardless of socioeconomic status. The company develops and produces new work that amplifies underrepresented voices, cultivates empathy, sparks conversation, and provides opportunities for a diverse array of artists both on and off the stage. The values driving its artistic work are economic accessibility, inclusivity, representation, collaboration, conversation, and immediacy.