Alumni and faculty of the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department and Columbia College Chicago Music Department are on the production/design team of Invictus Theatre Company’s production of Network, Lee Hall’s stage adaptation of the classic 1976 film. The show runs August 13 through September 29 at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. For tickets, click here.

 

The show’s scenic designer and technical director is Columbia College alum Kevin Rolfs ’17, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre Design. Columbia College alum D.J. Douglass ’12, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Musical Theatre, is the show’s projectionist and technical consultant. Columbia College alum and faculty member Petter Wahlbäck ’00, MFA ’08, a graduate of the Columbia College Chicago Music Department’s BA Program in Music Composition and MFA Program in Music Composition for the Screen, is the show’s sound designer. And Columbia College alum Rooney G ’22, who graduated with a double BA in Theatre Directing from the Theatre Department and Entertainment Industry Marketing from the Columbia College Chicago Business and Entrepreneurship Department, is the show’s production manager.

Network concerns Howard Beale, a network television anchorman who is fired for his declining ratings but becomes embraced by the public as a symbol of their collective angst. Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 screenplay, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, was prescient in its foretelling of television’s adoption of reality-based programming and exploitation of grievances. The immersive staging will use a combination of live feed and pre-recorded video and projections to bring the audience into the world of the play, as if they were a studio audience for the Howard Beale Show.