For Robert Mosby, Jr., Harold Washington College’s spring production of Exit Strategy by Chicago playwright Ike Holter will be his last before he graduates this spring with his Associate of Arts degree.
Playing a student whose high school is getting shut down, Robert thinks everyone can relate to the turmoil the characters are experiencing as they try to figure out what’s next.
“That’s a universal feeling,” he shared. “At some point in everyone’s life, they have to stop and think ‘ok, now what?’”
While the play is set in a fictional Chicago public school, Robert can tap into his own time as a student at Morgan Park High School.
“Some students’ whole lives were the school – classes, friends, extracurriculars. Can you imagine if everything you knew was just taken away? And the teachers who are there early and stay late because they care about their students and the school – it could be devastating to learn that time of your life was over,” he explained.
Harold Washington College’s Loop Players have historically performed an annual spring play. They are now pleased to be able to invite the City Colleges community, as well as the public, to their first production since 2019.
According to Rachel Sledd Iannantuoni, assistant professor of theater and the show’s director, this play was the perfect choice.
“Doing something by a Chicago writer really felt right as we came ‘home’ to our theatre,” said Iannantuoni. “The subject matter feels intensely relevant to this moment; the characters in the play are struggling to get through a trauma and a loss not of their own making, and that experience is one we can all relate to coming out of two years of a global pandemic that locked us out of our schools and isolated us from our communities and support systems. It’s a tough play, a brilliant play, and the actors have fully embraced the challenge. I’m really proud of their work!”
Exit Strategy will run on March 16, 18, 23, and 25 at 7:00 pm, and on March 17, 19, 24, and 26 at 2:00 pm at Harold Washington College (30 E. Lake Street) in Washington Hall. General admission is $10, and student tickets are $5. Tickets can be purchased at the door starting an hour before show time. Learn more by checking out the City Colleges event calendar.
