CS

ABOUT
 

The Comedians began life as an Audible Original.

Philip Dawkins was commissioned to write the play at the beginning of the pandemic, when it was unclear when actors and audiences would be able to share a room again. He created a queer romantic comedy in which two stand-up comedians could tell an entire love story without ever appearing together.
 

For the play’s first live staging at Raven Theatre, we had the opposite problem: what happens when you finally put those people — and an audience — in the same room?
 

The play follows Chauncy and Nsaku across six stand-up sets and several years. They meet, fall in love, become engaged, build careers at radically different speeds, struggle with addiction and eventually separate. Almost everything important happens offstage. We learn what happened between them through what each man is subsequently willing — or able — to turn into a joke.
 

I wanted the production to behave as much like a night of live comedy as a play. We transformed Raven’s studio into a working comedy club, introduced cabaret seating and drinks, and invited a different Chicago queer comedian to open each performance with a real stand-up set.

Raven’s production marked the first time The Comedians had been staged for a live audience.