It's back, cats & kittens: after a three-year hiatus since the last staged reading of this play, at the dearly-missed New Leaf Theatre's Treehouse Reading Series, my play A PERFECT SHADE OF SKYLINE GRAY will return for one night only, Tuesday June 23rd! It's a FREE staged reading at the great Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, where you can order delicious food and drinks off their stellar menu before, during, and after the performance, which starts at 7:30pm...what, you ask, is this show all about?

September 1957: Joliet, Illinois. On a fog-enshrouded evening in this Illinois steel town, a hot-tempered newswoman walks onto a bridge and disappears, leaving behind a mystery that will haunt the Midwest forever. While the clock runs out on the reckless reporter's life, a wealthy young Rackets Committee attorney named Robert F. Kennedy arrives in Joliet just in time to plunge into a maelstrom of lies and violence, where he will be forced to confront his own guilt for the dark secrets of our country's favorite decade. And when Kennedy weaves his way through a nightmarish maze of hot dog massacres, whipping cults, disfigured torch singers and hired killers, truth becomes maddeningly elusive, and questions of loyalty, lust and legacy get answered by the cries of passion forming a dying city's sordid soundtrack.  Before it's over, more than one murder will have changed the lives of everyone in Joliet...and America.

Join us for a FREE staged reading of this play featuring an amazing cast, great music, drama, madness, history, violence, secrets and sex, all at Black Rock Pub & Kitchen: we can't wait to see you there!

A Perfect Shade of Skyline Gray
A Play by Mark Mason

Starring Jamie Bragg, David Boren, Natalie DiCristofano, Carl Wisniewski, Andrew Jessop, CJ Langdon, Carissa Meyer and Mike Krystosek
Tuesday June 23rd, Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, 3614 N. Damen Avenue, Chicago
Dinner and Drinks: 6:00pm
Start of Show: 7:30pm

Thirty years is a long time for a family to fall apart. Countless disasters, little miracles of love, and a epic political nightmare of unfolding history are all centered on a bedroom in a tiny Main Street house in Morris, Illinois where the McCauley family is slowly disintegrating. A love-struck young real estate agent fills us in on the beautiful, lyrical love that birthed this shoddy dynasty, a love that began in a ’74 Dodge Challenger with Elvis Costello on the radio and would end with blood coughed by a woman surrounded by plastic angels while her daughter lies unconscious covered in Iraqi dust. Love is fulfilled: trust is betrayed. Resentments, hopes, dreams and yearnings are pursued by the ashes of the past, miscarriages and zombie movie marathons the chasers for terrorism and war;  cancer, rage and adultery the blips on a television set to Cubs games and Hurricane Katrina coverage. Welcome to A FAMILY EMERGENCY, a comedy about the worst memories of all the best people.

Starring the brilliant cast of Abby Blankenship, Mary Jo Bolduc, Brian Chambers, Ellen Chambers, Eric Gerard, James Lusk, Kein P. Onickel, and Bridget Schreiber , A FAMILY EMERGENCY is my epic and occasionally hilarious tragedy about what it means to be an American millennial and what it is to love and die in the Midwest, and will be presented in a FREE, ONE NIGHT ONLY staged reading on Tuesday June 16th, 7:30pm, at Church in the City, 1040 W Huron Street #1-W, Chicago, IL 60642.  Invite your friends, yourself, and maybe even your family here on our Facebook event page: we sincerely hope to see you there!