Adler Danztheatre Project has performed in through Chicago and Canada and has hosted companies from throughout the United States. Many of the individual works listed in the company's performance history are available for touring. The list below is a sample of recent works currently in performing repertory. Contact the company for more information 773.486.8261

The Yellow Wallpaper(2003) is based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's gripping 1890 short story of one woman's battle with her own rapidly vanishing sanity in the throes of Post-Partum Depression. Given the "rest cure" by her physician husband, she retires to her bedroom where she becomes hypnotically fixated on the patterns in its yellow wallpaper-patterns that eventually take on the forms of other trapped women. It features original music by Tim Hort. The piece was adapted for the stage by Ellyzabeth Adler and Amanda Healy Collins. "I became intrigued with adapting The Yellow Wallpaper for the stage after reading the original short story not long ago," says Adler, "and it seemed more and more relevant after seeing so many recent news stories about depressed mothers murdering their children." Set in the Woman's bedroom, strips of wallpaper are hung and only a wooden bed, chair and table dress the stage. Four other women take on the roles of the women's imagination and bring the wallpaper to life echoing her haunting words.

Lucia Mauro from the Chicago Tribune says, "Ellyzabeth Adler, ... has discovered her muse in the evocative exposed-brick walls of Belle Plaine Studios... ideally informs Adler's multisensory approach to merging movement and text-based drama. Adler brings the paper to life through four female dancers who writhe and beckon with their malleable bodies to the sounds of their own groans or confined breathing. Yet the director-choreographer does not succumb to horror-flick conventions. Reynolds -- through the burning vacancy of her stares and the fierceness, with which she first rejects, then plunges into the madness of her monotonous surroundings, creates a heroine of epic proportions."

Ever Your Own, Edgar (2003) explores the last moments of tortured writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe grapples with grief for his departed fiance, his memories wind backward to encompass his myriad romantic difficulties, as living memories of each of his past lost love spring to life from his pen. This look into the life of Poe is the story of a uniquely conflicted soul searching endlessly for true love, desperate to make sense of his own existence. The piece includes Edgar Allan Poe's poetry and letters and the music of Frederick Chopin, as well as original text by Kerry Hayes. The piece was conceived for the stage by Adler and Joseph Gilbert, who stared as Edgar Allan Poe." I was first inspired three years ago for the project when I started reading more of Poe's work and began wondering who all the women were that he dedicated his poems too," says Adler. After extensively researching the writer's life and relationships, Gilbert and Adler began creating narrative and movement concepts for the piece, using Poe's The Oval Portrait as a point of departure, interspersed with portions of letters and poetry including, Dream With in a Dream, For Annie and Annabelle Lee.

Lucia Mauro from the Chicago Tribune says, "The most effective segment is the death of Poe's child-bride, Virginia Clemm, played with wistful fortitude by Rachel Brousseau against a live cello concerto performed by commanding actor-dancer Vayram Nyadroh. Adler's choice to begin the work with the feverishly scribbling Poe visited specterlike by each woman to a found-sound backdrop (from a music box to finger-tapping) captures the haunting, inexplicable inspirations that drive artistic expression."

Death's Dream Kingdom (2002) was an environmental work created by Adler for the Belle Plaine Studio combining the poetry of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Hollow Men and Ash Wednesday as the audience shares Prufrock's dream journey. Director Ellyzabeth Adler sees Prufrock as an Elijah figure, warning the audience to awake to the world at hand rather than remaining stuck in the past or fearing the future. According to Adler, "T.S. Eliot said that poetry is the purest theatrical form, so it seemed appropriate to adapt his poetry for performance." This fits well into the Adler Danztheatre Project's vision of incorporating dance, visual art, text and acting to create performance pieces with a social context.

Mary Shen Barnidge from the Chicago Reader says, "the work form(s) an aural backdrop seamlessly integrated into the action to produce a single fluid, multisensory experience... the imagination and industry invested in this production by director Ellyzabeth Adler and Danztheatre Project are impressive."

T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland (2002) Eliot's rich poem detailing the human soul's search for redemption. A cast of 4 illuminates the "lost generation" of post-WWI European society. Eliot believed that his contemporaries lacked a spiritual center and a sense of communion, and in The Wasteland he presents several examples of uncentered souls, intertwined with classical allusions. The Wasteland was staged as a workshop in April 2001. The poem has many different interpretations. It is layered with several contrasts between the past and present, vegetation and humanity. It references three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Hindu. Written like a Shakespearean drama in five parts, it takes us through human time and is written in a stream of consciousness. It seeks out what humans are looking for, a constant connection in life. It also makes us understand that we cannot escape death so we accept it. Once we accept our future, there is an inner calming that happens to our soul.

Lucia Mauro from Chicagotheatre.com writes, "Adler gently joins artistic forces, even to the point of making the exposed-brick walls of the space speak with a wizened sense of melancholy. For "The Wasteland" in the second act, ... some of the most mortality wrenching black-and-white photos by Nate Bettinger and Gigi Norcross. When the shadows of the four ensemble members unobtrusively get superimposed on, say an image of a dead tree facing a treacherous sea...conveys in a tactile, aesthetically gorgeous way, the mystical power of fragmented moments weaving through our minds."

Chemistry (2002) a solo work featuring Kim Kohler teams up with Chicago Musician, Tim Hort to dance while he performs his song, Chemistry about a woman grappling with her life as a survivor of child abuse. This piece eloquently combines Hort's poetic lyrics with Adler's choreography to delve into the mind of a survivor.

The Ideal (2002) created by Ellyzabeth Adler and Margaret Reynolds takes a sneak peak into a dancer personal life. Uniquely blending a story telling monologue about getting hit on at a bar to creating the ideal dance that would combine the music from something dangerous, like Dragnet's theme song, to dancing with swords, a short cherry red costume, and finishing with the splits this piece is sure to make you laugh.

I Dance With a Dress (2001) features tap dancing in wedding dress to Frank Sinatra's You Make Me Feel So Young, moments before a young bride is to get married. She falls asleep and wakes to find her dead grandmother giving her a word of advice. Creating this piece Ellyzabeth Adler and Margaret Reynolds, features something old, borrowed, blue and new.

Whispering Isadora (2001) was inspired during Adler's travels in Europe. While at Auschwitz, Adler noticed the flowers that now grow around where the crematorium once stood. This image juxtaposed with Botticelli's La Primavera, which she had recently seen, prompted her to create a piece about the cycle of death.

Absurdity 3 (2001) deals with the inner conflicts of a women's physical appearance projected on by her and society. This piece was one of Adler's first for the company touches on the topics of eating disorders, fashion magazines and gender equality. It was remounted in 2003 for City Mix dance concert with Kathy Duhman from Austin, Texas and Adler Danztheatre Project.