Local Wonders

Tickets and Information

Visit the Local Wonders website:
http://www.chicagodramatists.org/home/

Rewritten for the stage by Virginia Smith and Paul Amandes, Local Wonders is adapted from the book Local Wonders; Seasons in the Bohemian Alps by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, which describes in exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska. Local Wonders takes the audience to this same home ground where, left to enjoy the fruits of a successful middle age, Ted Kooser finds himself, first lauded as a world class poet and then not only gripped by a sudden confrontation with cancer but also a severe case of writer's block. Feeling short-changed and betrayed, Ted finds little else to do but to walk daily and reflect on the events and people that brought him to this lofty but unstable precipice of both fame and mortality. Inspired by this forced questioning of the value of life and art, Local Wonders is a series of rich stories and songs through which the poet and his wife share their journey; one that is universally recognizable and uniquely personal simultaneously.