THE SECOND PLAY BY SPENSER DAVIS
WORLD PREMIERE: Nov - Dec ‘18 @ broken nose theatre. directed by kanomÉ JONES & SPENSER DAVIS.
“[As written by] the hugely talented Davis... this could be a TV show. There is a rather delicious sensibility that anything might happen.”
When a violent encounter with a shoplifter leaves half of their team fired or in the hospital, the security guards of a downtown Chicago retail store find themselves under corporate investigation. Short-staffed, ill prepared, and faced with accusations that threaten to dismantle the crew, they’re forced to decide: do we give the higher-ups exactly what they want, or do we try to do what’s right – even if it means risking everything? PLAINCLOTHES is a story of tribalism and taking a stand set against the bright, boisterous backdrop of the holiday shopping season. It is also the first part of The Mag Mile, a quartet of plays centering around working class Chicagoans in the midst of moments of intense accountability.
Winner of the 2019 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award
from the American Theatre Critics Association
Finalist for the 2019 Harold & Mimi Steinberg/ATCA Award
Winner of the 2019 Jeff Award for Best Ensemble
“★★★★ In his thrilling new play... playwright Spenser Davis makes the case for a kind of a washroom-sink realism. Energetic, funny and packed with emotion...”
““HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! This exciting new play by company member Spenser Davis absolutely explodes upon the Den Theatre stage and leaves its emotional shrapnel embedded in the mind every audience member... will haunt the theatergoer and refuse to leave for a long time. ”
“CRITIC’S PICK! This sharp and heartbreakingly honest text gives voice to a working-class world we’ve never seen before... Each character is real and offers an unapologetic sense of self... messy, mistaken, engaged, whole-hearted, and figuring it out... Davis’s smart dialogue is what did it for me. Go. Go. Go see this show.”
“There is nothing plain about “Plainclothes.” It’s messy. It’s a whirlwind. It’s life. I even requested the script from playwright and co-director Spenser Davis in case I wanted to pull quotes. But pulling any quotes without entire pages of flowing dialogue would be a crime. Instead I found myself reading the play in its entirety, twice. Ensemble work at its finest... a collaborative gem. See the show.”
“HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! “Plainclothes” is an exceptional play filled with comedic laughter under an individual crisis that manifests into a perfect dramatic conclusion on how being right can seem as unrighteous when the unlikely victim has privileges.... a picture-perfect, textbook cast.”
