A new play about coming home to a home you no longer recognize will have its world debut at the Copley Theatre in Aurora.
“Bull: A Love Story” has been developed for the past two years through Paramount Theatre’s Inception Project. It serves as the finale of the Paramount Theatre’s inaugural “Bold” series of fearless, thought-provoking plays.
“Bull: A Love Story” is written by Nancy García Loza, directed by Laura Alcalá Baker and stars Eddie Martinez as Bull. All are from Chicago.
Performances are at 1:30 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 7 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; and 1 and 5:30 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 20 at Paramount’s Copley Theatre. The 2 p.m. Oct. 8 performance is “pay what you can.” To get details on how to do that, go to paramountaurora.com/pay-what-you-can-2/.
College Night is at 8 p.m. Oct. 21. Church Night at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 23. Paramount will offer an American Sign Language interpreted performance at 8 p.m. Nov. 9.
The main character, Bull, has just been released from prison after serving a decade for dealing drugs. Upon release, he returns to his old Chicago neighborhood, Lakeview, only to find it — and to an extent, his family — unrecognizable.
“It takes place in 2005, 10 years after Bull’s been released from prison,” Martinez said. “He returns home to Lakeview and it’s changed. He thinks he’s going back to the same place. He hasn’t had a lot of contact — it was a conscious choice to not have his daughter and his girlfriend come see him in prison. Also technology-wise, a lot has changed between 1995 and 2005. So he comes into this whole new world, this whole new neighborhood, this whole new dynamic with his family. And he’s a changed man; he is not the same guy who went in.”
“He’s returning home to a life he thinks is still there … but life has moved on without him,” Alcalá Baker said. “His girlfriend at the time and he’s not sure what she is to him now. His daughter was very little and is now a 12-year-old. It’s a bit of a shock to the system to everyone. This is a story about earning your way into a life you expect to lead, particularly told from the perspective of a Mexican man.”
Martinez is excited to get in on the ground floor of a new, original play.
“It’s a story that’s personal to Nancy that she wanted to tell for a while,” Martinez said. “The time was right during the pandemic. She and I have been wanting to work together for a while and at that time, everybody was free. It was something I had been wanting to do. I was excited to jump on this opportunity.”
He grew up in the Edgewater neighborhood in the 1990s, he said, which gave him a personal connection to his character.
“It isn’t too far from Lakeview and it was the same kind of neighborhood in the ’80s and ’90s, so I really understood the place where this play takes place having been raised on the North Side of Chicago,” he said. “I knew these guys that she writes about, guys she loves and hates at the same time. I think this is a love story because it’s sort of an homage to the homeboys and homegirls of this neighborhood at that time in the ’90s, prior to the gentrification of Lakeview and Edgewater and Uptown.”
The titular love story refers to the love of his neighborhood, the relationship between him and his daughter and the one between him and his girlfriend. He thinks people will related to the relationships and enjoy the play.
“I think it’s going to resonate with people. It’s a story about human beings going through it and hopefully seeing the light at the end of it,” he said.
It’s exciting to be in a world premiere, he said. Alcalá Baker greed.
“I love new plays; that’s my wheelhouse,” she said. “That’s where I like to discover playwrights. It gives you an expansion of the work because you get to be there from the genesis and see what the playwright is trying to work out. It’s really exciting, that wrestling and exploring together with the playwright and also with the actors.”
There are six in the cast and they’re doing wonderfully, Baker said.
“That first production, you’re cracking the egg for the first time. You’re seeing what works, what doesn’t, what still needs to be communicated to the audience,” she said. “The actors are on that journey along with the playwright, along with the director, and I marvel at the work that they do. They’re an integral part of that new play process.”
This isn’t the typical love story of a Mexican man, she said.
“This is about so many forms of love — familial love, love of your community, love of your neighbors, child-parent love, sibling love, self-love,” she said. “It’s working on so many levels. We’re seeing a man wrestling with what it means to open his heart up in so many ways.”
She has never seen a story like this onstage and she thinks that it will resonate with audiences.
“I think that the way that Nancy sees the world and the way she pulls it from her heart … is really remarkable and vulnerable and brave of a story for her to tell,” she said. “Bringing audiences in to bear witness to that is a beautiful thing. They’re part of the new play process too. They get to see this story in its first iteration. I’ve never seen this kind of story told in my community. I’ve never seen this sort of homeboy love story explored. I’m in awe of it. I really am.”
Alcalá Baker hopes that “Bull: A Love Story” will move on to further productions at other theaters.
“It’s going to resonate in so, so many communities across the country,” she said. “This is an American story, a Latino story and has the ability I believe to be a classic. I’m excited for people to see this.”
‘Bull: A Love Story’
When: Through Nov. 20
Where: Copley Theatre, 8 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora
Tickets: $67-$74
Information: 630-896-6666; ParamountAurora.com
Annie Alleman is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News.
