Robert Tenges is a playwright and musician. His play STRANGERS KNOCKING was produced by the side project in May/June 2005, and subsequently presented Off-Broadway by The New Group in May/June 2007. In 2010, the side project produced his play PEOPLE WE KNOW, which went on to receive a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Best New Work. His play FOUND was awarded the 2004 Illinois Arts Council Playwriting Fellowship and was workshopped and read at Victory Gardens Theater, and subsequently presented at Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Abingdon Theater, both in New York. His play THREE HYMNS OF APATHY was produced by the side project in 2008 (dir. Brandon Ray), and he has also written English-language adaptations of Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA and THE THREE SISTERS, both of which were produced by Chicago’s LiveWire Theatre in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

His play ELSEWHERE was developed and workshopped Off-Broadway at The New Group in April 2012, under Ian Morgan’s direction, and was given a full production in April 2013 by the side project, under Adam Webster’s direction. His play KANSAS, was workshopped by The New Group in June/July 2014, and given a public reading by Chicago Dramatists in March 2015; and his latest play, WHATEVER, was produced by the side project in July-August 2015, directed by Adam Webster, and was named to the Chicago Tribune’s list of Best Plays of 2015.

From 1999 until 2012, Robert Tenges was an administrator and faculty member at The Old Town School of Folk Music, where he served as Director of Education & Programs beginning in 2007. In 2013, he joined Columbia College Chicago, and now serves as the college’s Assistant Provost for Continuing & Community Education. He is a member of New River Dramatists, an artist with The New Group, and became Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists in 2014.

Selected Plays:

Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA (English Adaptation)

Chekhov’s THE THREE SISTERS (English Adaptation)

STRANGERS KNOCKING

PEOPLE WE KNOW

THREE HYMNS OF APATHY

ELSEWHERE

WHATEVER

DEAD CHILDREN