CTWS’ Complex ‘The Sparrow’ is ‘"Ordinary People" meets "Carrie"’

Emily Book is no ordinary teenager.

Her name is spoken in hushed, fearful tones, even though the teachers of her hometown seem to want the best for her. She is shy and withdrawn, awkward in social situations. At night, anguished voices rage in her head. And sometimes, time appears to completely stop still for her.

What, exactly, is so strange about Emily would be criminal to spoil, and won’t be fully clear until after The Sparrow, the new show opening this weekend on the Cattell stage, has taken its audience through a long mystery.

“One reason people have trouble explaining it is that it’s one of those shows that, as an audience member, you’re not supposed to understand what’s really going on until halfway through the second act,” said director Tripp Burton, who previously directed the theatre’s summer show, Smile. Burton added that the best way to describe the show might be as "Ordinary People meets Carrie."

The Sparrow, written by Chris Matthews, Jake Minton and Nathan Allen for Chicago’s House Theatre, opened in 2006 and quickly exploded into the small theater’s biggest hit, moving up to an extended run at the Apollo a year and a half later.

That was where CTWS director Leslie Price and a group of high-schoolers caught the play a few years back, and the show stuck with Price. She would eventually write the House, asking for the rights, fully expecting to be turned down—but instead, she ended up securing CTWS as one of the first amateur groups to perform Sparrow.

“It’s a great show for these guys because for the most part they’re playing characters who are their own age,” Price said. “It’s hard to find a show that features characters who are teenagers that doesn’t talk down to teenagers… Our students are very bright and mature and eager for a challenge.”

Played by Lyons Township junior and Western Springs resident Chloe Baldwin, central character Emily is a brilliant student—almost savant-like—but withdrawn and seemingly afraid of the world around her as she returns home after a long absence. She also appears to have suffered through some incredible tragedy.

“Her whole life, she’s been a little bit of an outcast,” explained Baldwin. “She hasn’t been around a terribly large amount of peers—more around adults. So that’s made her a little bit wary of people her own age. She’s very complicated.”

Baldwin compared the relationship between Chloe and spunky cheerleader Jenny McGrath, who tries to befriend the unique outcast, with that between Elphaba and Glinda in the musical Wicked.

The show is also the assistant-directing debut for Caitlin Williams, a Claredon Hills senior at Timothy Christian, who described the play as “a a lot darker than a lot of the things we usually do.

“It takes a lot of believing at first—you have to accept the things you’re seeing,” Williams said. “It seems really realistic, like it could be real—but then there are these elements that could never happen, but it still feels like they could.”

Sadly, the concept of a community stricken by grief—as is the community in the play—has become all too familiar to Theatre of Western Springs members in recent weeks following the .

Burton said that the show, which requires that many of the actors show authentic sadness, has been a good outlet for some of the young actors’ emotions.

“They’ve been able to, whether they realize it or not, been able to channel some of what they’ve been feeling into the play,” Burton said.

Still, the message of the play is ultimately redeeming and hopeful for Emily and for her community.

“It’s a really tremendous show,” Burton said. “I don’t know anybody who’s ever seen the show who hasn’t fallen in love with it.”

The Sparrow runs at the Theatre of Western Springs Nov. 11, 12, 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m., Nov. 12 and Nov. 19 at 2:30 p.m., and Nov. 13 and Nov. 20 at 2:30 p.m.; tickets can be obtained by calling the , or online through their website.