Special Guest Emily Schwartz

From 2003 to 2014, Emily Schwartz was the artistic director of and resident playwright for the Strange Tree Group and immersive and mostly macabre theatre company. Chicago Public Radio called the Strange Tree Group, one of Chicago’s most imaginative companies in both the visual and literary senses. For the Trees, Emily penned The Three Faces of Dr Crippen, which won the York Fringe Excellence Award and the Jeff Award, an honor given to outstanding theatre artists in the Chicago area.

In fact, there’s a forensic scientist who discovered that the remains of Cora Crippen might not actually be Cora Crippen. He came to the opening night performance at Steppenwolf in 2011, and there Emily debated him on what actually happened with the murder.

Other critically acclaimed productions by Emily Schwartz include the Dastardly Ficus and Other Comedic Tales of Woe and Misery. Mr. Spacky, the Man Who Was Continuously Followed by Wolves, and The Mysterious Elephant.

You can find productions of Emily’s work across the country. The local Denver theatre group, the Catamounts, for example., has performed both Dr. Crippen and Mr. Spacky.

Today, Emily Schwartz is mostly a professional event planner and mom to four-year-old Henry to whom she is passing on her love of the strange and unusual. She recently wrote an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for the Latin School of Chicago and is working on a children’s book.