“I and You” – A Play of Life, Death, and Connection Now Playing at Citadel Theatre

Once again, Citadel Theatre has taken the works of America’s most prolific playwright, Laura Gunderson, and created an excellent production for their stellar season. In 2024, they produced Gunderson’s highly successful “Silent Sky,” about women astronomers in the 19th century who weren’t allowed to use the telescope like their male counterparts, to great reviews.

“I and You” is Gunderson’s intimate play that revolves around two seemingly ordinary high school students — Caroline and Anthony — whose encounter begins as an English assignment about Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” but quickly grows into something far deeper.

Caroline is a young woman confined to her bedroom due to a chronic illness, and Anthony, a classmate who arrives with the assignment due the next day. What initially begins like a typical coming-of-age story—two teens, two personalities, one task — becomes a journey on the ways we connect with others.
The dialogue, written with the precision of a playwright who understands the weight of words, builds like an intricate game of trust, with each line revealing something new about the characters, their fears and desires.

The entire story unfolds in one well-decorated teenage girls’ room, kudos to set designer David Solotke. In the capable hands (and lovely voice) of Amia Korman and Jay Westbrook, the chemistry between them is electric, and the gradual shift from antagonism to a sort of tentative intimacy feels authentic and earned.

Director Scott Shallenbarger, former director of Theatre Arts at Highland Park High School, keeps the pace moving along with responsive dialog in its exploration of life and death, and how literature — and specifically, the poetry of Walt Whitman—becomes a vehicle for a deeper understanding of these concepts.

The show is helmed by Scott Phelps, Artistic Director and Ellen Phelps, Managing Director.

What I found most dramatic, however, is the play’s mind-blowing ending. Without giving anything away, let’s just say you’ll be reeling in your seats. Everything you thought you knew about the characters, their relationship, and the play itself is not what it seems. It’s an ending that leaves you breathless — and in that moment, you realize the true power of humanity: connected to something much bigger than ourselves.

“I and You” runs through March 23, at the Citadel Theatre, 300 S. Waukegan Road in Lake Forest. For tickets, go to citadeltheatre.org or call 847-735-8554. The last show of the season is “A Jukebox for the Algonquin” running April 18 – May 18.