Citadel Theatre’s ‘I And You’ will offer insights into teenagers and life lessons for all

Lauren Gunderson has been the most produced playwright in America in large part because of her ability to bring to life characters from earlier centuries in plays like “Miss Bennett,” “Ada and the Engine,” “The Book of Will” and “Silent Sky” (produced by Lake Forest’s Citadel Theatre in 2024). In her play “I and You,” to be performed at Citadel from Feb. 19 through March 23, she immerses audiences in a world that to many theatergoers may seem nearly as foreign as her historical settings: the world of today’s American teenagers.

Theatergoers who are well beyond their teen years and find the current generation somewhat mystifying will have a chance to get inside this world through Gunderson’s keen human insights. The play takes us into the bedroom of Caroline, a 17-year-old girl who is suffering from a critical illness and who has been studying remotely for several months. She is visited by Anthony, who initially appears to be quite different from Caroline. He’s athletic, outgoing and popular, while Caroline is more cerebral and guarded in her relationships. Anthony is visiting only because he has been paired with Caroline on a class project: to give a presentation on Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” Anthony simply wants to get the project done as it's due the next morning, and to keep Caroline motivated, he has to break through the emotional walls Caroline has built over her months of seclusion.

To bring Gunderson’s characters to life, Citadel has enlisted the talents of three theater artists uniquely suited to the challenge. “I and You” is directed by Scott Shallenbarger, the retired Director of Theatre Arts at Highland Park High School who spent decades teaching teenagers.

“Gunderson deftly captures what I observed in my students as a career high school teacher,” he said. “Her characters share the same insecurities and fears while also revealing the same contagious idealism and hope. ‘I and You’ actually feels like a love letter to this stage of life, versus some authors who reduce adolescence to well-worn tropes. Our culture often stereotypes teens as shallow and/or self-centered, but the characters in ‘I And You’ are teens who are vulnerable, offer unconditional acceptance to one another, and fiercely wrestle life's big questions. They are churning with much more emotional depth and craving more authentic connection than might be apparent on the surface.”

Playing the two characters of this play are actors close enough to their own high school years to vouch for Gunderson’s authenticity. Amia Korman, a recent graduate from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, is playing Caroline.

“I think these characters are timeless and ring true as can be,” Korman said. “They're voracious, self-conscious, bold, bashful, cynical and full of whimsy all the same. I recall what those contradictions felt like at 16 or 17, and when I work with this script, I feel those oxymoronic tensions pulling me at either end all over again.”

Jay Westbrook, a 2023 graduate of Chicago’s High School for the Arts who appeared last summer as The Courier in “1776” at Marriott Theatre, is playing Anthony. Westbrook says he believes audiences of all ages will relate to the teenage characters.

“I'd say they can learn that (in some ways) being a teenager isn’t too far from where they are right now. I believe as we get older, we kind of forget our childlike optimism and curiosity toward newer situations. This play is definitely eye-opening when it comes to unlocking said curiosity. Not only our curiosity regarding people, but also ourselves in relation to others.”

Beyond offering insights into those awkward teenage years, Shallenbarger says the play has a larger message: that all of us are interconnected and dependent on each other, despite our apparent differences.

“A line from Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’ that is mentioned in the play is ‘For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.’ It reminds me of a quote by the late South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, leader of that country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: ‘My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.’ This is true no matter our biological ages.”

“I and You,” by Lauren Gunderson, will play Citadel Theatre, 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest, from Feb. 19 to March 23. For more information and for tickets, visit citadeltheatre.org or call (847) 735-8554, ext. 1.