"Three Chickens Confront Existence" is a play exploring existential themes through the lens of three factory-farmed chickens. In this surrealist and hilarious production, these feathered friends passionately explore their impossible situation—awaiting their imminent trip to the broiler.

Tragedy morphs to comedy and back again as they explore mysticism, power struggles, class inequality, mythology and religion, with plenty of emotionally charged antics and surprises along the way.

Meet the Cast

Let’s break down the cast from left to right:

BILL SCHAUMBERG is the playwright and director who also gets honorable mention as cast for voicing the invisible fourth chicken at somewhere around the 40-minute mark. Bill is also the writer of the audio play Mind Support, which won the Critics Choice Award at the 2022 Atlanta Fringe Festival and was awarded Silver at the 2023 Signal Awards. His one-act monologue, Death of a Log, has been performed at The Triad Theater, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Bowery Poetry Club, and was published by Epiphany Literary Magazine. He is eternally grateful for the support of Naked Angels Theater Company for providing a creative home for this play’s development and for producing its first staged reading at Theater 80 in 2022.

AUDREY RAPOPORT (Helen) never dreamed that being chased around the yard as a child by her brother’s pet rooster PeePee would lead to this. Audrey has performed with the Groundlings, Acme Comedy Theatre, and at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, Woodstock Comedy Festival, and Austin’s Big Stinkin’ Festival. Theatre: The Anatasia Files; Sight Unseen; Good People; Hay Fever; The Supper Club of Lost Causes; They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; Some Girl(s); Kimberly Akimbo. TV/Film: Bull; Cheers; Bob (as in Newhart); Thirteen Days; Late Last Night; I Love You to Death; and many shorts, including the upcoming The Pink House. Audrey is the recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Natalie Schaefer Award and several DRAMA-LOGUE and LA WEEKLY Drama Awards. She currently teaches at the School for Visual Arts, Marymount Manhattan College, and Improvolution NYC. Proud member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA.

MATTHEW DILORETO (Bronseman) is an actor and musician from Portland, Oregon, living in New York City. He spent years on the NYC stage in Blue Man Group and as a sketch comedian at Upright Citizens Brigade. Subsequently, he went on to star in multiple feature films including Sunday Brunch and as triplets in The Last 24. He is set to lead a new media series filming this summer entitled Gym Bros. He is broadly versed in clown and mask work and has studied extensively under the tutelage of various luminaries in the arts including Darrel Grant, Andrei Kitaev, and Jon Shear. He currently is finishing work on an album recorded earlier this year at Cheval Blanc Studios in France and is pleased to be returning to the stage as the plucky yet brooding Bronseman.

ERIC KIRCHBERGER (Reginald) has been seen as Defense Counselor Stephen Cryer on LAW & ORDER: SVU. He also wrote, composed, and performed the role of Dr. Fauci in Lisa Loeb’s musical project TOGETHER APART. Eric’s roles on stage include David in a festival-winning production of John Yarbrough’s PETRA, and the title role in SANDMAN, directed by Chris Messina. Eric has performed stand-up on Comedy Central, HBO Comedy, and live in New York City. He is honored to be in this show and dedicates his performance to his beloved late parents and the late, great Tom Bozell and Lowry Marshall. May they all be laughing it up on the other side.

Not pictured but boldly present in spirit:
SASHA RICHTER (Costume Design) offers her time, talents, and immense patience in wrangling feathers and crafting waddles, with credits in costume creation including: Boardwalk Empire, The Deuce, Gotham, The Get Down, Wormwood, and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. She’s currently working as a costumer for HBO’s The Gilded Age.