The tradition of performance runs deep in Chicago, and a prominent facet of the city’s identity is comprised of it. Well-known shows always strike a chord with audiences, though every once in a while a new piece comes along that is timely, witty, exciting and heartfelt. It is not easy to strike a balance between topical and timeless, though this season, The New Colony’s newest show has achieved it.

“Kate and Sam Are Not Breaking Up,” written by Joel Kim Booster and directed by Sarah Gitenstein, tells a tale surrounding a celebrity couple made famous by a cult-like teenage movie franchise. They soon separate, and their split prompts one fan to travel to extreme lengths in an attempt to reunite them.

Actress and DePaul alumni Mary Williamson portrays Kate within the show. This week, the DePaulia spoke with her about this winter’s production, her character, dark humor, celebrity culture and unexpected emotion.

“Kate and Sam Are Not Breaking Up” provides a complex portrait of the kind of celebrities that society judges harshly, one dimensionally and carelessly.

“Kate is this person that got flung into fame and wasn’t really prepared for it or looking for it or knew anything about it,” Williamson explained. “She doesn’t deal with it so well. I think she is one of those people who pushes against the fame. It’s kind of like a petulant child. They so desperately want to just be who they are but they don’t even know who that is because there are all of these people telling them who they are. I think she is trying to defy who people want her to be.”

Kate is biting and frank; she represents the kind of woman who pushes against the “sweetness” that is often expected from females.

“It’s mentioned a little bit in the play, but even when Kate was a teenager before she got any of the fame, she always had kind of a sharp tongue,” Williamson said. “People put this label on her of her being a b—-, and I think that is something that a lot of women who have opinions or who aren’t necessarily what people want them to be can relate to. Kate is stuck in this perpetual defense mode where people just don’t see any of the goodness.”

The show delves into what it means to be inducted into a franchise at a young age. It becomes easy to paint a portrait of celebrities based on the careers that they were sucked into when they were small, though The New Colony’s latest show pushes against these fast judgments. “Kate and Sam” challenges us to see the individual behind their work.

“Kate started these movies when she was 16 or 17,” Williamson said. “Now she is 24 and she is an adult and she has no idea who she is because all she has done are these stupid movies that she hates.”

The comedy within the production is clever and ominous. It challenges its audience instead of providing them with easy laughs and Williamson has discovered a real propensity for this dark humor.

“I think that it is something that people are realizing that I can do and it is becoming sort of a niche for me,” she said. “I think that it’s also something that Chicago and especially the theater community within it love.”

For Williamson, this kind of comedy transcends the function of merely entertaining an audience. It possesses the ability to expose real and powerful truths.

“I just love when two emotions are so close together that you can’t tell them apart anymore,” she said. “They sort of rub up against each other. It’s uncomfortable but it’s so human and it’s so natural. I think that people try to avoid that a lot of times in life but there are those moments when something awful happens and you’re crying, but then something so funny happens and it just changes and becomes this other emotion. I think this play really does that.”

Deep and dark comedy also helps propel The New Colony’s latest play in both plot and content.

“I think that it helps us earn the ending a little bit more,” Williamson said. “I don’t want to give anything away but Joel, the writer, has done a very interesting job of taking us on that journey where you think you’re watching something else and then you start to see what’s really going on. I think that is a really beautiful way to draw characters, too. It just reveals more about them, I think.”

The show opened recently, and Williamson described the fantastic transition from rehearsal to production. Spectators witness a whole new dynamic that is exciting, challenging and informative. Williamson described the main discovery that she has come to now that the production is being shared with an audience.

“People aren’t ready for ‘the turn’ in the show,” she said. “I think that’s kind of great. You set people’s expectations up in a certain way and then it flips and you take them for this ride. I think that’s what The New Colony is all about, taking people on this adventure.”

This season’s show is a tangible new testament to the innovation within Chicago’s theater community. Though its content is current, it transcends time to display truths about society, relationships, and perhaps, most deeply, ourselves.

“Kate and Sam Are Not Breaking Up” will be at Collaboraction’s Room 300 Theater (Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N Milwaukee Ave., 3rd Floor) until Dec. 14.