| What's The T? May 19 - Jun 2, 2013 |
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About Face Theatre at
Victory Gardens Theater - Biograph |
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| Internet personality/trans activist/fierce community leader Ms. Ma uses her YouTube page to create community, serve glamour and spread the good word about queer safe spaces in Chicago. WHAT'S THE T? tells the story of Ms. Ma's tangled web of connections, her struggle to stay positive and what happens to her community when she disappears. Inspired by issues of race, gender, age and class in Chicago's "Boystown," WHAT'S THE T? is based on true stories and interviews from LGBTQA youth and adults in and around Chicago. |
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| The Liar May 21 - Jul 21, 2013 |
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Writers' Theatre |
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| Hours after arriving in Paris, charismatic scoundrel Dorante is smitten by a pair of comely young ladies and confounded by a case of mistaken identity. Not to worry, Dorante is handsome, charming—and a pathological liar. He wins admirers wherever he goes…so long as he never has to tell the truth! Misunderstandings, secret agendas, and witty wordplay abound in this ingenious and irreverent update of a classic French romp. |
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| Haymaker May 22 - Jun 28, 2013 |
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Neo-Futurists |
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| Trevor examines his fascination with physical combat by staging Tears of Shanghai, an action movie he wrote when he was 12 years old. Casting himself as Russell Dakota, a grizzled maverick evading the Nazis, Trevor attempts to create a world where the line between right and wrong is clearly defined. Within the Neo-Futurist aesthetic, Haymaker is a platform to explore our urge to fight. Expect intricate staging and visceral choreography, as well as elements of high risk. |
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| Cirque Shanghai: Dragon's Thunder May 22 - Sep 2, 2013 |
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Navy Pier Skyline Stage |
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| "Cirque Shanghai: Dragon's Thunder" is a spectacle for audiences of all ages, featuring performers direct from China who are leaders in their craft of tumbling, juggling, balancing and more. With a total of 36 troupe members, "Dragon's Thunder" is the largest Cirque Shanghai cast to ever visit the U.S. This year's production features an incredible line up of awe-inspiring acts, including "The Chinese Flex Bar," the heart stopping "Gravity Swings," and the awesome sounds of the traditional Chinese "Dragon Drums." For the first time in Cirque Shanghai's North American engagement, the traditional Chinese drums will be an integral part of the production. |
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| HooDoo Love May 23 - Jul 28, 2013 |
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eta Creative Arts Foundation |
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| Toulou and Ace of Spades are classic blues people. They live the music. Contemporary playwright Katori Hall pushes the pain and struggles of these musician lovers to the brink. Ambition and love are bitter companions in this richly textured drama steeped in magic, violence, and blues music.
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| Autobahn May 24 - Jun 14, 2013 |
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Fairlane Theatre Co. at
Studio BE |
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| Playwright Neil LaBute claims that the first place he learned to understand drama was inside of an automobile. In his opening notes from Autobahn, his short play-cycle presented this spring by the FAIRLANE THEATRE CO., LaBute recalled “how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car.” Seven plays about deception, disconnection, and dissatisfaction are presented back-to-back from the same limited locale: the confines of the front seat of an automobile. |
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| Smudge May 25 - Jun 23, 2013 |
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Ka-Tet Theatre Company at
Athenaeum Theatre |
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| First-time parents Nick and Colby have given birth to Cassie, a baby that is not at all who they believed she would be. While Nick earnestly attempts to bond with the baby, Colby is horrified, ambivalent and humorously hostile, calling the baby a "freak," a "creature" and a "smudge." A reality they never imagined confronts their expectations of parenthood, and their marriage begins to crumble. At times funny, at times achingly sad, Smudge is a play about the disasters we don't plan for, and how we come to accept them. |
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| The Cotton Mouth Club May 25 - Jun 9, 2013 |
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Victory Gardens Theater - Biograph |
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| The innovative dance theater group known as Chicago Dance Crash mixes their unique blend of high-energy hip hop, ballet, jazz, swing, acrobatics, break-dancing and more to tell a Prohibition Era love story, set to the music of Outkast and Michael Jackson. Rooster is a speakeasy owner caught between feuding gangs of moonshine manufacturers, and Zora is his frustrated wife, left waiting at home. The Cotton Mouth Club is the ensemble's biggest and most ambitious production of the 2013 season, and the historic Biograph Theater provides the perfect setting for the period show that Crash calls "a surreal fantasy." |
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| Lipstick Goes On Last May 25 - Jun 23, 2013 |
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Squares Productions at
The Den Theatre |
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| Meredith (Kathleen Lawlor), a former community teen pageant winner, struggles with aging, alcoholism, a defiant daughter, a philandering husband, and her high school nemesis, now a Girl Scout Leader From Hell with her own problematic family. Her best friend Rita (Ashley J. Dearborn) struggles with overeating, a still-in-the-closet husband (Richard Pryor, Jr.), and her feuding friends. This is a fierce farce about alternative relationships, family, and friends, full of late '70's style and music. And cookies. |
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| The Unbelievable Adventures of Baron Munchausen May 25 - May 26, 2013 |
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Next Theatre Company |
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| This magical puppet-drama play uses video, animation and shadow theater elements -- and is performed in Russian! Based on the works of Rudolf Erich Raspe and Gottfried August Bürger, The Unbelievable Adventures of Baron Munchausen takes audiences on a journey with the most resourceful, courageous and witty traveler who can guide you anywhere, even to the moon. Pack your imagination, and prepare for encounters with a terrible wolf in the snow-covered fields of Russia, an African lion and a polar bear. The Baron needs your help reaching the moon, and in return, you'll receive advice on how to behave in difficult situations from the most famous traveler in the world, Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Munchausen, aka the Baron. |
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| Lonesome Drifter May 25 - Jul 13, 2013 |
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Annoyance Theatre |
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| Lonesome Drifter is the tale of a solitary wanderer who passes through a deserted silver mining town and encounters an oddball mix of left-behinds who are preparing to celebrate the town's upcoming centennial. |
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| The Russian Play: an Improvised Black Comedy May 27 - Jun 17, 2013 |
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The Mental Notion Society at
Studio BE |
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| The Russian Play is an improvised one-act play about a citizen's journey in trying to "make it" in the cruel world of Soviet-era Russia. |
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| Fat Pig May 28 - Jun 16, 2013 |
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Steppenwolf Theatre |
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| How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus-sized-and then some. As Tom explains his new relationship to his shallow (although shockingly funny) co-workers, Fat Pig questions whether anyone can really see past the surface. |
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| The Drunken City May 29 - Jun 15, 2013 |
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Steppenwolf Theatre |
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| The sparkle of glittery pink cocktails lures three brides-to-be into the city for an epic bar crawl. After a stirring encounter with a handsome stranger, the evening takes a surreal turn that threatens the very future they came to celebrate. In the ups and downs of modern love, sometimes what looks like a drunken party foul might actually be a new beginning. |
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| Aloha, Say The Pretty Girls May 30 - Jun 16, 2013 |
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The Brown Paper Box Co at
Heartland Studio Theatre |
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| In this quirky comedy, a group of twentysomethings change careers, geographical borders, and even species in a quest to find a place for themselves. ALOHA, SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS questions the nature of love, identity, and evolution in this wild and wonderful world. The play received its world premiere at the 1999 Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. |
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| The Internationalist May 30 - Jun 16, 2013 |
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Steppenwolf Theatre |
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| Lowell, an American on a business trip abroad, is met at the airport by a beautiful colleague. They spend the night together and he thinks he's in one of those great American movies with travel, romance, adventure and life-changing experience. The next day at the office he discovers that he's actually in one of those foreign films where nothing is as it seems, there is no moral, and most importantly: no subtitles. |
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| Lives of the Pigeons May 30 - Jun 30, 2013 |
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The Side Project |
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| The Side Project Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Lives of the Pigeons by Sherod Santos. A nationally renowned poet, Santos' book The Pilot Star Elegies was a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry. Lives of the Pigeons marks his first full-length play. Gus and Max spend a day in the park, like every other day, on a day that, with the arrival of a mysterious man with a cane, is like no other. Mixing the styles of Pinter, Beckett and Albee, with a dash of Mamet, Santos serves up an intriguing look at long-term friendship and the nature of absolution. Adam Webster directs. |
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