The Plagiarists

The Plagiarists are a theater group galvanized by an aesthetic; that they can't exactly agree on what it is, has never yet seemed particularly important.  To try to get a better sense of what the Plagiarists are, I asked as many of the members as I could gather what the ideal Plagiarist show would be:

"A rock show." (Layne Manzer)
"A Chuck Mee play, but created by us." (Jack Tamburri)
"The ending Ionesco wanted for The Bald Soprano, which is somebody shoots all the actors and the theater explodes." (Greg Peters and Jack Tamburri)
"A media-rich environment that plays with form and structure and what this is that you're seeing.  Awareness for the audience that they're seeing theater and what does that mean." (Ian Miller)
"Wicked." (Justine Turner)
"A series of monologues where characters have completely oppositional views about what their experience was about" (Greg Peters)
"We take the album Bee Thousand by Guided By Voices and write a short play for each song." (James Dunne)
"Did you check the blog?" asks Jack Tamburri, "I actually just debunked that."
"Oh really?"
Company Member Ian Miller puts an end to this, "We haven't definitively found our voice: that's the fun of where we're at."

But if they can't quite put their finger on what the perfect Plagiarist show is, they are nimbly able to identify some key features that excite the group. Company member Greg Peters identifies deconstruction, theatricality, and "poking at the medium" as keys to any Plagiarist show.  And, of course, plagiarism.

"Every project one of us pitches to the company," explains Jack Tamburri, "whether it's a script to perform or a concept to write, we always have to answer the question: What is the Plagiarism?  How are you in dialogue with your influences?" Ian Miller jumps in, "When you feel like you have the license – the responsibility - to take something [old] and do whatever you want with it, you create a new vocabulary from something that is preexisting."

It's this new vocabulary of conversation that the Plagiarists strive to create in all of their events. In existence since 2007, they have produced as yet only a single "full length, prime-time show," but have consistently peppered Chicago bars, stages, and streets with shorter pieces – and the company is forever writing more.  That "mainstage show," 2008's Promiscuous Stories was itself an evening of short pieces all based on stories by Jonathan Lethem, a novelist who created the stories deliberately to allow anyone to adapt them for the friendly royalty of one dollar. "We really feel that shorter works are our wheel house.  At least for right now," says James Dunne. 

This group of ten writers, stage managers, actors, and directors, are without an Artistic director, and create their own work collaboratively. Company member James Dunne half-jokingly claims the artistic director of the company is the electronic message board that allows the company to write collaboratively even when not all together.  But it's clear that as disparate as the group's opinions might be, they are bound by a dedication to explore the idea of theft and creation.  They also see their consistent presence, in smaller events and in their recurrent Salon Series, as a way to help foster the theatrical community of Chicago, and get audiences and artists prepared to actively participate.  "It's a community again," says Layne Manzer, before adding, "It's like Facebook for real."

To learn more about The Plagiarists check out their website, follow their blog, or become a fan on Facebook.

Benno Nelson

You can read more of Theatre In Chicago contributor Benno Nelson's writing at The@er (http://the-at-er.blogspot.com)

Full Storefrontal

Read the other articles in Benno Nelson's "Full Storefrontal" series that focuses on small theatre companies around Chicago on the Full Storefrontal page.