Send in the clowns–but keep the kids away. This festival of clowning features adult-oriented shows by local and visiting artists, along with a “clown jam” and workshops. Running through April 15 and featuring two to three shows a night, it’s the first edition of what organizers hope will be an annual event. All performances take place at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Admission is $10 per show (except where noted otherwise below); a four-admission pass costs $30. For more information call 312-697-0723.
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Following is the performance schedule for April 12 through 15. In addition to these shows, noted director and teacher Sue Morrison will lead a two-day course, “Introduction to Clown Through Mask,” on Friday and Saturday from 2 to 6 PM each day at the Actors Gymnasium, Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes, Evanston; call 847-328-2795 to register for this course, which costs $120.
This peformance by Molly Brennan, Paul Kalina, and festival organizer Adrian Danzig, known collectively as F, finds a trio of clowns performing Shakespeare’s “Scottish play” in a low-budget, high-risk production beset by every imaginable mishap. The cast “perform this intensely physical comedy with energy, daring, and grace,” says Reader critic Jack Helbig. 7 PM.
FRIDAY, APRIL 13
500 Clown Macbeth
The Theatre Corps presents Rachel Klem and Kelley Ogden in a dark comedy about two revolutionaries imprisoned together. “There are some amazing moments in [this show], especially when . . . Klem and . . . Ogden engage in the kind of gross-out humor women were once believed incapable of. . . . But If You Don’t Have Arms could use trimming: less than an hour, it still feels a good quarter hour too long,” says Reader critic Jack Helbig. 7 PM.
SUNDAY, APRIL 15
