Curious Position
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Things could get more curious in the near future for the Curious Theatre Branch. The experimental company, which by its own description has been “emerging” for 15 years, will lose its 60-seat Lakeview home a year from now, an event that’s likely to be a catalyst for other changes. Founded in 1988 by Beau O’Reilly and Jenny Magnus, the resolutely antiauthoritarian fringe troupe has produced 56 new plays to date (none published; few ever produced by anyone else) in a collaborative and communal damn-the-box-office environment. Group decision making takes the place of a firm directorial hand, and the theater’s board of directors has never bothered to convene. But O’Reilly says he came away from a recent company meeting sure of only two things: “Our commitment is to new work, and we all like each other.” These days, he says, “there are some people in the company who want more directors, some who want a [stronger] board of directors, some who want a bigger budget, some who want a building. And then there are some people who just want to stay small and simple. I’m pretty much on that side.”
Whiskey in Blue, one of 32 plays O’Reilly has penned for Curious, which had a run at Lunar Cabaret in 2000, opens March 8 for three weeks at the city’s Storefront Theater.
All the Schmooze You Can Eat
