The Curious Theatre Branch’s ambitious yearly showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music from Chicago’s fringe began as part of the Bucktown Arts Fest. Over the years it’s mushroomed from a neighborhood happening to an event of citywide significance–especially now that it’s been taken under the wing of the Department of Cultural Affairs as part of a laudable effort to bring an off-off-Loop sensibility to Chicago’s downtown theater district.
The Nomenil theater group performs Allen Conkle, Courtney Evans, and Christopher Powers’s musical spoof. “The whole world is ugly in [this] campy, confusing Rocky Horror-meets-Pinocchio musical, where everyone wears rainbow-colored wigs. Scientists have taken over the growing of lawns and the shining of the sun while Mother Nature… has decided to destroy humanity using a supervirus, presented in charming red boxes. A gang of punk rockers tries to keep humans alive by spreading ‘love pollution’–simple kindness and consideration. And [a] scientist… has created the perfect plastic couple to repopulate the world once Mother Nature has done her dirty work…. Powers’s techno-pop music is passable, but the uncredited lyrics fall flat, and the singing is usually wince inducing. Overall… Conkle and … Evans’s story, directed by Conkle, is crass and cruel, so confusing its good-versus-evil theme that we’re unsure whose side we’re on,” says Reader critic Jennifer Vanasco. Chicago Cultural Center, studio theater, 7 PM.
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Beau O’Reilly performs three of his stories. Chicago Cultural Center, studio theater, 7 PM.
Cooking con Karimi and the Quest for the Secret Ingredient
In Situ
See listing for 7 PM Friday, October 24. Chicago Cultural Center, studio theater, 7 PM.
