Cabinet of Curiosity Events
First Floor Theater
Manual Cinema
The House Theatre of Chicago
Salonathon
Walkabout Theatre

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CUT THE OLD MOON INTO STARS or: The Sleeping Dutchman
Seth Bockley
In this new adaptation of Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving’s tall tale becomes a lively celebration of community, family, and the spell of a lazy river, and asks a universal question—how to return home when everything you know has changed?
 

SALONATHON

AJ Ware: UNTITLED (Image Not Found)
A documentary film exploring our evolving definitions of Identity and Family, and the ways in which carrying a secret affects both the keeper and the people in their life.

Matthew Sherbach and Maggie Kubley in Rep
Two solo performers come together to bring their unique, personal stories to life.

Ivan Resendiz: THE UNDOCUMENTED ART
A concert in development that emphasizes the positive results of migration that have helped the evolution of classical music, in order to counter the negative anti-immigrant campaign being promoted in this country. 

WALKABOUT

The Persephone Project: Burned/Root
A pantheon of gods transform Chicago as uprooted people reclaim their connection to the Earth in this outdoor spectacle performance.

Summer Training Intensive
A week long investigation into actor research, performance generation, and laboratory training.
 

500 CLOWN

Past Present
Leslie Buxbaum Danzig and Amanda Crockett
In association with 500 Clown & American Theatre Company
Gertrude Stein's insistence on presence in written form gets worked into a stage experience through circus arts and everyday circumstances.
 

THE HOUSE THEATRE

Hatfield and McCoy
Shawn Pfautsch and Matt Hawkins    
Shawn Pfautsch’s love letter to R and J in a philosophically polarized America inspired by the true story of the famous families at war.

Ellen Bond, Union Spy
Jenni Lamb, Jess McLeod, and Tanji Harper   
Freed slave Mary Bowser uses her intelligence to steal the Confederacy’s secrets by working as a maid in the Confederate White House.

Nova to Lodestar
Nathan Allen, Sandor Weisz, and Lee Keenan   
A live, asymmetric, cooperative game played by two teams in two separate rooms.

Verboten
Brett Neveu, Jason Narducy, and Nathan Allen    
The story of how punk rock saved Dave Grohl's life.

Pinnochio
Ben Lobpries and Joey Steakley    
In this new adaptation, Pinocchio’s struggle to become a “real boy” has very contemporary implications

Start Me Up
Peter Sagal, Nolan Gasser, Clark Sterling    
A musical about Silicon Valley.

Little Girl Don't Fall
Jesse Roth, Matt Muniz    
An adaptation of the Bluebeard fairytale, Little Girl, Don’t Fall is a heroine’s journey, a gothic ghost-story, and a fairytale mash-up musical for young women who don’t know how to fall in love—and are too chippy to listen to those who try to tell them.

Thatcher Woods
Monty Cole    
Thatcher Woods tells the story of Riley Walters' adventure to reverse the town's paranormal curse and prevent her girlfriend from spending the rest of eternity as an apparition. Moving the audience around the space like a Disneyland dark ride, the play is a powerful and entertaining journey through grief.

Saved By The Bell
Marika Mashburn    
A mashup of The Big Chill and Saved by the Bell exploring nostalgia and loss.

TONY KUSHNER CONSIDERS WRITING A GAY FANTASIA BASED ON NATIONAL THEMES
Calamity West and Seth Bockley    
New York City, 1986. As a young playwright begins the biggest challenge of his life, the ghosts of characters-to-be collide with the real lives of a changing and dangerous metropolis almost a decade before history cracked open.

In the Summer of 2016, Chicago Performance Lab hosted The House Theatre of Chicago, Salonathon, The Syndicate, Walkabout Theatre Company, Colorguard, and The Hypocrites. In residence from July through August, these companies explored a variety of forms, idioms, and media.
 

THE HOUSE THEATRE

A Comedical Tragedy for Mr. Punch 
Kara Davidson and Shade Murray
This dark and classic puppet show gives children a way to laugh and marvel at the cruelty of the adult world they do not understand.

The Nutcracker
Jake Minton, Phillip Klapperich, Kevin O'Donnell, and Tommy Rapley
A fast-paced, beautifully choreographed, family-friendly event, and one that is moving even for those of us who might be on the grinch’s side from time to time.

Diamond Dogs
Alastair Reynolds, Althos Low, and Nathan Allen
A classic deadly-maze story that follows a future team of humans and trans-humans as they battle a sentient alien tower.

The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz
Phillip Klapperich and Tommy Rapley
A modern retelling of the classic american fairy tale.

Verboten
Brett Neveu, Jason Narducci, and Nathan Allen
The story of how punk rock saved Dave Grohl's life.

Ellen Bond, Union Spy
Jenni Lamb and Jess McLeod
Freed slave Mary Bowser uses her intelligence to steal the Confederacy’s secrets by working as a maid in the Confederate White House.

Missing
Carolyn Defrin
A middle-aged married couple wake up to news that an old friend has died. 

Hatfield and McCoy
Shawn Pfautsch and Matt Hawkins
Shawn Pfautsch’s love letter to R and J in a philosophically polarized America.

Pinocchio
Joey Steakley and Ben Lobpries
In this new adaptation, Pinocchio’s struggle to become a “real boy” has very contemporary implications.

Salome
Ben Lobpries and Tommy Rapley
A street-poet prophet, a hedonistic prince, a self-obsessed matriarch and a slew of feuding diplomats set the stage for Salome’s greatest act.

Night Country
Alex Lubischer and Monty Cole
Twins set out to save their parents in a world that has stopped spinning.

The Winter Farm
William Glick and Jesse Roth
Just 20 years after a near-apocalypse, Wendy returns to Mammoth Cryogenics with her daughter Alice to release her husband from cryogenic sleep.

Nova to Lodestar
Nathan Allen, Lee Keenan, and Sandor Weisz
A live, asymmetric, cooperative game played by two teams in two separate rooms.

Vamonde Project
Nathan Allen and Sandor Weisz
Experiments with technology, performance, game and social applications on the Vamonde.com urban storytelling platform.

Kitty Hawk Arsht Commission
A 60-minute musical for young audiences that premiered in Miami in Oct 2016.
 

SALONATHON

The Cosmic Body
Bea Cordelia
What does it mean to frame the narrative of an oppressed person around something other than The Struggle?

Starving Artist
Dewayne Perkins and Aasia LaShay Bullock
A narrative set of sketches following two comedians through their journey of being black in a mostly white community.

TimeLife Video Presents a Limited Edition Performance of "Pretty Lady; The Life and Times of Judy Rosenblatt."
Matt Leyes
A tender, multimedia exploration of Rosenblatts's storied career, from the monumental highs to the devastating lows.
 

THE SYNDICATE

Civility! 
Ellenor Riley-Condit
A series of dangerous, sexy, wild collisions inspired by Euripides’s The Bacchae.
 

COLORGUARD

Colorguard
Eric Hoff, SK Kerastas, and Will Davis
An epic movement-driven play that uses the military-originated and gayly-evolved  “sport of the arts,” as its main language.
 

THE HYPOCRITES

Aristophanesathon
Sean Graney
A recent conjoined adaptation of the surviving eleven Aristophanes’ comedies. 
 

WALKABOUT THEATRE

Tall Girl and the Lightning Parade
Thom Pasculli
An immersive, celebratory outdoor parade performance with live music, dance, masks, and stilt-walkers.

In 2015, UChicago Performance Lab hosted The House Theatre of Chicago, Salonathon, The Syndicate, the Gray Center, and The Hypocrites. 
 

THE HOUSE THEATRE

The Screens 
Jean Genet and Dexter Bullard
A physical theater adaptation of Genet's 1959 script involving digital media.

Flight 232
Vanessa Stalling
A dance performance piece based on the testimonies from flight 232, which crashed over Sioux City in 1989.

The Revel
Damon Kiely, Jess McIntosh, and Leslie Buxbaum Danzig
A new musical loosely adapted from The Bacchae by Euripides.

The Last Defender
Nathan Allen, Sandor Weisz, and Chris Burnham
A wholly new experiment in immersive story and stagecraft—part performance, part puzzle hunt, and part live action game.

Salome
Ben Lobpries and Tommy Rapley
Inspired by Oscar Wilde’s Salome and set in the near future at the brink of the collapse of western civilization.

Synesthesia
Ben Wilhelm and Kevin O’Donnell
A multi-movement piece of original music performed by a percussion ensemble.

Jack and Jane and On and On
Nathan Allen and Rhett Miller
A love story that explores the frustrating cyclical nature of dating, and the mature, awe-inspiring love that transcends it.
 

SALONATHON

Shelley Duvall's Women Under the Influence Theatre
Alex Grelle, Aileen May, and Jyldo
A collection of heightened moments in iconic cinema performed LIVE, all by the same insane character actor.

Carbon Copy
Justina Kairyte and Kendra Miller
A performative inquiry into distance, connection, female friendship, romantic relationships, virtual personas and the location of our physical hearts in digital spaces.

The Diva in 7 Experments
Alexa Grae, Irvin Almonte, Taylor M, and Darling Shear
A multidisciplinary song cycle with video projection exploring otherness and radical identities.

THE SYNDICATE

Civility!
Ellenor Riley-Condit
An adaptation of The Bacchae that begins with Euripides’s story and asks: How do we live together?

Long Distance
A decentered performance, a project that travels and takes place wherever any Syndicate member is.
 

GRAY CENTER FOR ARTS AND INQUIRY

Afterword
George Lewis, Catherine Sullivan and Sean Griffin
A collaborative opera developed as an aesthetic extension of Lewis’s 2008 book about the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press).
 

THE HYPOCRITES

The Ring Cycle
Sean Graney
An adaptation of a trilogy of operas from the 19th century by Richard Wagner.
 

FIRST FLOOR THEATER

The Workshop Program
A core tenet of FFT's mission is that we do work that explores the notion of personal crisis and personal revolution—The Workshop Program is designed with that ideal in mind.

In Summer 2014, Chicago Performance Lab hosted The House Theatre of Chicago, Salonathon, FlipFlap Productions, Manual Cinema, First Floor Theater & The Mill Theatre.

THE HOUSE THEATRE

The Hammer Trinity
Nathan Allen
A fantasy epic, taking place over three full-length plays set in a parallel proto-America.
 

SALONATHON

Salonathon
Dav Yendler, Witch Hazel and The Salt
Salonathon is an engine for experimental work, an inclusive creative community, and a great party.
 

FLIP FLAP PRODUCTIONS

The Temp
Julie Nichols, Tim Mason, and Megan Kellie
A darkly comic tale of an over-age permanent temp who wants to be a permanent human being.
 

MANUAL CINEMA

Mementos Mori
Drew Dir, Sarah Fornance, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter
A feature-length performance of cinematic shadow puppetry—a kaleidoscope of interrelated stories about death and technology.
 

THE MILL THEATRE

The Yellow Wallpaper
Jaclyn Biskup and Lorelei Sturm
A theatrical adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic short story.
 

FIRST FLOOR THEATER

The Paranoid Style in American Politics
Emmett Rensin and Will Bishop
A chronicle of a harrowing time in the life of a group of young Republican political operatives.

EXPLORING MEDIA

The Pennyworth Stories
Lookingglass Theatre Company, Blair Thomas, and Manual Cinema
This collaboration works through a fusion of physical theatre, puppetry and projection to present the story of The Pennyworths and all the tales they tell.

B-Side Studio
The New Colony and The Inconvenience
An ongoing development of six episodes of a television show in the style of American sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s.

Cinderbox
Lucky Plush Productions
Exploring the comedy and anxiety in our hyper-networked culture through a fragmented narrative, witty commentary, and a performance that blurs the distinctions between observer and observed, personal and presentational, scripted and off-the-cuff.
 

ERICA MOTT PRODUCTIONS

3 Singers
Erica Mott
An explororation of the dilemmas of workers from three different time periods, taking three female vocalists on a journey that melds symbols, sights and sounds.
 

COLABLAB

ColabLab
Chicago Repertory Ballet and Jaxon Movement Arts
Renowned Chicago choreographers come together to create, play, riff off each other and bind together a one-act show.
 

LA PIARA

GUERRA: A Clown Play
Seth Bockley, Devon de Mayo, and La Piara
The play combines slapstick, clown, dance, bouffant and farce to tell the story of a military outpost desperate for recruits, and the cannon fodder that a hapless general sends to war.
 

THE WHISKEY REBELLION

Ulysses 101
Jessica Wright Buha, Aileen McGroddy, and John Szymanski
This theatrical "seminar" seeks to unwind a famously knotty text in the world of unpacking, discussing, and book-skimming: the college classroom.
 

THE LADY JEAN LADIES

Horse Girls
Jenny Rachel Weiner, Rebecca Stevens and Eunice Woods
What happens when a middle-school horseback riding club discovers that their show ponies are being turned into horsemeat?
 

FIRST FLOOR THEATER

Work in Progress
Will Bishop
Inspired by Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millenium, playwright, Will Bishop, generates and edits the frame narrative in real time, while diverse teams of theater artists devise multimedia dreamscapes, responding to and adapting each of Calvino's six memos.

BLAIR THOMAS - LOOKINGGLASS - THE HOUSE THEATRE

Exploring Moby Dick
Blair Thomas, Lookingglass and The House Theatre
A night of three different adaptations of Herman Melville’s novel, performed in various locations in the new Logan Center for the Arts.
 

SCREEN DOOR PRODUCTIONS

I am a Rocket Scientist
Jack Lawrence Mayer and David Milton Brent
A sci-fi musical about rocket scientists in love.
 

CHICAGO REPERTORY BALLET

Schaaf's Tres: Hip A Love Story - Dancer.Net - It's Not Enough to Close Your Eyes
Wade Schaaf and Chicago Repertory Ballet dancers
A collection of works in progress as well as world premiere work.
 

THE WHISKEY REBELLION

Wake: A Folk Opera
Tennyson Spade, Sign of Rain
A musical event that follows the story of two strangers, a house, and a recently departed mother.