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Ike Holter’s “Put Your House In Order” to be Adapted for The Roustabouts Audio-Thriller

It’s spooky season and Chicago playwright Ike Holter is delivering some delicious horror content via The Roustabouts for your pleasure this Halloween. The Roustabouts have announced the upcoming release of their first Audio-Thriller available for streaming and download. On October 28th, at 8pm, the creative arts ensemble will drop the world-premiere production of Put Your House In Order by Ike Holter to be available from just before Halloween until right before election day, closing at 11:59pm Central on Monday November 2nd. The play will stream for free, and suggested donation is $10 at www.PYHIO.com.  Continue reading “Ike Holter’s “Put Your House In Order” to be Adapted for The Roustabouts Audio-Thriller”

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Inclusion in Improv: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Use the Bomb

Famed improviser Stephen Colbert once gave the sage advice for comedians to “learn to love the bomb.” To translate for non-comedians, he meant that when you are failing onstage, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, you have to learn to find joy in the process of failing, so much that it leads you through the fear, out of insecurity, and into success. To be an even semi-successful comedian, you have to learn to love the bomb.

But what happens when the bomb is racism?

Continue reading “Inclusion in Improv: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Use the Bomb”

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Cheeky Arias Drive A Queer Love Revolution in ‘GRINDR THE OPERA’

Luxuriously outfitted with delightful costumes by Shawn Quinlan, GRINDR THE OPERA at Pride Films and Plays follows the trials and tribulations of four gay men looking for love and/or no strings attached sex on the web. Their search invokes the siren Grindr, who guides the men through their journey of lust. A regal Bruno Rivera plays the goddess Grindr, narrating the tale through countless costume changes and wondrously soaring arias, with the help of her dazzling sidekicks Occulto (Andrew Flynn) and Dilectus (Brandon Krisko). Continue reading “Cheeky Arias Drive A Queer Love Revolution in ‘GRINDR THE OPERA’”

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A Visceral, Intrusive, and Rip-Roaring Ninety Minutes at ‘First Love is the Revolution’

Are you turned on by foxes?

No? That’s probably good; that likely means you are a human with a (relatively) normal libido — and you are probably not, for instance, a roommate of mine who once professed to me his sincere attraction to the rabbit from Zootopia.

It is important to note, however, that furry communities do exist on this weird and wide world of ours, and as long as they are not acting unethically I am loathe to yuck their yum. People have all sorts of strange fetishes that will never make sense to me, but which also do not concern me in the slightest. First Love is the Revolution, though, wants you to be concerned — and not specifically about bestiality, which the play wields as a tool to make you take a hard look at uncomfortable truths. Rather, First Love examines the deluded notion that we civilized, upright humans are at our core any different from the myriad of species we torture, murder, and force into extinction every single day. And through this, of course, it also becomes a metaphor for how we treat each other. Continue reading “A Visceral, Intrusive, and Rip-Roaring Ninety Minutes at ‘First Love is the Revolution’”

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What Will ‘The Children’ Sacrifice for a Brighter Tomorrow?

The Children written by Lucy Kirkwood is making its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf directed by ensemble member Jonathan Berry. The show is performed with a breathtaking set design (Chelsea M. Warren) that consists of a full scale house on the shore of an English cottage complete with sounds of seagulls and waves crashing on the shore (sound by Andre Pluess). This is where the entire show is set, and it juts out, making the audience feel small in comparison. This prominent house is where we meet three retired nuclear scientists who both share and keep secrets. Continue reading “What Will ‘The Children’ Sacrifice for a Brighter Tomorrow?”

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A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is Rib-Cracking Fun

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak, takes place in London at the turn of the 20th century, and concerns the adventures of middle-class stockbroker Monty Navarro (Andrés Enriquez) — who, upon learning that his recently deceased mother was disinherited from the obscenely wealthy D’Ysquith family (all played by Matt Crowle), sets out to murder his relatives as revenge. And also so that he can, not uncoincidentally, become next in line to be the Earl of Highhurst. Continue reading “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is Rib-Cracking Fun”

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Isaac Gomez’s ‘The Displaced’: A Gentrification Horror Story

The Displaced by Isaac Gomez is going into the final weekend of a phenomenal run at Haven Theatre this Friday. Gomez is a versatile writer who is using this script to explore the theme of home and gentrification with a razor sharp wit and a lot of terror. The play opens with a young couple moving into a fixer upper apartment in Pilsen and trying to unpack. Marisa (Karen Rodriguez) is a young artist who takes her work very seriously and yet her rent is paid by her hard working parents. Lev (Rashaad Hall) is her sweet boyfriend who is working as a server but can’t quite make enough money to make ends meet. The absence of money creates a rift in their relationship that is quite relatable. Part of the myth of adulthood is having the income to establish our own space, something unachievable for many millennials and a conversation that we don’t have enough. Continue reading “Isaac Gomez’s ‘The Displaced’: A Gentrification Horror Story”

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Ike Holter’s ‘The Light Fantastic’ is Horror-Comedy at its Smartest

The Light Fantastic combines Ike Holter’s brilliantly funny writing with formidable production design that makes the play, directed by Gus Menary, work on several levels. It’s a deliciously spooky thriller with a reverse Faustian twist. It’s an endearing romantic comedy. It a clever send-up of horror genre tropes (I likely missed five references for every one that I caught). And it offers up a refreshingly empowering narrative that hinges on female agency as opposed to the female helplessness the genre has long relied upon. The play also has a strong moral point of view as it touches on subjects as wide ranging as bullying, homophobia, taking advantage of your friends and the grave error of ignoring your mother’s phone calls. On a more philosophical level this play is about characters asserting the right to face death on their own terms as they grapple with Kantian questions of moral duty. Continue reading “Ike Holter’s ‘The Light Fantastic’ is Horror-Comedy at its Smartest”