NATURAL GAS @ The Den: The Gift Theatre's improv team takes up residence Fridays in Wicker Park

NATURAL GAS, the five-year-old house improv team of The Gift Theatre, has taken up residence Friday nights at Wicker Park's The Den Theatre. NATURAL GAS @ The Den shows will alternate between entirely improvised group sets (NATURAL GAS) and a two-person, entirely improvised show featuring Michael Patrick Thornton with a guest (NATURAL GAS presents: YOU & ME (Michael Patrick Thornton)). On Friday, November 29, special guest Ed Flynn joins Thornton's two-person show. An updated schedule can be found at thegifttheatre.org/shows-events/gas-the-den

Nearly every Wednesday since August 2008, NATURAL GAS has taken one suggestion from the audience to create an entirely improvised world of comedy that is wild, randy and appropriately inappropriate in the Gift Theatre in Jefferson Park.

"I can't wait to see what happens when Michael Patrick Thornton and the talented Natural Gas improv team hit The Den stages," said The Den Theatre Owner Ryan Martin. "I couldn't be more honored and excited to have them."

"As The Gift Theatre continues to happily swell beyond capacity, I'm so excited to bring our veteran improv team NATURAL GAS down Milwaukee Avenue on Friday nights to our friends at The Den," says Thornton. "It's a beautiful space and we can't wait to befoul it with our filthy, filthy imaginations."

NATURAL GAS @ The Den

Fridays, 10:30PM at The Den Theatre, 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave.

$5 in advance at the Gift Theatre box office: 773-283-7071 or thegifttheatre.org/shows-events/gas-the-den

NATURAL GAS continues to perform every Wednesday, as it has for the past five years, at 8pm at The Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave, two blocks from the Jefferson Park Blue Line stop at Milwaukee and Lawrence. Admission is $5 in advance or at the door. http://thegifttheatre.org/natural-gas (Free to Gift subscribers).

About NATURAL GAS

NATURAL GAS is the house improv team of The Gift Theatre sponsored by Fischman Liquor & Tavern that takes one suggestion from the audience to create an entirely improvised world of comedy that is wild, randy and appropriately inappropriate! Every Wednesday, 8 p.m. at The Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave (at Lawrence) in Chicago. Tickets are always $5 in advance or at the door. thegifttheatre.org/natural-gas

Photo by Joe Mazza / Brave Lux, Inc.

About The Den Theatre

The Den Theatre provides a creative gathering place, an actors' and artists' den, a comfortable and affordable home to create and explore, and home to a young storefront company that shares the name. Founder and Artistic Director Ryan Martin saw a diamond in the rough when he first walked onto the bare and empty wood-floored 2nd story of 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave. With the potential for innovative live performance in a neighborhood that has long been known for its creative heartbeat, this formerly empty space is now fully equipped with a bar and café, and boasts five unique, intimate theater spaces on two floors, and enveloped by a never-ending field of lounge space for audiences and like-minded culture hounds to drink, talk, read, watch, think, listen and live. In addition to The Den Theatre Ensemble, Black Box Studio, with its new conservatory program, also calls The Den home, as well as Seanachi Theatre Company. Theatre and dance companies from Chicago and beyond have also called The Den home, utilizing our theaters, mirrored studio space and easily convertible cabaret space to accommodate a stream of programming, including plays, musicals, film screenings, classical and jazz performances, dance, improv and stand-up, seminars and speaking engagements

About The Gift Theatre

The Gift Theatre is dedicated to telling great stories on stage with honesty and simplicity. Previous productions include: Mine, Vigils, TEN 2013; Natural Gas' Jugband Christmas; Dirty; Oh, The Humanity (and other exclamations); Fact & Fiction; Absolute Hell; TEN; Cloud 9; Northwest Highway; Night and Her Stars; Get Behind Me, Santa!; Lonesome West; Suicide, Inc.; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Almost, Maine; Santa's Great American Depression Holiday Show! (2009 & 210); Summer People; The Ruby Sunrise; Talk Radio; Stop/Kiss; Natural Gas; Streamers; Wit ;The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; White People; Three Sisters; The Beauty Queen of Leenane; Blithe Spirit; 365 Days/365 Plays; The Halloween Show; Long Day's Journey Into Night; The Glass Menagerie (Remount: Theatre on the Lake); The Good Thief; The Clearing; Hurlyburly; The Glass Menagerie; The Pavilion; A Young Man In Pieces; Language of Angels; 6; County Fair; The Countess; Alcatraz (Abbie Hoffman Festival); Orestes 2.0; Boys' Life. The theater also sponsors the giftED Ensemble, a rigorous two-year afterschool course for creative and motivated high school students on Chicago's Northwest side, and the literary program/Salon Series giftLIT.

The 2014 Season begins in January with TEN, The Gift's annual kickoff celebration of ten-minute plays curated by artistic director Michael Patrick Thornton and associate artistic director Paul D'Addario. In the spring, the season kicks off with the Chicago premiere of Melissa Ross's dysfunctional family comedy-drama Thinner Than Water, directed by Gift Ensemble member John Gawlik (2013 Jeff Award-winner for When the Rain Stops Falling at Circle Theatre), March 27-May 25. Director Jonathan Berry (Dirty) returns for The Gift's first Shakespeare production together; Othello runs July 10-August 31 and is dramaturged by Shakespeare scholar Michael Petersen, PhD. The season closes with the Chicago premiere of Laura Marks' new shocker Bethany, directed by Marti Lyons, September 25-November 23. Subscriptions for the entire 2014 season, which includes two Chicago premieres, are available for as little as $75. The Gift subscribers ("Gifters") receive admission to three shows, free parking at Gale Street Inn, free admission to all Wednesday night "Natural Gas" improv shows and invitations to special subscriber-only special events. Subscribe at http://thegifttheatre.org/ or call 773-283-7071.

The Gift Theatre is conveniently located at 4802 N. Milwaukee in Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood, and is easily accessible by the CTA Blue Line, the Lawrence and Milwaukee Avenue buses and the Kennedy Expressway. For more information about The Gift Theatre's productions and programs, visit www.thegifttheatre.org.

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