Neo-Futurists in New York, Chicago & San Francisco to Unite with New Project

The award-winning New York Neo-Futurists (NYNF) in conjunction with Chicago and San Francisco announced Monday they will launch a new show at each of their companies. With 43 years of collective history performing Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, the ensembles will collaborate on the next chapter of their late night productions in 2017.

The production will maintain NYNF's regular Friday and Saturday at 10:30pm schedule, while experimenting with Neo-Futurist forms in a three-company joint effort. In addition, the NYNF are gearing up for their latest full-length experiment, The Great American Drama, starting on January 17.

"We're excited to move forward with our sister companies in San Francisco and Chicago. Our companies have increasingly shared tours and exchanges within Too Much Light, and in this collaborative spirit, our Ensemble is thrilled to forge ahead with Neo-Futurists all over the country," says NYNF Board President Bradley Rolston.

Ensemble members in Chicago, New York and San Francisco have begun to work with one another on the new title and other exciting changes.

"The foundation of our work is continuous creation, rigorous experimentation, and replacement. It's exciting for the ensemble to continue evolving the form alongside our sibling companies on a national scale. We will continue to invite audiences into our lives and encourage them to interrogate the world around them," added San Francisco Neo-Futurists Artistic Director Adam Smith. "We're looking forward to sharing our late night work as well as continuing to build upon our other outreach programs in the new year."

This announcement comes after the November 30 release that the trademark license for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind at the Chicago company-where it premiered 28 years ago-would not be renewed. Building on the Chicago company's 12 years of partnership with New York and three years with San Francisco, the three organizations will capitalize on their continually strengthening ties; international tours in Edinburgh and Adelaide, a three-company Summit in Chicago, and increasing ensemble guest runs brought the ensembles together in recent years.

"As our three companies continue to exchange ideas and keep a critical eye to our mission and aesthetic, our work becomes more relevant. We are a movement of artists that experiment, take risks, and tell true stories-and we couldn't be more honored to be with New York and San Francisco as we endeavor to keep doing just that," says Chicago Neo-Futurists Artistic Director Kurt Chiang.

The final New York performances of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind will be December 16 and 17. NYNF tickets are now on sale (at nynf.org) for the three-company collaboration which will launch on Friday, January 6, 2017 at 10:30pm at the Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street, NYC) and continue in the regularly scheduled late-night slot in 2017. Photos of previous performances are available here.

The New York company will also be debuting its main-stage show, The Great American Drama on January 17. Created by Connor Sampson and written by Connor Sampson, Nicole Hill, Dan McCoy & Katy-May Hudson, with direction and dramaturgy by Greg Taubman, The Great American Drama, is a living, ever-changing theatrical experiment to test the validity of the American Dream; that anyone, regardless of their given circumstance, can achieve prosperity and success through hard work and determination. Through interviews and surveys, potential audience members will tell the creative team how they like their theater and what would make them buy a ticket, and four Neo-Futurists will strive to deliver everything demanded of them. The cast will strive to meet every single request and change the show accordingly in their pursuit of success-at least until their run at the Jeffrey and Paul Gural Theatre A.R.T./New York (502 West 53rd Street) ends on February 5th.

IF YOU GO:

NEW YORK

All performances at the Kraine Theater, 85 E 4th St, New York, NY

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

Final performances: December 16 & 17 at 10:30pm

Tickets available at nynf.org or 866-811-4111

Late night programming schedule in 2017:

Every Friday, Saturday at 10:30pm

Tickets available at nynf.org or 866-811-4111

The Great American Drama

January 17 - February 5, 2017

Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre A.R.T./New York, 502 West 53rd Street

Tickets available at nynf.org or 866-811-4111

CHICAGO

All performances at The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

Final/added performances:

Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:30 p.m.

Tickets available at the door: cash/walk-up $9 + the roll of a 6-sided die ($10-15)

New Year's Eve - Party & Performance

Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 9:30 p.m.

Doors open at 9:30 p.m., performance begins at 11 p.m.

Time Is Of The Essence: A Neo-Futurist Retrospective

A Neo-Futurist Alumni Performance & Benefit

Sunday, January 1, 2017 at 7 p.m.

Tickets will be made available at neofuturists.org or 773.878.4557: $20 - $100

Late-night programming schedule in 2017:

Every Friday and Saturday at 11:30 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m.

Tickets available at the door: cash/walk-up $10-15

Pre-sale tickets and more information at neofuturists.org or 773.878.4557

SAN FRANCISCO

All performances at SAFEhouse for the Arts,1200 Market St., San Francisco, CA

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: New Year's Countdown

Saturday, December 31, 2016 10:30 p.m.

Tickets available online or a the door

Party and Performance, $25

Pre-sale tickets and more information at sfneofuturists.com

Late night programming schedule in 2017:

Fridays and Saturdays at 9 p.m. starting January 2017

Pre-sale tickets and more information at sfneofuturists.com

The Neo-Futurists ensembles in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco are collectives of wildly productive writer-director-performers who create: theater that is fusion of sport, poetry, and living-newspaper; non-illusory, interactive performance that conveys our experiences and ideas as directly and honestly as possible; immediate, irreproducible events at affordable prices; and programs that embrace those unreached or unmoved by conventional theater-inspiring them to thought, feeling, and action.

Since opening in Brooklyn in 2004 the NY Neo-Futurists have premiered over 4,000 plays and have become a downtown New York institution. In addition to performing Too Much Light Makes The Baby Goes Blind every Friday and Saturday for the past 12 years, the New York Neo-Futurists have been a stalwart presence in the Off-Off Broadway community, having won numerous Innovative Theatre Awards and Drama Desk Nominations.

The Neo-Futurists, now in their 28th year, are creators of more than 65 original, full-length productions and over 9,755 short plays. Pioneering a new form of theater in 1988, they launched what became Chicago's longest running show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. From humble beginnings as the first late-night theater production in Chicago, The Neo-Futurists have grown to become one of the most highly regarded experimental theater companies in America, sustaining programs such as Neo-Access, The Neo-Futurist Kitchen (a micro-festival on art and performance), Neo-Lab, and their Prime Time series of full-length work.

The San Francisco Neo-Futurists are a collective of 14 multi-disciplinary performance artists in California's Bay Area. Since their founding in 2013, the SF Neo-Futurists have been featured in Best of the Bay lists from SF Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian (twice), and were most recently described as "a hotbed of energy and creativity" by the San Francisco Chronicle. They are a proud member of Intersection for the Arts. Intersection provides resources, community and cultural space in order to contribute to the sustainable practices of artists and arts organizations the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pictured: NYNF Pride Show, photo by Sophiyaa Nayar.