500 CLOWN Collaborates With Adventure Stage Chicago For New Show

500 Clown and Adventure Stage Chicago proudly present the world premiere of 500 CLOWN TRAPPED, conceived by 500 Clown Producing Artistic Director Adrian Danzig and directed by Paola Coletto.

Experience 500 Clown's signature mix of daring physicality, tricky sets, raw emotion and powerful storytelling! Starting the show in the guise of musicians, three clowns explore what it truly means to be trapped...and to be set free. Who sets these traps? Who benefits from them? Are they even real? Using slapstick mishaps, vaudevillian turns and untiring resilience, the clowns struggle to move beyond their own limitations as they search for the answers they need. Recommended for ages 5 and up. (Please note that children under age 5 will not be permitted in the theater.)

Adrian Danzig was driven to create 500 CLOWN TRAPPED because 500 Clown has been asked for a decade if it does children's shows, and the answer has always been a resounding NO. But at a certain point, the 500 Clown members began to ask themselves...why not? Why not create a show specifically aimed at breaking the boundaries of age-based theater? (Why not humbly and excitedly stand atop the awesome shoulders of Looney Tunes, Chaplin and Keaton?) These questions, combined with a deep inquiry into the roots of traditional red-nose clown, are the foundation for this new work.

The partnership between 500 Clown and Adventure Stage Chicago sprang from a mutual affinity between two men as people, parents and artists. Mr. Danzig and Adventure Stage Producing Artistic Director Tom Arvetis first met as fathers in a cooperative child care center, so creative parenting and playful learning are at the heart of their relationship. The huge knowledge and high level of integrity that Adventure Stage has about shows for younger audiences provided 500 Clown a perfect opportunity for collaboration and experimentation.

In addition to writing 500 CLOWN TRAPPED, Adrian Danzig also serves as the show's scenic designer and appears as a performer alongside Timothy Heck and Leah Urzendowski. Stage management is provided by Clare Roche, with lighting design by Lee Keenan and costume design by Erin Cook. The show is directed by Paola Coletto.

Adrian Danzig (Writer/Performer/Scenic Designer) has performed at The Court Theatre, The Goodman, The Second City, Steppenwolf Studio, Berkeley Rep, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, The Public Theater, Lookingglass Theatre, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, The Ontological Hysteric Theater and Soho Rep. He was an early Neo-futurist and a founding member of Redmoon Theater and Hubinspoke Theater. He is the founding and current Producing Artistic Director of 500 Clown. He has performed as Bruce in 500 Clown Macbeth, 500 Clown Frankenstein, 500 Clown Christmas, and 500 Clown and The Elephant Deal several hundred times over the last 11 years. He graduated from NYC's High School of Performing Arts, received his BA from Oberlin College and his MFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He has studied clown with Ctibor Turba, Philippe Gaulier, Ronlin Foreman, Dominique Jando, Els Comediants, David Shiner, and Avner the Eccentric, and he was a clown with Big Apple Circus Clown Care for seven years. He occasionally works as a movement and fight choreographer, often teaches around the United States and is currently writing a book on physical theater with underwriting from the Raven Foundation.

Paola Coletto (Director) is the co-founder of Kiklos Teatro, an international theater company and award-winning theater school in Italy. As a graduate of the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, she studied a physical approach to theater creation and is one of only 40 students in the school's 50-year history to have been certified as a pedagogical specialist under Lecoq's direction. A native of Padua, Italy, Ms. Coletto now directs and teaches at numerous Chicago theater companies and universities.

500 CLOWN TRAPPED was commissioned by The College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University and is partly supported by The Boeing Company and an Access to Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). This is Adventure Stage's fourth NEA grant in the last seven years.

Performance Schedule:
Weekends: 2:00pm & 7:00pm May 7, 14, & 21 (Saturdays) and 7:00pm May 6, 13 & 20 (Fridays)
Weekdays: 10:30am May 11, 17 & 19
Press Opening: SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2pm. RSVP to (773) 209-3889 or jennifer@adventurestage.org.

Tickets:
Friday and Saturday evenings: $20.00 adults/$15.00 kids (ages 5-14).
Weekday and Saturday matinees: $17.00 adults/$12.00 kids (ages 5-14).
Group rates are available. For more information, call (773) 342-4141 or visit www.adventurestage.org.

Performance Extras:
Sat., May 7, 2pm - Ice Cream Social!
Audience is treated to free ice cream from Bucktown's Dairy Queen/Orange Julius after the show.
Sat, May 14, 2pm & Sat., May 21, 2pm - Book Bike!
After the show, each child will receive a free book from Gabriel Levinston and his Book Bike, a custom-built tricycle stocked with over 200 lbs of free books.

500 Clown creates evening-length clown-theater performances using physical actions, improvisation and circus arts to tell dramatic stories. Its mission is to create a charged environment at each performance that allows performers and audience to celebrate the unpredictable power of the moment. Since 2000, 500 Clown has created 500 Clown Macbeth, 500 Clown Frankenstein, 500 Clown Christmas and 500 Clown and the Elephant Deal. Its productions tour throughout the United States, and the company teaches regularly in Chicago and on the road. This is 500 Clown's first collaboration with Adventure Stage Chicago.

Adventure Stage Chicago creates dynamic and transformative theatre for young audiences that activates the imagination, inspires dialogue and strengthens community among families, educators and artists. We strive to become Chicago's premier destination for theatrical productions and programming designed for young people and the adults in their lives; we aim to be leaders in theatre education through professional development workshops, residencies and resources that offer innovative ways to infuse theatre into the classroom; and we seek to cultivate and create challenging new work as well as produce celebrated stories. This is Adventure Stage's seventh season. (The first three seasons were produced under the name Vittum Theater.)

Adventure Stage has received numerous honors from local and national organizations since its inception in 2004, including:
· Selected participant in EmcArts' Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts, a program generously funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
· Zeta Phi Eta WiniFred Ward Award for Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education
· Two-time Finalist for the Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theater Award
· Participant in the New Visions/New Voices Festival at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington D.C.
· Four-time Recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence Grant

Adventure Stage Chicago is a program of Northwestern University Settlement House, the oldest continually operating settlement house in Chicago. Throughout its 120-year history, the Settlement has remained committed to providing resources that empower our neighbors to overcome the obstacles of poverty. Adventure Stage extends this mission by presenting Chicago's young audiences, educators and families with an affordable artistic experience rooted in performance. Last season, Adventure Stage served over 5,000 students from 76 schools throughout the Chicagoland area and over 1,500 audience members for our weekend performances.

Each Adventure Stage Chicago production presents weekday performances primarily for school groups, as well as weekend matinees for the general public. Every performance includes a post-show audience talkback with the cast.

All shows are performed at Vittum Theater, 1012 N. Noble St., in the heart of Chicago's West Town neighborhood. Street parking is available, and the theater is close to the Noble St. stop on the #56 Milwaukee bus line and the Division stop on the CTA Blue Line. The theater is wheelchair accessible.

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