About Face Theatre Presents FLIP FLOP: The 80s 8/23

Artistic Director Bonnie Metzgar is pleased to announce FLIP FLOP: The 80s, a gender-bent evening of cabaret performances set to the tune of a bangin' 1980s lineup. The event will take place on Monday, August 23 at Sidetrack (3349 N. Halsted) starting at 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m.

Co-Directed by AFT Artistic Associate Scott Ferguson and Michael Driscoll, with musical production by Mischa Fiskel, FLIP FLOP: The 80s will feature songs of all genres. Performers will take songs originally written for the opposite sex and flip the gender. Hosted by AFT Artistic Associate Paul Oakley Stovall, this year's lineup includes Jayson Brooks, Aunt Lola Cabana,Elizabeth Laidlaw, Ryan Lanning, Rob Lindley, Dwight McBride, Christine Mild, Stephen Rader, AFT Artistic Associates Benjamin Sprunger, Amy Matheny and more!

Tickets for the event are $40 and available at www.aboutfacetheare.com. Tickets include admission to the event and two complimentary cocktails. Guests will also have the opportunity to purchase memberships to About Face Theatre's 2010-2011 15th Anniversary Season at a special discounted rate, a one-night-only offer.

BIOS

Scott Ferguson (Co-Director, AFT Artistic Associate) recently directed the critically acclaimed production of AIDA for Bailiwick Chicago at American Theatre Company. Ferguson is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Theatrebam Chicago where he wrote and created the hit show, Schoolhouse Rock Live! and Schoolhouse Rock Live Too!. Scott has directed the SRLive! National Tours ('99-'01) with Troupe American, Inc., the Off-Broadway productions at The Atlantic and the Lamb's Little Theatre, as well as many productions across the country. As a proud Artistic Associate of About Face Theatre, Scott has directed Xena Live! Episode One, the Jeff Nominated Xena Live! Episode Two, Xena Lives! The Musical and Say You Love Satan. In Chicago, Scott has directed for Chicago Children's Theatre, Drury Lane Oakbrook & Watertower. For the former Bailiwick Repertory, Scott directed the Non Equity Jeff Nominated A Man of No Importance as well as The Cousins Grimm.Regionally, he has directed for The Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, The Wohlfahrt Haus Theatre in Wytheville, Virginia, The Arkansas Arts Center Children's Theatre, Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, TN, Rhodes College and New Trier High School. Favorites include; The Rocky Horror Show, Return To The Forbidden Planet, The Mystery Of Irma Vep, Evita, Bat Boy The Musical, Jekyll & Hyde, Floyd Collins, Disney's Aida, Beauty And The Beast, Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens, Year With Frog And Toad, Big River and Altar Boyz.

Michael Driscoll (Co-Director) is a 2008 graduate of Illinois State University where he directed The Last Five Years, Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants., selections from Sweeney Todd, Blithe Spirit (GoodLuck Macbeth Theatre Company), and assistant directed Ghosts and The Grey Zone (GoodLuck Macbeth Theatre Company). Michael has assistant directed on the critically acclaimed Oh Coward! (Writers' Theatre) directed by Jim Corti, The Complete Works... (Abridged) (Illinois Shakespeare Festival) directed by Bill Jenkins, Porchlight Music Theatre's2010-2011 season opener Sunday in the Park with George directed by Walter Stearns, and is looking forward to assisting on The Original Grease! with American Theatre Company. Michael is also a freelance teaching artist and teaches acting at StageCoach Theatre Arts School in Park Ridge, IL.

About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country and around the world. Since its founding by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen in 1995, the company has premiered more than 30 new plays by writers and directors who have been recognized with several Tony Awards, The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The MacArthur Fellowship and dozens of Joseph Jefferson Awards.

Recent standout productions include an updated adaptation of STUPID KIDS by John C. Russell, directed by Bonnie Metzgar and Megan Carney, and SWEET TEA: BLACK GAY MEN OF THE SOUTH written and performed by E. Patrick Johnson, (a co-production with the Ellen Stone Belic Institute),Landmark world premieres include Doug Wright's Pulitzer and Tony-winning I Am My Own Wife; Moisés Kaufman's production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm (a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project); Mary Zimmerman's M. Proust, and, with Lookingglass Theatre, the famed Eleven Rooms of Proust; Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty's Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein (a co-production with the Museum of Contemporary Art,); and the cult hit Pulp by Patricia Kane directed by Jessica Thebus.

In addition to its award-winning mainstage performances, About Face is known nationally for its groundbreaking Youth Theatre, which creates critically acclaimed new work by and about LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Youth Theatre has performed on major stages across the country, and, through its outreach tour, changes the lives of thousands of young people each year. Building on the success of The Youth Theatre model, About Face recently launched its corporate outreach program to provide diversity training and onsite workshops to the corporate community.

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