Rhino Fest 2018 Runs Jan. 13 25, 2018

Curious Theatre Branch and Prop Thtr present the 29th Annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival, opening Saturday, January 13th and running Wednesdays through Mondays until Sunday, February 25. This year the Rhino features 32 shows, 6 nights a week, for 6 weeks. Rhino opens on Saturday, Jan. 13 at 8 pm with Full Moon Vaudeville, hosted by The Crooked Mouth band with guest performer Ian Belknap.

More than ever before, Rhino is focused on showcasing a growing cadre of new and up-and-coming artists and their new works. New plays by new artists include Stop Me If You've Heard This One by Adam Webster (The Side Project Theatre) and Company, Subjective is Beauty byPaul Brennan (The Last Days of the Commune, Prop Thtr), King Arthur: The Fall of Camelot, written by Jake Green and directed by Olivia Lilley (In Sarah's Shadow: The Eleanora Duse Story, Pop Magic Productions) and The Institution, a dark comedy written and directed by Lee Peters (Alone with Friends, Prop Thtr).

Nat Turner: A Prophet's Sorrow, a one-man performance on the rebel and revolutionary, produced by Prop Thtr and performed by Reginald Edmund of the Black Lives, Black Words International Project, runs every Saturday at 9 pm. Two new plays by Curious Theatre Branch writer Julie Williams, The Near Future and That Sort of Thing, run every Saturday at 7 pm. Williams is co-author of Difficulties, the Rhino Fest 2014, Reader-recommended play.

By the Deep Blue Sea is a family-friendly musical written and directed by Giselle Greenberg of the PinkElephant Performing Troupe. Starring Chicago teens, the show runs on Sunday, Feb. 18 at 1 pm, in addition to Saturday, Feb. 24 and Sunday, Feb. 25 at 1 pm. By the Deep Blue Seatells the story of Sebell, who ends up at an orphanage yet remembers nothing of her life before she got there. She enlists the help of her new colorful friends to uncover the mysteries of her past. The play is about hope, friendship, heartache, and what it takes to return home.

The Rhinoceros Lecture Series occurs on Mondays at 7 pm throughout the festival, highlighting Ira Murfin's ongoing performance work, An Interview, including a rotating cast of artists and activists in conversation, followed by lectures (and faux-lectures) by Amy England, Robin Cline, and Prop Thtr Artistic Director Stefan Brün. Every Saturday at 10 am, Curious Theatre Branch Co-Founder Jenny Magnus offers a generative writing series for interested artists from all disciplines.

Returning artists from the Chicago performance scene include Rachel Claff, John Starrs, Karen Fort, Chris Bower, Rory Jobst and Kelly Anchors. Sink or Swim, a collection of survival tales by KellyAnn Corcoran, runs every Friday at 9 pm. Remember the Ladies, short solo pieces about First Ladies, runs Saturday, Jan. 27 at 9 pm and Sunday, Jan. 28 at 1 pm. The show is written and performed by Neo-Futuristalums Andy Bayiates, Bilal Dardai, Genevra Gallo-Bayiates, Sharon Greene and Chloe Johnston.

Ripple, choreographed by Shalaka Kulkarni of Surtaal Dance, combines two classical Indian dance forms-Bharatnatyam and Kathak-to tell personal narratives. Ripple is a collection of experiences that mirrors what it is to struggle with one's identity, dreams and their place in the world. Ripple runs at 1 pm on Sunday, Jan. 28 and Sunday, Feb. 4.

Cabaret Prop'd, Prop Thtr's cabaret series produced by Diane Hamm, features various bands and musical guests, variety performers (including dancers and performance artists), juggling, burlesque and Eastern style dance. Featured musical guests include vocalist Kyle Anne Greer(Saturday, Jan. 20) hosting a drag and variety show, alt-rockers The Push Push (Saturday, Feb. 10) and jazz & blues presented by Improper Behavior (Saturday, Feb. 17). All shows run at 10:30 pm.

Rhino Fest 2018 closes out its final weekend with concert performances. On Saturday, February 24 at 9 pm, songs from Brecht and Weill'sThreepenny Opera features translation by Rick Burkhardt, with performances by Colm O'Reilly, T-Roy Martin, KellyAnn Corcoran, Janet Sayre, Julie Williams, Jen Moniz, Matt Test, Elizabeth Bagby, Beau O'Reilly and Jenny Magnus (as Pirate Jenny), with piano accompaniment by Jeff Kowalkowski.

What I Was Thinking When I Should Have Been Teaching the Beckett Class in the Deep Mid-Winter is a new show created and performed by Curious Theatre Branch Co-Founder Beau O'Reilly, featuring Neo-Futurist Heather Riordan on accordion. This show runs on Friday, Feb. 23 at 7 pm and closes out Rhino on Sunday Feb. 25 at 7 pm.

All performances will be staged at Prop Thtr, 3502 N Elston Ave, in Avondale.

The complete Rhino Fest schedule can be viewed at www.rhinofest.com.

About Prop Thtr
The Prop Thtr is a DIY incubator for new performance work in all disciplines, and is a charter member of both The League of Chicago Theaters and the National New Play Network. Prop Thtr produces new plays, special events, rolling world premieres with their NNPN members; they also helped launch The New Play Exchange and co-produce the annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival. Prop Thtr is a renter of performance and rehearsal space and camp/class space and collaborates with productions on location and around the city. Prop Thtr is an Illinois Not-For-Profit 501c3 Organization that benefits from support by the MacArthur Fund of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and The Illinois Arts Council, in addition to being supported by artists and audiences of Illinois.

About Curious Theatre Branch
Founded in 1988 by Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly-as the Curious Theatre "Branch" of the alt-rock cabaret act Maestro Subgum and the Whole-Curious has consistently worked with an ensemble of artists in a non-hierarchical decision-making process, through which the philosophy of collaboration as a social force is explored on every level.

Curious Theatre Branch has produced more than 100 full productions of world-premiere shows in nearly 30 years. Curious has developed its own recognizable style, using an economy of means and production to make deeper and deeper, rather than larger and larger, work.

In 1995, Beau O'Reilly was named one of the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater by Chicago Magazine. In 1998, O'Reilly and Magnus were named among the Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, and nearly every year since 1998, Newcity has included them among the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater.

Curious Theatre's Waiting for Godot and The Caretaker were named among the top five theater productions of 2006 and 2009, respectively, by Newcity. In 2007, Curious Theatre Branch won an Orgie Award for Original Theater for the year-long Samuel Beckett festival, No Danger of the Spiritual Thing: 100 Years of Beckett (best ensemble), and in 2011 Curious was granted a season-long residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, culminating in Magnus's Still in Play: A Performance of Getting Ready.

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