Science Fiction Thriller Poem Plays Rampage Onstage

Equinox Theater presents the world premiere of BURN, an epic-length narrative poem cast and staged dramatically. BURN will be performed Jan. 12-Feb. 4, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7pm, at Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago 60647. Tickets are $15; to purchase tickets call 773-598-4549 or visit www.gorillatango.com.

The time has come to talk of many things; of smoke and thunder, tool and earth, of quarrymen and kings. In the original story Burn, the Nowhere Hotshots, a foul-mouthed, fearless crew of wildland firefighters, come home to find their lives in flames, their friends and families enslaved by some strange Queen. Can they save their loved ones? Can they even save themselves?

Immersive and expansive in scale, this verse in play charges the vast landscape of story with the direct immediacy of live theater.

"The narrative passages enlarge the potential spatial bounds of drama; the actors, living in this world, bring it to life. It isn't realism," says Storey. "It's suggestive, each gesture beginning a chord imagination explores."

Burn is written in an unprecedented style of metrical verse, which shifts to reflect the immediate and thematic content of the piece. A whirling rhythm pulses through the poem, each actor contributing uniquely to the movements of the pattern.

"I thought of the Queen a long time ago," says Storey. "It wasn't until recently I was able to match her with a worthy adversary: Freddie Domingo and the Nowhere Hotshots. Hardened, resourceful, charged with civic duty and discipline, wild as the woodlands they live in: who else stands a chance against a world gone insane? And these people, these hotshots, they're real. I've met them. They're kicking ass today. I wanted to share them with the world."

"I try to introduce in this piece the character of the hotshot. I describe the gear, the garb, and the circumstances of their lives. But these are just tokens, incomplete and out of context, a code with no message, without experience to inform them. To get at the truth of these people, what I aim foremost to impart is the spirit in which they live. These actors wear their gear and garb, but it is the spirit with which they've approached their roles that brings us to Nowhere and sets our world ablaze."

ABOUT EQUINOX THEATER
Now completing its second year, Equinox Theater continues its mission to dramatize narrative poetry on the Chicago Stage with Burn, Equinox's first full-length narrative. During its first year Equinox pursued this goal by producing narrative poetry as dramatized sketches within comedic frameworks, putting up Sketch Poetry, Champions of Art, and Above the 38th, at Pendulum Space, Stage 773, and the Public House Theater respectively. Turning towards fuller staging and expanded narratives written entirely for the stage, in its second year, Equinox produced Poetry Talk at the Public House Theater, a live monthly poetry talk show featuring 3 poets and a new one-act play in verse performed each month. In the second half of the year, Equinox used this platform to workshop Burn, performing each act in series at Poetry Talk.

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