Sideshow Theatre Company Announces 2019-20 Season

Sideshow Theatre Company announce sits 2019-20 Season, launching this fall with the U.S. premiere of Alistair McDowall's mind-bending sci-fi thriller X, directed by artistic director Jonathan L. Green. The season concludes next spring with the world premiere of Brynne Frauenhoffer's brash, incisive comedy PRO-AM, directed by artistic associate Regina Victor.

X and PRO-AM will be presented at Sideshow's resident home, Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. Tickets will go on sale at a later date. For additional information, visit sideshowtheatre.org.

"For our thirteenth season, we are taking a tough look at the state of our world and reflecting it back in terrifying, hilarious ways," says artistic director Jonathan L. Green. "These new works are both hard-hitting and incredibly entertaining, and we're excited to invite our audiences into them."

Sideshow's 2019-20 Season will also include "The Freshness Initiative," the company's commissioning and new play development program, now in its sixth year (titles/dates to be announced) and the wildly-popular event CLLAW (Chicago League of Lady Arm Wrestlers). The next CLLAW match will be held Saturday, July 27, 2019 at Logan Square Auditorium. For additional information, visit cllaw.org.

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Sideshow Theatre Company's 2019-20 Season

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September 22 - October 27, 2019

X - U.S. Premiere!

By Alistair McDowall
Directed by artistic director Jonathan L. Green

Press opening: Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 8 pm

First, they called it X. Then, they called it Pluto. Now, they're not calling at all.

Billions of miles from home, a lone research base waits to receive another message from Earth. It's been three weeks. It's never been this long. The crew attempts to maintain normal operations, but as the silence grows louder, the darkness outside the station starts to creep in.

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May 17 - June 21, 2020

PRO-AM - World Premiere!

By Brynne Frauenhoffer
Directed by artistic associate Regina Victor

Press opening: Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 8 pm

Hey cutie. You like to watch? Don't feel shy. Is this what you imagined? Can I tell you a secret? I'm gonna be famous one day. Don't believe me? Watch for yourself.

Most careers don't last longer than three months in Miami's professional-amateur porn scene. But that's about to change when rising star Chloe Kendall meets the driven trans performer Nastasia. The girls are doing it for themselves now, and for the first time, people won't just be watching them - they'll be paying attention.

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About the Artists:

Alistair McDowall (Playwright, X, he/him/his) grew up in the North East of England. Plays include: Zero for the Young Dudes! (National Theatre Connections 2017), X (Royal Court Theatre 2016), Pomona (RWCMD/Gate 2014; Orange Tree Theatre/Royal Exchange/National Theatre 2014/5), Talk Show (Royal Court Theatre 2013), Brilliant Adventures (Royal Court Young Writers' Festival 2012; Royal Exchange, Manchester and Live Theatre, Newcastle 2013), and Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, Newcastle and Edinburgh Fringe 2013; UK tour 2014). He was the recipient of the Harold Pinter Commission in 2018. His work has been translated and produced internationally.

Jonathan Green (Director, X, he/him/his) has been the artistic director of Sideshow Theatre in Chicago, IL since its founding in 2007. He has directed for Sideshow, Greenhouse Theater Center, Diversionary Theatre (San Diego), TheatreWorks (Palo Alto), Playwrights' Center, Silk Road Rising, Chicago Dramatists, Theatre Seven of Chicago and Pavement Group, and assisted Kimberly Senior, Tim Hopper and Andrew White at Steppenwolf and Lookingglass Theatres. Recent projects include J. Nicole Brooks' HeLa, Debbie Tucker Green's truth and reconciliation (Jeff Award nomination for direction and ensemble), Philip Dawkins' The Happiest Place on Earth (Jeff Award for solo performance), Anne Carson's Antigonick, Aaron Posner's Stupid F##king Bird, Roland Schimmelpfennig's Idomeneus (Jeff Award for ensemble), and others. Jonathan is the literary manager for Goodman Theatre, where his most recent dramaturgy credits include the world premieres of Christina Anderson's How to Catch Creation, Rogelio Martinez' Blind Date, Charles Smith's Objects in the Mirror and Doug Wright's, Scott Frankel's and Michael Korie's War Paint.

Brynne Frauenhoffer (Playwright, Pro-Am, she/her/hers) spent most of her childhood performing The Lion King as a one-toddler show and writing spec scripts for Pokemon and decided to basically keep doing that as a career. Her first full-length production, Bury Me, premiered in July 2019 with Dandelion Theatre. Her other works include Synchronicity (The Writers Room at The New Colony; workshop grant with Salt Lake Acting Company; semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill 2018 National Playwrights Conference), Age Play (devised with The New Colony), The Young Ones (workshop with First Floor Theater), Sh*itty Christians, or, Turn to Romans 3:23 (staged reading at The Prop's Church of the New Play), and Pizza Hut Heartbreaker (staged reading with Commission Theatre). Her short plays have been produced by American Blues Theatre, MadLab's Theatre Roulette, Commission Theatre, 20% Theatre Company and the Chicago One-Minute Play Festival. As a script supervisor and director's assistant, Brynne has worked on the world premieres of Look, we are breathing (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble), American Beauty Shop (Chicago Dramatists) and A Work of Art (Chicago Dramatists). She also profiles Chicago theatremakers for PerformInk. www.brynnefrau.com

Regina Victor (Director, Pro-Am, they/them/theirs) is a director, multidisciplinary artist and arts critic. Victor is thrilled to be making their Chicago directing debut with Sideshow Theatre as an artistic associate, having previously developed HeLa (dramaturg) and Pro-Am (director) through the Sideshow Freshness Initiative. Victor has helped develop world premieres by Antoinette Nwandu (Breach:...), Brett Neveu (To Catch a Fish), Sarah Ruhl and Morgan McNaught (A Persephone Pageant) and Loy Webb (The Light), among others, and they are honored to bring Brynne Frauenhoffer's Pro-Am to life. Recent credits include assistant directing The Roommate and Familiar at Steppenwolf Theatre, Pipeline at Indiana Repertory Theatre, and dramaturging Too Heavy for your Pocket and To Catch a Fish with Timeline Theatre. Other collaborations include: Victory Gardens Theater, About Face, Writers Theatre, Shattered Globe, The New Colony, Walkabout Theatre and California Shakespeare Theatre. As a critic, their writing can be found at HowlRound, American Theatre Magazine, Windy City Times and on Rescripted, the arts journalism platform they founded in 2017. Up next: Graveyard Shift at The Goodman Theatre (assistant director). www.reginavictor.com

Sideshow Theatre Company: Theatre for the Curious. It is the mission of Sideshow Theatre Company to mine The Collective Unconscious of the world we live in with limitless curiosity, drawing inspiration from the familiar stories, memories and images we all share to spark new conversation and bring our audiences together as adventurers in a communal experience of exploration.

Over its 12 year history, Sideshow is proud to have distinguished itself as a vital member of the Chicago theatre community. Sideshow was awarded the 2016 Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theatre Award by the League of Chicago Theatres. Sideshow is a multiple Jeff Award-winning theatre and has been listed on the "Best of" lists in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2018 by Time Out Chicago, Chicago Reader and the Chicago Sun-Times, among other. Sideshow continues its multi-year residency at Victory Gardens in the historic Biograph Theater in the 2019/20 season.

Sideshow is also the producer of Chicago League of Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLLAW), a wildly popular fundraiser held in benefit of Sideshow Theatre Company and other local community organizations. CLLAW has been featured in local and national press, including The Washington Post, Reuters and the Chicago Sun-Times and on WGN Morning News, ABC 7's Windy City Live and CBS 2. The next CLLAW match will be held Saturday, July 27, 2019. For more information about CLLAW, visit cllaw.org.

For additional information on Sideshow Theatre Company, visit sideshowtheatre.org.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sideshow Theatre Company's 2019-20 season playwrights and directors include (l to r) Alistair McDowall, Jonathan L. Green, Brynne Frauenhoffer and Regina Victor.

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