FNA: They Fought Like The Rest

Because if there's one thing theater goers can't get enough of it's blood, guts and glory!

Nothing Special Productions' ongoing series, Fight Night — an evening of fight-based scenes and short plays — returns Saturday, July 12, to The Den Theatre to celebrate America's Independence Day with Fight Night: America!

Strangeloop is one of eight contenders for the championship.* Going up against Abraham Werewolf, Wayward Productions, Red Theater Chicago- RTC, Walkabout Theater Company, Some Guys I Know, Rough Company and Nothing Special, Strangeloop presents They Fought Like The Rest, an original work written and directed by company member Maria Burnham.

Inspired by the very real stories of women in the Civil War, They Fought Like The Rest tells the story of two Confederate soldiers captured during the Battle of Shiloh who find they share more than a side and the desire to escape the confines of their Chicago prison.

The piece stars company members Carrie Campana, Holly Robison, Michael HoughtonWagman and Keith Gatchel and associates Miona Lee and Allison McCorkle. The fight choreographer is Beau Forbes.

The Den Theatre is located in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago at 1333 N. Milwaukee Avenue. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door, but this production tends to sell out, so get your tickets in advance. Tickets are available here.

More information on Fight Night is available here. The fight begins at 10:30 p.m.



*There is no championship. We made that part up.

Save the Date: Loopshop 7

Strangeloop's annual short play and new works series returns this summer to Chemically Imbalanced Theatre and will kick off our seventh season of pursuing the undiscovered.

Performances for Loopshop 7 will be at 8 p.m. on Monday, July 28, and Tuesday, July 29, at Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theatre, 1422 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. Tickets for the show will be available at the door or online.

More details coming soon, but put the dates in your calendars.

Goodbye to fairies, hello to fights

A Midsummer Night's Dream ended to packed houses, lots of laughs and not a few tears from the actors sorry to see it close. Thank you to everyone who came out and made this production so successful and so special.

As Strangeloop finalizes plans for next season, there are still quite a few events that we have our hands in this summer, including Nothing Special Productions' Fight Night: America! at the Den Theatre on July 12.

Fight Night, a periodic evening of fight-based scenes and short plays, returns next month with pieces from Strangeloop Theatre, Abraham Werewolf, Wayward Productions, Red Theater Chicago- RTC, Walkabout Theater Company, Some Guys I Know and Rough Company — this round with the theme of America, in celebration of our nation's Independence Day.

Strangeloop's contender is They Fought Like The Rest written by company member Maria Burnham and starring company members Carrie Campana, Holly Robison, Michael HoughtonWagman and Keith Gatchel and associates Miona Lee and Allison McCorkle.

They Fought Like The Rest tells the story of two Confederate soldiers captured during the Battle of Shiloh who find they share more than a cause and a desire to escape the confines of their Chicago prison.

More information on Fight Night is available here. Tickets are available here.

And check back here all summer long for information about other upcoming events, including a staged reading in July and the return of Loopshop — Strangeloop's annual short play and new works series.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: A closing weekend review

For those of you who missed Strangeloop's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chicago's littlest reviewer, Ada Grey, is demanding a remount.

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was directed by Holly Robison and written by William Shakespeare. This Midsummer Night's Dream was set in the 1940s and it was in a very small space. It was also in two rooms and it was sort of in promenade style. The space was too small for the audience and actors to roam freely, but you were in different spaces and you were not in seats but around the actors on the floor or on benches. I thought that all of the actors were good; I wasn't disappointed by any of them. How you interacted with everyone and how you felt like you were in different places when you moved from the castle to the forest made this play delightful.

Read the entire review here.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Cast and Crew bios

by William Shakespeare

Cast
Theseus/Oberon:      Geoff Zimmerman
Hippolyta/Titania:      Caitlin Jackson
Egeus:                       Kitty Mortland
Demetrius:                Tim Larson
Lysander:                  Ken Miller
Hermia:                     Letitia Guillaud *
Helena:                     Mary-Kate Arnold
Quince:                     Maria Burnham *
Bottom:                     Michael Houghton Wagman *
Flute/Peaseblossom: Naomi Lindh
Snug/Cobweb:          Miona Lee †
Puck:                         Julia Rigby
The Lion:                  Herbert the Lion
Understudy:              Kirk Jackson

Production Team
Director:                          Holly Robison *
Stage Manager:              Lisa Uhlig *
Costume Designer:         Carrie Campana *
Lighting Designer:           Eric Van Tassell
Scenic Designer:             Lauren Angel-Nichols
Sound Designer:             Keith Gatchel *
Production Manager:      Brad Gunter *
Prop Designer:                Mel Gill
Fight Choreographer:      Robert Tobin
Graphic Designer:           Mike Wozniak
Photographer:                 Austin D. Oie
Audience Development: Jaclyn Jensen*
Marketing:                      Maria Burnham*

*Strangeloop Company Member
†Strangeloop Associate Company Member

April 24 – May 25, 2014
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

The Side Project Theatre, 1439 West Jarvis Avenue, Chicago, IL

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' closes this weekend

The final four performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream begin tonight. This is the last weekend to see this show, which audiences have called "a magnificent and intimate production. Such fine acting and a joy to witness!"

Tickets are going fast (as all closing weekends do). Get yours now on Brown Paper Tickets.

Strangeloop's intimate approach to William Shakespeare’s classic tale of love, magic and fairies features promenade-style staging, in which audience members move and sit amongst the action of the play with no formal differentiation between stage and seating.

The production takes place in the 1940s – a time period that shares with the ancient Athens of Shakespeare’s original setting political turmoil, war and the subduing of monstrous beasts (literal in one case, figurative in the other). But despite the unrest of the outside world, love still finds a place to bloom during this, the shortest night of the year.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs through May 25 at the side project theatre (1439 W. Jarvis Ave.) in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood (just steps from the Jarvis Red Line stop), at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

From Queen of the Amazons to Queen of the Fairies, Jackson shows herstrength in

As an actress who has been on stage since she was 5, Avondale/North Center resident Caitlin Jackson has played everyone from Abigail in “The Crucible” to Bette Davis in Hell in a Handbag's production “Christmas Dearest.”

But for her latest turn on stage, she has stepped into not just one, but two roles from out of mythology. In her third production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Jackson has taken on Hippolyta, the famed Amazon Queen who lost a war and her heart to Theseus, as well as the Fairy Queen Titania, whose eternal battle for love and supremacy with her Fairy King, Oberon, puts them in the path of four young lovers lost in the woods outside of Athens.

Read more about Caitlin, including her work in Strangeloop's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the NorthCenter-RoscoeVillage Patch.