Happy New Year: French With Me is back as part of Chicago Theatre Week

Our popular gala returns for its sixth year, revamped and refilled with love just in time for Valentine's Day.

We'll have all the details for our event soon, but for now save the date. French With Me 6 takes place at 8 p.m. on Saturday, February 13, at Vagabond School of the Arts (4001 N Ravenswood Ave #504, Chicago, IL 60613). There will be performances and food and drinks galore!

Strangeloop is also thrilled to be part of the League of Chicago Theatres' Theatre Week, once again. Chicago Theatre Week celebrates the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago. Returning for the fourth year, Chicago Theatre Week 2016 will be held February 11-21, and includes specially-priced tickets to more than 100 shows, including French With Me. For more information on all the participating shows, visit the Theatre Week website.

Last year, French With Me featured short original works by up-and-coming playwrights and showcased the amazing talents of Chicago storefront actors and directors. This year will be even better. XOXOXO.

Krampus! at Christkindlmarket

Strangeloop Theatre will be one of eight companies performing throughout the day at Christkindlmarket, as part of the League of Chicago Theatres' Theatre Tag.

Grab a warm beverage and join us after work at 5:30 p.m. with a scene from our upcoming holiday production, Krampus!.

Krampus! is a tongue-in-cheek Christmas horror stage production (with nothing, but the eponymous Christmas demon, in common with the movie of the same name). The plot follows the Murray family as they get together for a final Midwestern cabin Christmas before the eldest daughter and her boyfriend move to New York. But it isn't enough that they have to deal with the usual drama that comes with Christmas. The Murray family has to do it in the isolation of a cabin in the woods, during a snow storm with a holiday devil running amok and only some peppermint schnaps to get them through it. 

For a full list of Theatre Tag performances and more information visit the event page.

Thinking Caps Bio: Laura Stratford

Lara Stratford (Maggie Cusick) is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Underscore Theatre Company (www.underscoretheatre.org). Thinking Caps marks her return to the stage; her last performance was as an emergency understudy for the role of Charlotte in Underscore's production of pr0ne: a casting couch musical comedy. She is thrilled to be performing in an establishment that used to be a funeral home, and devoutly hopes for some paranormal activity.

Thinking Caps Bio: Jennifer Roseman

Jennifer Roseman (Stage Manager) earned her degree from Franklin College in Theatre and English. Since moving to Chicago, she has enjoyed working as a stage manager, including for Theatre Y's production of Happy Days. She looks forward to continuing to work with great theatre companies.

Thinking Caps Bio: Chris Owens

Chris Owens (Projections/Video Designer) is from the great state of Nebraska. He received a Bachelor's in the Arts of Theatre, Journalism and Media from Doane College. Since then, Chris has interned at Actors Theatre of Louisville and New York Stage and Film, Assistant Directed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre and toured internationally as video technician with Pilobolus Dance Theatre. Chris currently works as a freelance video designer, director and stage technician around Chicago.

French With Us again this year

Poster design by Mike Wozniak

Happy New Year from Strangeloop!

We just want to take a moment to thank everyone for helping us have a successful and delightful 2014, and we look forward to an even more amazing year in 2015. We're excited for what the year holds for all of us (yes, person hovering your finger over the like button, we're talking to you). 

Happy New Year, fellow Strangeloopers!

From our artistic directors: We are in Development

Hello everyone and Happy Giving Tuesday!

This Giving Tuesday, I am asking you to consider committing to a monthly donation to Strangeloop Theatre.

Strangeloop is growing in so many ways, but for me, the most interesting growth has been in development. This year Strangeloop has made a real effort to create an internal development series. This is a place for company members to workshop their ideas into more polished scripts that can then contribute to our season selection discussions. We have long been interested in new and adapted work, but to have some many ideas coming straight from our artists has been incredible.

We have held public readings of two of these works. The reading of the full script Thinking Caps, by company member Keith Gatchel, was presentedon September 2 as a part of the Greenhouse Trellis Reading Series. Select scenes from a movement-based stage adaptation of The Odyssey, being adapted by Carrie Campana and Maria Burnham, were performed on November 24 at Black Rock Pub. At both events, we received invaluable feedback from our audiences. There are more exciting ideas in the pipeline, and we can't wait to continue our progress.

In fact, our Spring of 2015 mainstage show will be a full production ofThinking Caps, a play which supposes the advantages and consequences of telepathic social media. The biggest challenge facing new ideas is they need support. New plays are harder to market and therefore riskier for companies to produce.

We think the risk is worth it, we hope you do too.

Commit* to supporting new works by setting up a monthly donation through on our website – strangelooptheatre.org. Simply click on the donation button and you'll be able to set up the amount you wish. If you donate today — or any Giving Tuesday during the holiday season — through our website, PayPal will provide a 1 percent match on every donation received. These types of donations will help create a financial base of support for all our operations, including supporting these new plays. Strangeloop is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit. Your contribution will be tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for supporting Strangeloop Theatre.

Letitia Guillaud
Co-Artistic Director

*There are many other ways to give. If you cannot commit to monthly donations, one-time donations in check form can be made out to "Strangeloop Theatre, NFP" and sent to 2616 N. Spaulding Ave. #2, Chicago, IL 60647. If you cannot give at this time, you can still support by helping to spread the word. 

If you are interested in volunteering and feel you have skills that would be helpful to us, or are interested in serving on our board, please e-mail us at loop@strangelooptheatre.org. Thank you.

Christmas Clue-seau at Christkindle Market

Strangeloop Theatre will be one of eight companies performing throughout the day at Christkindle Market, as part of the League of Chicago Theatres' Theatre Tag.

Grab a warm beverage and join us as we close out the day's performances at 6:30 p.m. with a scene from our upcoming holiday production, Christmas Clue-seau.

Christmas Clue-seau is a holiday mash-up of all things Who Done It. On a dark and snowy night in Chicago, a group of strangers, who all received a mysterious invitation to a holiday party at an old speakeasy on the Northside, arrive expecting to have their questions answered. Instead, they find themselves in the middle of a crime scene with a dead celebrity.

For a full list of performances and more information visit the event page.

Alt Fightsgiving poster

This time with more ancient boobs. 

Fight Night: Fightsgiving!

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.

Strangeloop welcomes three new Artistic Associates

Strangeloop Theatre is thrilled to announce the addition of Artistic Associates to our company with three veterans of past and current productions comprising the initial members.

The new members are:

Miona Lee is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and received her BFA in Theatre Performance from Missouri State University. While in Springfield, she worked with the Skinny Improv, Vandivort Theater, the Springfield Shakespeare Festival and Springfield Children's Playhouse. While in Chicago, she has worked with Geopolis Theater, National Pastime Theater and has been performing and writing with The Living Canvas for several seasons. In addition to acting, she toured the United States with the Glassmen Drum and Bugle Corps and performed with National Avenue and The Pride of Missouri State Winterguards. Miona is currently playing Snug/Cobweb in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Tim Lee is an actor who originally comes from Springfield, Missouri. He stayed in his hometown to attend Evangel University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. After college, he traveled, performed and brought the funny across the country with The Skinny Improv. He has been living and performing in Chicago for the past several years, and has had the pleasure of performing with companies like Prologue Theatre, Living Canvas and Bootstraps Theatre. He is very excited to be a part of Strangeloop Theatre. While his first love is being on the stage, he loves being in the shop, building and painting from scratch. Tim was last seen as the Mime in French With Me and Truncheon in Nutcracker Nightmare.

Allison McCorkle is an actor who also really enjoys seeing theatre, dancing Bollywood and getting caught up in the latest story or classic that she missed as a child. A performer since the age of 8, she studied theatre at Texas Wesleyan University and stuck around the Fort Worth/Dallas theatre scene for awhile. Then the allure of public transit and beautiful weather beckoned her to Chicago, where her credits include Piccolo Theatre, Black Ensemble Theatre, Haylcon, Chicago dell'Arte, Polarity, Red Tape and GreatWorks Theatre. Allison was thrilled to work on The Robbers, Loopshop and Nutcracker Nightmare with Strangeloop and looks forward to the next great adventure! During the day, she is an administrative assistant for a meat marketing company. That's right, that's what it says. Allison McCorkle was last seen as Dora/The Doll Queen in Nutcracker Nightmare.

Currently, there are 10 Company Members in Strangeloop.

"The idea of adding an Associate level of membership comes from a sense that there are more people we'd like to work with under the umbrella of the company, and this offers both the Associate and the company a chance to get to know each other in a more formal way without the full commitment of being a Company Member," said Brad Gunter, co-artistic director. "Miona, Tim and Allison are all talented actors who have worked with Strangeloop on multiple projects and have expressed an interest in developing a closer relationship with the company. Their talents onstage and off will be a tremendous addition to Strangeloop."

Wagman rolls up his sleeves, slips on a donkey's head for iconicShakespearean role

Wicker Park actor Michael Houghton Wagman loves that his neighborhood is developing into its own theater district in a city filled with storefronts and stages.

But Wagman’s latest project – taking on the iconic role of Bottom in William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”with Strangeloop Theatre – has taken him a little further afield, up to a small performance space in Rogers Park. The trek north for the actor has been worth it, however, to take on a role that is known for its heavy comedy, but also much subtler shades of introspection, passion and joy.

Read more about Michael, including his thoughts about Bottom in Strangeloop's production A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Bucktown-Wicker Park Patch.

Review: 'Go home Helena, you’re drunk'

Chicago Theatre Review recently recommended Strangeloop Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream, calling it "ribald, cacophonous and soused" and "never bloodless":

Actresses fly past inches from your knees, suitors are hurled across the room and, unless you chose to avert your eyes, you can catch eyefuls of intimate caresses between the monarchs of the forest.

Read the whole review here and then come join us this weekend.(Just make sure you're "prepared to duck, weave, and dance to ukulele strains and forties hits.")