Our mission: The Plagiarists steal from literature, visual art, history, and the culture at large to create new theatre that finds the familiar in the strange, the unique in the commonplace and ultimately enlarges the world.
Season 11, 2018 - 2019
What Does It Cost to Change the World?
Image by Elissa Shortridge Jacobsen
ENDEAVOR MIND
Written by Kim Z. Dale
Directed by Jen Poulin
October 5th - 27th, The Den Theatre
Claudine is a brilliant academic who sometimes wonders if she has settled for family and a boring job instead of pursuing her full potential. So when a new brain-enhancing technology is developed, she jumps at the chance to be part of the program and pursue the dreams she had set aside. But this experiment may have unintended consequences, for Claudine and for those around her. Inspired by Faust, The Twilight Zone, and Black Mirror, Endeavor Mind is where corporate science, human biology, and intellectual aspiration converge.
“… a tight, focused tale with artfully deployed classic sci-fi tropes potent with contemporary anxieties about human autonomy in a world of endlessly multiplying virtual identities."
- Chicago Reader
Photo by Joe Mazza of BraveLux
CAST:
CLAUDINE DELANEY - Michele McAtee
FRANCES WESTMORE - Lynnette Li
ADDISON DELANEY - Grace Hutchings
RAY DELANEY - Subhash Thakrar
CREATIVES:
Playwright: Kim Z. Dale
Director: Jen Poulin
Stage Manager: Corina Dougherty
Production Designer: Emma Cullimore*
Projection Designer: Smooch Medina
Sound Designer: Robert Hornbostel
Lighting Designer: Charles Blunt
Intimacy Director: Jessica Renae
Production Managers: Christina Casano* & Gregory Peters*
* = Plagiarists company member
Photo by Joe Mazza of BraveLux
MÜNSTERSPIEL
Written by Gregory Peters
Directed by Jack Dugan Carpenter
February 14th - March 16th, Berger Park Coach House
What if enough people decided to disagree about the rules of the universe?
From the untethered mind of artistic director Gregory Peters comes Münsterspiel: a true-ish tragicomedy about the Anabaptist takeover of the city of Münster in 1534. Pushing the Protestant Reformation to full-on revolution, their communist theocracy held out against a year-and-a-half long siege. Inspired in part by Greil Marcus’s Lipstick Traces, Munsterspiel is a dadaist romp through the Reformation Alamo, a time travel odyssey through what-could-have-been and what-could-come, and a prayer for the end of the world.
Münsterspiel is in ROLLING STONE!
"... all your punk rock hopes and dreams are bursting into brilliant flame in the German city of Münster..."
--Rolling Stone, "Real Life Rock Top Ten," Greil Marcus
Read the write up by Jon Langford
(scroll to #8 to read about Münsterspiel).
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“The best 4 theater and opera events in Chicago this week”
—MSN Entertainment
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“…Munsterspiel encourages its audience to think differently...in Dadaist/Surrealist style, it pokes fun at its own "truthiness" with anachronisms, time travel, intersection of different space/time realities and characters, and an ominous, unseen, hegemonic force that exists to squelch all variation, revolt, or alternative to its overwielding power…”
--Windy City Times
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”…the anachronistic elements – not just the time travel, but the visions of future inventions and words that plague multiple characters – contribute to a heightened, satirical, and almost Brechtian feel that works quite well.”
--PerformInk
Photo by Joe Mazza of BraveLux
CAST:
JOE - Tony Kaehny*
JOHN - Sean McGill
BERNIE - Joe Feliciano
NIPS - Stephen McClure*
ARTEMIS - Jessica Saxvik
JANE - Elaine Small
HENRY/ABBOT/ULRICH - Rae Hamilton-Vargo
DIVARA - Amy Jean Johnson
WALDECK - Patrick Zielinski
ALFRED/HILLE/GIRL - Grace Hutchings
PRIEST/GRAES - Zach Gossett
UNDERSTUDIES:
Jack Dugan Carpenter
Christina Casano
Zachary Finch
Katharine Jordan
Haleigh Kent
Daniela Martinez
Gregory Peters
Bruce Phillips
Erik Schiller
CREATIVES:
Playwright Gregory Peters*
Director: Jack Dugan Carpenter*
Assistant Director: Wyatt Kent
Stage Manager: Becky Bishop
Production Managers: Emma Cullimore/Sara Jean McCarthy
Set/Props Designer: Erin Gautille
Technical Director/Scenic Artist: Melissa Schlesinger*
Costume Designer: Emma Cullimore*
Composer and Sound Designer: Stephen Gawrit
Lighting Designer: John Jacobsen
Violence and Intimacy Designer: Tristin Hall
* = Plagiarists company member
Photos by Joe Mazza of BraveLux
OTHER EVENTS:
Image by Elissa Shortridge Jacobsen
WHAT’S SO DANGEROUS ABOUT DANCING?
January 20th, 2019
Chief O’Neil’s
SALON 49
What Does It Cost to Change the World?
Tales of Success and Failure
Monday, April 29th, 2019
Voice of the City
Curated by Eileen Tull
Featuring the work of the following artists:
Ines Bellina
Elliot Besmann
Mark Chrisler
Jessamyn Fitzpatrick
Khloe Janel
Emily Nikfar
Coco Sho-Nell
Maggie Wagner
KJ Whitehead - Queen of Radical Comedy
Image by Elissa Shortridge Jacobsen
ART IN THE TIME OF PLAGIARISM
”Let Them Eat Cake!”
May 3rd and 4th, 2019
Voice of the City
Featured artists included:
Anne Carnavale
Charity Noel Weishar
Courtney Nzeribe
Dan Grzeca
DANKO DANKO
DEX
E. Robin Magsino
Adie Janci
Jackie Jasperson
Elizabeth Kline
Ellen DeSitter
Emilie Modaff
Gaby FeBland
Gary Dale Saxvik
Gerri Alger Brunner
Hillary Miles
Janeane Bowlware
Jani Bodell
Jessica Saxvik
Marge Kelly Coughlin
Mathias (Spider)
Nathan Vernau
Ronda Ruby Payne
Ryan Dickerson
Thom Frerk
Tarot/Reiki/Birth Chart Readings by Emilie Modaff
Your Time Is Up!
Saturday, June 8th
Voice of the City
Red Tape Theatre vs. The Factory Theater
