[image]
[title]Sideshow Theatre Company, among the city's most adventuresome young companies, announced plans today for its 2014–15 season, to include three full productions and the launch of a new play development program.
The season opens with the Midwest premiere of Stupid Fucking Bird (August 16–September 21), Aaron Posner's irreverent 2013 play "sort of adapted" from Chekhov's The Seagull, which earned strong reviews in its premiere at D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Sideshow artistic director Jonathan L. Green will helm the production.
Green will also stage another loose adaptation: Antigonick (March 1–April 5), the poet Anne Carson's "free translation" of Sophocles' Antigone. The season concludes with ensemble member Walt McGough's Chalk (May 24–June 28), presented in a rolling world premiere with Boston's Fresh Ink Theatre. The science fiction fable, which sounds like it has hints of Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle, will be directed by Megan A. Smith. All three productions will be staged in the Richard Christiansen Theater at Victory Gardens.
Sideshow's script development program, dubbed "The Freshness Initiative," will focus on three playwrights annually and include public readings of the writers' new works coinciding with the closing of each mainstage show. The first round of writers includes Emily Dendinger and Calamity West, with a third to be announced. Sideshow also said it has added four new artistic associates: Ben Dawson, Andrew Goetten, Marti Lyons and Bruce Phillips.