That Franz Kafka: what a cutup! In his unfinished novel The Trial, Joseph K. wakes up one morning to discover government agents in his room. They inform him that he's under arrest. They won't tell him what he's been charged with or even what will happen to him, and the more he tries to get to the bottom of things, the murkier things become. In other words, hilarious! Right? more ›

We've already raved about Steppenwolf's current production of Endgame, Samuel Beckett's post-apocalyptic puzzler which runs through June 6. Now we get a rare chance to see a revival of one of the best Beckett homages of all time. more ›

Whenever we venture out to the Neo-Futurarium for the long-running - but always changing - Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, we can be certain of just two things: whether the pieces we see are intellectual, poetic, incredibly silly or politically charged, the performers will never pretend the audience isn't there, and every piece will be completely honest. When a cast member tells a story about her/himself, chances are it actually happened. We've seen some people get quite uncomfortable with this, not knowing what to make of such personal performances, both in proximity and story. If you're one of those people, you probably won't like I Am A Camera. If, like us, you find the Neo-Futurist style to be exciting, often cathartic and always refreshing, we think you will, even if it feels a bit drawn-out. more ›

As autumn continues to shove its way into our collective hearts, the Chicagoist Podcast Series takes to the broadcast day to discuss living, loving, and performing around our fair city. This week: more ›

Today marked the third and final performance of Greg Allen's take on the Eugene O'Neill epic Strange Interlude. We saw it last night and it was not your typical evening at the Goodman Theatre, involving as it did the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and a sex scene with a Cabbage Patch Kid. In true Neofuturist fashion, Allen's adaptation took the play completely apart and then put it back together in ways that a lot of audience members found shocking. In fact hecklers attempted to disrupt the first two performances, shouting "Why are you butchering this play?" and "You don't know how to do O'Neill!" Yet at the end of Saturday's show there was a standing ovation. more ›

The Goodman Theatre’s winter event A GLOBAL EXPLORATION: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century wraps up this weekend with three performances of the nine-act Strange Interlude. Produced in association with the Neo-Futurists -- best known for the always entertaining and constantly changing ,Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind -- it is arguably the most rarely-revived of the six scripts in the Goodman’s O’Neill series. more ›

It started out as a late-night show at Stage Left in December 1988, and now this ever-changing attempt to stage 30 plays in 60 minutes is the longest-running show in Chicago theater. There are a few simple rules. The roll of a six-sided die determines how much you pay to get in. The plays are performed in random order. No reservations. When they sell out, they order out (pizza for everyone, which happens more often than not on Saturday nights). TMLMTBGB, as its known to hardcore fans, remains the most consistently exciting, stimulating show in the whole city. And as the Neo-Futurists like to say, since the show changes weekly, if you've seen it once, you've seen it once. more ›

There are some movies so bad, they're good. You know the ones we're talking about. Showgirls immediately comes to mind; and among recent releases The Happening probably qualifies too. For seven years now, every summer the Neo-Futurists (and their imvited guests) have staged screenplay readings of some of the tackiest, cheesiest, most outdated and just plain terrible movies ever made. It's a brilliant concept that turns subtext into text, and dry line readings into the punchlines for jokes that were always between the lines. more ›