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The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988, based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity. Neo-Futurist theatre was inspired in part by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century. Originating in Chicago, branches of the Neo-Futurists also exist in New York City, San Francisco, and London (the latter under the name Degenerate Fox [1] ).
The Neo-Futurist aesthetic demands that everything that transpires in their theater be non-illusory, which is to say that they pretend nothing; actors only play themselves. All plays take place on a stage, specifically, the stage on which they are performed, in the present. If one of the performers reports that something has happened, you can bet that it really happened. Much of their work contains the possibility of failure, a unique theatrical component that keeps them and the audience honest. Their plays are wildly eclectic, touching on all genres and tones; plays may be political, satirical, personal, tragic, comic, abstract, musical, surreal, poetic, and so on.
The bottom line is that Neo-Futurism does not buy into the "suspension of disbelief"—it does not attempt to take the audience anywhere else at any other time with any other people. The idea is to deal with what is going on right here and now.
The general setup of the weekly shows is the same across groups and countries. "The Neo-Futurists ensemble attempts to perform 30 short plays in 60 minutes, with the order of the plays determined by the audience shouting out numbers based on a play menu handed out before the show. Each weekend, dice are rolled to determine how many of those plays will be replaced, which keeps each weekend’s iteration fresh."
The Neo-Futurists began with the show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes , often abbreviated as TMLMTBGB (though many refer to it simply as TML). For the first few years, the Neo-Futurist movement consisted entirely of TMLMTBGB, but then expanded to include "prime time productions." These productions began late evening, as opposed to TMLMTBGB's late-night starting time (11:30 in Chicago, 10:30 in New York).
The Neo-Futurists have published three books of plays from TMLMTBGB - two books of regular plays, and one of plays that use only one actor. They've also released one CD recording of plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind , one video, and a recording of Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious , a play described as an attempt to destroy comedy by analyzing it to death.
In 2008 the New York Neo-Futurists put on (Not) Just a Day Like Any Other, four autobiographical stories woven together with accompanying Bollywood music videos, relationships charted via PowerPoint, and margaritas for all. [2]
In November 2016, Greg Allen announced in an emailed press release that he intended to revoke the Chicago company's rights to perform TMLMTBGB. [3] Allen had ceased to be a member of the performing ensemble four years prior, and in his announcement he stated his intention to form a new company to perform the show [4] as a way to "combat the new Trump administration." [5] In a response statement, the Neo-Futurists stated that they were "disappointed that it has come to this conclusion," but that "throughout our long history with Greg there have been considerable artistic differences and irreconcilable personal conflicts." [4] Additionally, a former artistic director and ensemble member disputed Allen's claim that the split was motivated by external politics, citing instead ongoing personality conflicts. [6] In solidarity with the Chicago company, the New York and San Francisco productions of Too Much Light also closed that December.
Subsequently, the Neo-Futurists developed and opened a new weekly late-night show in 2017 titled The Infinite Wrench in all three branches to continue to showcase their two-minute plays. [7] [8] The Chicago ensemble notably reached their 10,000th play on September 29, 2017. [9] A fourth branch, operating in London as Degenerate Fox, runs the similar show The Dirty Thirty. [10]
Since 1988, the ranks of the Neo-Futurists have included the following individuals (listed alphabetically):
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In 2011, the New York Neo-Futurists produced an original piece, "Locker 4173b," wherein Neo-Futurists Joey Rizzolo and Christopher Borg purchased a foreclosed storage locker and, as amateur archaeologists, excavated, catalogued, and chronicled their findings. [14] The show received critical acclaim and received a New York Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Performance Art Production in 2011. [15]
The New York Neo-Futurists were also New York Innovative Theatre Awards recipients for 'Outstanding Performance Art Production' in 2006, 2011, & 2017, 'Outstanding Ensemble' in 2009, and the Caffe Cino Award 2010. They also have been nominated for two Drama Desk awards in 2012 and 2014. In 2009 the New York company won the Village Voice Readers’ Choice poll for Best Performance Art and was named one of the nytheatre.com People of the Year.
Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. The show also parodies musicals such as The Threepenny Opera, The Cradle Will Rock and Les Misérables, and the Broadway musical itself as a form.
I Am My Own Wife is a play by Doug Wright based on his conversations with the German antiquarian Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The one-person play premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 at Playwrights Horizons. It opened on Broadway later that year. The play was developed with Moisés Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project, and Kaufman also acted as director. Jefferson Mays starred in the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, playing some forty roles. Wright received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes was the longest running show in the history of theater in Chicago and was the only open-run Off-Off-Broadway show in New York. The show was originally performed by the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theater troupe of which creator Greg Allen was a founding member. Opening in Chicago December 2, 1988, the show ran 50 weekends of the year through 2016. As its subtitle states, the show consists of 30 original short plays performed in 60 minutes. All were written, directed, and performed by an ensemble. The plays tend to be a mixture of autobiography, performance art, and living newspaper.
A movie palace is a large, elaborately decorated movie theater built from the 1910s to the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. With the advent of television, movie attendance dropped, while the rising popularity of large multiplex chains in the 1980s and 1990s signaled the obsolescence of single-screen theaters. Many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple-screen venues or performing arts centers, though some have undergone restoration and reopened to the public as historic buildings.
Lusia Strus is an American writer and stage and film actress with Neo-Futurists.
John Pierson, known also by the stage name Jughead and by the pseudonym Ian Pierce, is an American musician, writer, actor, and podcaster.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
African-American musical theater includes late 19th- and early 20th-century musical theater productions by African Americans in New York City and Chicago. Actors from troupes such as the Lafayette Players also crossed over into film. The Pekin Theatre in Chicago was a popular and influential venue.
Greg Kotis is an American playwright, best known for writing the book and co-writing the lyrics for the musical Urinetown.
Connie Champagne, née Kelly Kay Brock,, is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She won the SF Weekly Wammie Award for Outstanding Cabaret Performer. She is known for performing the character of actress Judy Garland in productions including Christmas With the Crawfords in 2001 and Imagine Judy Garland: An Evening With Connie Champagne in 2003. She won a 2007 San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award (BACTC) for her role in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Despite fierce competition by acclaimed Broadway actors including Phylicia Rashad, Champagne also earned Los Angeles' Ovation Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in A Musical, Judy's Scary Little Christmas, directed by Kay Cole. Specializing in numerous styles of music and theater including cabaret, swing, jazz, rock and roll, and musical theater, Champagne has performed in numerous venues throughout the US and Europe.
The Nederlander Organization, founded in 1912 by David T. Nederlander in Detroit, and currently based in New York City, is one of the largest operators of live theaters and music venues in the United States. Its first acquisition was a lease on the Detroit Opera House in 1912. The building was demolished in 1928. It later operated the Shubert Lafayette Theatre until its demolition in 1964 and the Riviera Theatre, both in Detroit. Since then, the organization has grown to include nine Broadway theaters, making it the second-largest owner of Broadway theaters after the Shubert Organization, and a number of theaters across the United States, including five large theaters in Chicago, plus three West End theatres in London.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a comedic historical rock musical with music and lyrics written by Michael Friedman and a book written by its director Alex Timbers.
Silence! The Musical is a 2005 musical created by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan as a parody of the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs, which is in turn based on 1988 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. The musical is itself based on a parody screenplay of the same name written by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan.
Anthony Clarvoe is an American playwright born in 1958.
PlayMakers Laboratory (PML), formerly Barrel of Monkeys, is an arts-education and theater ensemble based in Chicago that works in under-served Chicago Public Schools. Founded by Erica Halverson and Halena Kays in 1997, PML consists of actors, musicians and teaching-artists that run in-school residency writing workshops, an after-school program and a weekly public performance, That's Weird, Grandma. The company works with elementary students in writing workshops, later adapting the students' original works to the stage.
Chicago Dance Crash is an American street dance/contemporary dance company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company tours year round while sustaining a calendar year ‘season’ of local premiers and commercial work as well as a spring/fall educational outreach program. The company has received widespread critical acclaim while being considered one of the most notable American dance companies to emerge during the first decade of the 2000s.
Degenerate Art Ensemble is a Seattle-based multi-art performance company whose work is inspired by punk, comics, cinema, nightmares and fairy tales driven by live music and visceral movement theater and dance. The group was founded and is co-directed by dancer/performer/director Haruko Nishimura and composer/conductor/performer Joshua Kohl. Degenerate Art Ensemble is both a multi-discipline performance company and a band, having performed major dance and live music works, orchestral concerts, rock shows and site-specific street spectacles.
Michael Cyril Creighton is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Howard Morris in Only Murders in the Building, Patrick in High Maintenance, Joe Crowley in Spotlight, and his Writers Guild of America Award-winning web series Jack in a Box.
Kate Jones is a comedian, writer, wedding officiant, performer, and a Guinness World Record holder for the Subway Challenge – the fastest trip through the New York City Subway – as of May 2023. She also shared the Guinness World Record for fastest time completing all NYC ferry stops with Rob Neill and Jesse Braver. She is a founding member of the London Neo-futurist group Degenerate Fox with Desiree Burch and the voice of Michelle Nguyen on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale.
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