According to good sources, C.T. Ballentine has been found. No details yet other than that he was in a hospital in Berwyn.  Tonights reading at the Whistler has been officially cancelled. 

November 9, 2009
The Whistler
2421 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Do You Have Nerves of Steel? Launch Party! Featuring readings by: Playwright Chris Bower, writer and general shittalker Jill Summers, and the devious stalker Amanda Marbais. Hosted by Jacob Knabb of ACM.

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21; SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22; & FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4

AT VIADUCT THEATRE
3111 N. Western Ave.

The HAPPY FAMILY SERIES, Curated by Shawn Reddy.  I will be performing Little Boy Needs Ride: Two ancient monkeys bandy about a severed human head, and soccer is born. Years later the sport only exists to bind those in need of rides to those averse to giving them. Chris Bower presents a world of exhausted mothers unloved, traveling fathers adored, and transportation-needy boys who are not not not not interested in girls.

Please see website for full series schedule, which includes many more dates with exciting work by Martha Bayne, Ian Belknap, Dave Buchen, Chris Bower, Eiren Caffall, Mark Chrisler, Robin Cline, Barrie Cole, Elvisbride Band, Idris Goodwin, David Isaacson, David Kodeski, Jenny Magnus, Brian Nemtusak, Beau O'Reilly, David Pavkovic and Vicki Walden (of DOG), The Lawrence Peters Outfit, Diana Slickman, Edward Thomas-Herrera, and David Wilcox.

$12 or 3 shows for $30
(773) 296-6024 For tickets/info
www.viaducttheatre.com
www.themagpiesproject.com

 www.encyclopediashow.com/EncyclopediaShow/This_Month.html

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA SHOW PRESENTS!

SERIES 2, VOLUME 2: SERIAL KILLERS

WITH EXPERT SERIAL KILLER RESEARCHER, AND AUTHOR OF My Life Among the Serial Killers : Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers, HELEN MORRISON!

AT THE CHOPIN THEATRE ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009

Chicago, IL – Chicago Slam Works brings to you The Encyclopedia Show – Serial Killers, at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W Division, on Wednesday, October 7 at 7:30 pm. Tickets $6 at the door. All ages.www.encyclopediashow.com

This Month – Series 2, Volume 2: Serial Killers

With music, poetry, visual art and spoken word on the topic: Serial Killers. Featuring (Contributor – Topic): John Davis (Mental Graffiti Slam) -The Barbie and Ken Killers; King Keith (Louder Than a Bomb Champ) -- Zodiac Killer;Chris Bower (Robert Kennedy Biographer) - Herbert Mullin; D Cochran (Normal Slam) -- Serial Killers of Chicago; Emily Calvo (Chicago Slam Works) -- Monster of Florence; Serial Susie Swanton (Psychopath, Certified) - Special Emissary from the Institute; Jane Cassady (Philadelphia Poetry Slam) -- Victorian London Arsenic Killers;Paul Durica (Pocket Guide to Hell Tours) -- Harold Shipman; Lindsay Hunter(Quickies! Series) -- Marie Noe; music by the Ragged Claws (Paul Karner & Kimberly Sutton). Featuring cast regulars Kurt Heintz (E-Poets.net) – Fact Checker;Tim Stafford (HBO Def Poet); Joel Chmara (HBO Def Poet); Mike Slefinger(Actor); Evan Chung (Musician) - House Band Leader "The Encartagans"; and Jilted Emily Rose (Poetry Vet and House Manager) – As Jilted Emily Rose.

Price:
FREE and FREE COFFEE AND SNACKS
Date:
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Time:
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location:
The Court
Street:
731 S Plymouth Court
Email:
silvertonguecolumbia@gmail.com
Description

SILVER TONGUE is kicking off the year with our first reading tomorrow night with featuring readings from Columbia College students andddddd..

CHRIS BOWER!

CHRIS BOWER's fiction and poetry has appeared in GetUndergound, Annalemma, and The 2nd Hand. He has been awarded the Folger Adam J. Prize for Poetry and was the fiction editor of the University of IL Montage Poetry and Fiction literary arts magazine. He founded and hosts Ray's Tap Reading Series in Logan Square. His newest play, Notes to Molly, is playing Saturday and Sunday afternoons, 2 PM, at the Prop Thtr. Details in the link below.

www.facebook.com/event.php

So if you're a writer and go to Columbia, you should check out this literary goodness on campus.

And with our theme [awkward moments] nothing is too awkward, too uncomfortable, or too abnormal at this reading.

Good times.

SILVER TONGUE
Thursday, September 8th, 2009
731 S. Plymouth Court
@7:00PM

Show runs the next two weekends. Saturdays and Sundays at 2 PM. All shows are 15 bucks or pay what you can.
3502 N. Elston Avenue.


chicagotheaterblog.com/2009/09/13/the-alumni-bow/ 

The School of the Art Institute presents:
The Alumni Bow
Three one-acts by Rebecca Beegle, Idris Goodwin and Chris Bower
directed by Stefan Brün and Beau O’Reilly
thru September 27th (tickets: 773-539-7838)
reviewed by Paige Listerud

What a pleasure to be able to review The Alumni Bow, the latest offerings from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA Writing Program, particularly since it doesn’t have much in the way of press to promote itself, other than a few hand-distributed flyers and a blogpost by one of its playwrights, Idris Goodwin. Under the direction of Beau O’Reilly of Curious Theatre and Stefan Brün of Prop Thtr, these simple one-acts show surprising maturity and sophistication, even if some could benefit from the editor’s scalpel.


Honey by Rebecca Beegle, is a one-act monologue of a man under the strain of lost love and lost eroticism, finally losing memory of the woman he has loved so intensively. The man, played by Julian Berke, takes the audience on a tour of the home in which their lovemaking took place, room by room. It becomes apparent that the tour, which most likely began as an act of revenge against his lover, has now transformed into a mournful homage over all he has lost, including the ability to love again. “What is not so important as the sex acts is what led to them . . . a trail of bread crumbs I can’t find again.”


The challenge for O’Reilly’s direction will be in how effective that tour will remain should the audience capacity exceed the space for the tour to take place. As it is, it’s just as interesting to view the crowd as the actor—the one that I was in paraded from room to room with an almost funereal solemnity. Berke’s performance is nuanced, a tribute to an actor for whom this is the first full-fledged role; prior performance experience has been mostly as a rock and blues musician.


The Story Farm is the most intellectual of all these works, a savvy bit of meta-theater, commenting on all things corporate, politically correct, and metaphorical. Between an earnest jobseeker (Arin Mulvaney) and a story research trainer (Jonathan Putman), Idris Goodwin gets to pull out all his jibes at corporate world’s ability to devalue everything, including the power of stories, to their most rudimentary and meaningless frameworks.

From there, it is just a hop, skip, and jump to having the utterly ratiocinating story researcher swept up beyond reason by a story Mulvaney’s jobseeker brings in, while she remains blithely uninvolved by her own discovery. The transformation is enjoyable to watch in Putman’s hands, given the intensity he delivers through his character and Mulvaney’s good-natured, cat-loving foil is realistically vacuous.

Goodwin seems to have the most experience of all the young playwrights and, concomitant with his break beat poet background, plays with ideas and themes with greater virtuosity than the others. But of all the other playwrights, Goodwin’s work would most benefit from an editor’s eye in taking off a good 10 to 15 minutes from this play.


Notes to Molly by Chris Bower deals the most devastating realism of all these pieces. Based on his short story by the same name, the play etches an indelible portrait of a dead-end alcoholic couple and the psychological forces that barely keep them hanging on, to themselves and to life. It is an intensely realized work, almost perfectly performed by Kate Teichman and Matt Test.

All three one-acts deal with some aspect of story, but Bower’s work shows most knowingly how story is used by this couple to evoke a past or present which gives each of them more power or discredits the other, yet does nothing to really disrupt or improve their passive-aggressive relationship. Bower shows great maturity in delineating the symbiotic nature of their mutual dysfunctions and leaves us hanging where they hang, in a subjective no-man’s land, with Test’s character desperately trying to get his fellow alcoholic lover’s attention.
Don’t leave these works out in no-man’s land. The Alumni Bow has a very short run and Chicago should get to know its next generation of original work.
Rating: «««

I will be a part of this ambitious project curated by The Magpies.