SHOWS BY CATEGORY

Classics…

Accidental Death of an Anarchist [slapstick anarchism]
HAPPYLAND Fri 11pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 5pm
Banquet Theatre
A Deep South update of the classic Dario Fo satire about police brutality, heavy on the biting monologues. [Dale Buckley, director]

Pulp Shakespeare [Elizabethan parody]
HAPPYLAND Wed 7pm, Fri 7pm, Sat 5pm
NonProphet Theatre Company, South
The blood-drenched Fakespearean stage adaptation of “Pulp Fiction”. Unauthorized, of course. A cast of seven plays 25 roles. [Robert Alan Mitchell, director]

The Shop Around the Corner [romantic comedy]
VALIANT Fri 7pm, Sat 9pm, Sun 5pm
NOLA Voice Theatre
An original adaptation of the Miklos Lazlos romantic comedy, reset to 1930s New Orleans. Performed in the classic radio theatre form, but updated with light blocking, props, and costumes for a viewing audience.  Presented under the auspices of Actors’ Equity Association’s Members Project Code [Vatican Lokey, director]

Comedy…

Is She Dead Yet? [white comedy]
VALIANT Fri 9pm, Sat 11pm, Sun 7pm
Big Fence
Absurdity, gallows humor, and Greek tragedy inform this all-American satire of Euripides’ Alcestis. Meet Aretha, a noble young housewife of the plains and the last black person on earth, on the day of her foretold sacrifice. Winner of Best New Play, Seattle 2015. [Kendra Unique Wills, director; Brandon Simmons playwright; India King, lead actress]

The Killing Noise of the Out of Style [two-handed absurdism]
HATCHERY Wed 9pm, Fri 9pm, Sat 7pm
Two guys trapped between a giant fish king and a metaphor for the military-industrial complex called the meat machine must write a musical comedy to survive. Childhood sexual trauma and the horrors of war provide the hooks. [Bryon Reiger, playwright; Justin Rolling, director]

Solo performance…

Ace in the Hole [autobio comedy]
HAPPYLAND Wed 9pm, Sat 11pm, Sun 7pm
Starlite Starbrite Productions
Follow anti-socialite Ace Denison in ‘n’ out of the humorous holes of his life and times: Rabbit holes, wormholes, holes in his pockets, holes in his bed and the heels that stay under his head. [Ace Denison, writer/performer]

GUMP: With Your Pal, Charlie Davis [a box of chocolates]
MAGS Fri 11pm, Sun 9pm
Your pal Charlie reenacts “Forrest Gump” all by himself. Every line, every character, and every nuance he knows. The scenes are chosen by you, the audience, from a box of chocolates, so you never know what are you are going to get. Charlie will be handing out a few free beers and drinking with you! What a good time, right?

NEC SPE / NEC METU (no hope / no fear) [interwoven historic monodramas]
MUDLARK Wed 9pm/10:30, Thu 9pm/10:30, Fri 9pm/10:30, Sat 9pm/10:30, Sun 3pm/4:30
Spit n Vigor
NEC SPE: The great Baroque painter Caravaggio confesses his hideous sins to an imagined or ethereal priest after his own brutal and untimely death, searching for forgiveness or possibly something deeper. NEC METU: The great Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi recounts her notorious rape and torture in order to reclaim her legacy and fully illuminate her brilliant life and art. Award-winning Catholic confessionals. [Sara Fellini, writer/performer; Adam Belvo, performer; Emma Rosa Went, director]

Salvagers [a chair, a table, a voice]
TIGERMEN Fri 9pm, Sat 7pm
Curious Theatre Branch (Chicago)
“After everything has collapsed, who picks it up again? Somebody has to get in there and just get started.” A show that explores the effort of salvaging, of starting again and getting on with it. Whatever it is. One of Chicago’s most acclaimed solo performers, just talking. [Jenny Magnus, writer/performer]

Whales & Souls [adult campfire story]
MAGS Thu 11pm, Fri 7pm, Sat 9pm
Sexy Dirt Productions (New York City)
Award-winning cautionary tale, gritty and sensual, about the Creature from the Lake. An outsider seduces a conservative village with offers of the unknown, in a fable that makes stops at industrialization, climate change, and queer romance on its way to the villagers’ downfall. [Chris Roe, performer; Matt Renskers, director; Andrew Kramer, playwright]

Local color…

The Baroness Undressed [burlesque meets Butoh]
TIGERMEN Fri 7pm, Sat 9pm, Sun 9pm
New Orleans’ infamous Baroness Michaela de Pontalba breaks the fourth wall to tell the story of a brutal attack by her father-in-law, while undressing. [Diana E.H. Shortes, writer/performer]

Calisaya Blues [historic drama]
VALIANT Wed 7pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 3pm
In 1906 Storyville, African-American abortionist Dr Jack keeps an appointment with prostitute Hattie Covington, who seeks a cure for her “trick baby.” Drawn from Maistros’s acclaimed novel, “The Sound of Building Coffins”. [Louis Maistros, playwright; Deveney Marshall, director; Donald Lewis Jr, lead actor]

Parade Route [huge ensemble comedy]
VALIANT Thu 9pm, Fri 11pm, Sat 5pm
Lospided Productions
“Every year, my friend Val throws a party for Endymion. She lives on Orleans, so you can see the whole parade from the roof outside her bedroom. There’s tons of booze and good food. You should really try to make it this year; it’s the best way to see the parade and usually a pretty good time. Yeah, I know it’s the trashiest parade. I know you barely know Val. To be honest I only really see her once a year. It’s cool though; she loves that everyone comes out.” [D.G.W. Hedges, writer/director]

Postcards from Over the Edge [documentary theatre]
ALLWAYS Thu 7pm, Fri 7pm, Sun 5pm
From Storyville to the present day, this new theatrical work explores New Orleans’ complex relationship with prostitution, including the civil suit over “Crimes Against Nature.” Tela Love and India McDougall, co-directors; Valentine Pierce, Karel Sloane-Boekbinder, others]

Tenderloin Trilogy: Those Who Posed [boudoir drama]
MARCER Wed 7pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 7pm
District Productions
Historically grounded, artistically infused memoirs of three of the prostitutes who modeled for EJ Bellocq circa 1912. [Amy Reuben, researcher/writer]

Burlesque & Cabaret…

Booze, Broads & Bukowski [dirty words in motion]
ISTANBUL SUN 9pm
Picolla Tushy Presents the Bluestockings
Strippers with poems, storytellers who strip. [Picolla Tushy, Honey Tangerine, others]

How to Do Sideshow for Fun & Profit [death-defying burlesque lecture]
BALLROOM Thu 9pm, Fri 11pm, Sat 9pm
FreakShow Deluxe
With only a rare vinyl album as his guide, an audience volunteer steps in for an unavailable lecturer to demonstrate stunts like Blockhead, Pierced Weightlifting, and the Bed of Nails. [Thomas Nealeigh]

Tales From the Darkside of a Room [live birthday podcast]
ALLWAYS Sat 9pm
A new storytelling podcast, Three new tales of artists and dreamers, led by birthday boy Dennis Monn’s “The Legend of Addie Hall”. [Dennis Monn, Vinsantos, DreamBaby]

ManChild: The Monster at the End of the Book [post-gender cabaret]
ALLWAYS Thu 11pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 9pm
Stanley Roy & Tsarina Hellfire Present
A song ‘n’ dance journey into the mind of a manchild, exploring the idea that each of us is born a blank canvas, then bombarded with instructions of what it will take to be a Man or a Woman. And there are puppets, too. [Stanley Roy Williamson and Kerry Brown Richards]

Puppetry…

Cockroaches [puppet drama]
BALLROOM Wed 7pm, Fri 7pm, Sat 5pm
The Salt Wives & Company
Based on the short story by surrealist Bruno Schulz, Cockroaches attempts to answer the most bedeviling question of our time: what happens to someone who hates cockroaches with a cockroachy passion? This dark and funny tale is presented with live music, original narrative, mask work, and puppetry. No cockroaches were harmed. [Lydia Stein]

Kate Culhane and the Dead Middle Man [puppet folktale]
MUDLARK Wed 7pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 7pm Sat 7pm, Sun 7pm
The Mudlark Puppeteers
In the aftermath of the Irish potato famine, an intrepid young woman matches wits with a spectre of supernatural greed. Will our clever heroine save her village from the forces of darkness at the cost her immortal soul? [Pandora Gastelum, artistic director]

Spoons and other stories [puppet monologues]
MUDLARK Wed 8pm, Thu 8pm, Fri 8pm Sat 8pm, Sun 8pm
abandoned ships
A hand-puppet trapeze artist yearns for a life outside of the circus. Two other short works about belonging and relationships are told through tabletop puppetry and shadow puppetry. [Milissa Orzolek]

Musicals…

Piece of Me [romantic madness musical]
VALIANT Wed 9pm, Thu 7pm, Sun 9pm
A descent into visions through an original seven-songrock show interpreting the journals and letters of 1930s musician Gideon Barstow. An otherwise wordless story of star-crossed lovers, it begs the questions, “what is real, what is fantasy, what is fate?” [Myrrh Larsen, Meg Russell]

Sheena: An American Tragedy [feminist revenge musical]
MAGS Thu 9pm, Fri 9pm, Sun 7pm
Sheena, psychopath and militant misandrist, hates men from the womb. She desperately wants to go on a killing spree but can’t find any justification until, one day, she comes across a much older man kissing her inappropriately young little sister. Yay! [Mariana Santiago, writer/director]

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story [love ‘n’ death musical]
ALLWAYS (in the Theatre) Fri 8pm Sat 8pm Sun 8pm
The tantalizing and terrifying true-life tale of famed murderers Leopold and Loeb, retold in an award-winning Off-Broadway musical. [Christopher Bentivegna, director; Eli Timm and John Fitzpatrick, actors]

Documentary theatre…

Crawling with Monsters Now [homemade testimony]
BALLROOM Fri 9pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 5pm
Latino Theatre Initiatives
Life in the war-torn communities along the Texas-Mexico border, using stories from the artists’ own families. Enhanced with live music, projected images, and original videos.

Drama…

The Transmigration of Ghosts [haunting recollection]
BALLROOM Wed 9pm, Sat 3pm, Sun 9pm
Where do your ghosts go when you hit the end of the road? A 60-year-old woman facing eviction finds her effort to sort her life’s detritus complicated by her relationship with the young musician she harbors, who embodies many qualities of the boy who once offered her a road to adventure. [Cass Brayton, playwright; Agnes de Garron, director]

Transposing Omaha [poetic drama]
TIGERMEN Fri 9pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 7pm
A ‘lost’ play by legendary New Orleans poet Danny Kerwick, the inspiration for “Francis” in Lisa D’Amour’s Airline Highway. The Old Woman and the Old Man reflect, observed from the window by the Young Woman and the Young Man. [Jennifer Growden, director; Janet Shea & Roger Magendie, lead actors]

Performance art…

Form/Focus [devised in-the-round]
HAPPYLAND Thu 7pm, Fri 9pm, Sun 3pm
Intramural
An investigation of the human form in relation to other forms in time and space. The former Cobbleslop Group uses scientific method, telescopic vision, and active questioning. [Grace Kennedy Woodford, director]

Obfuscation [surreal seminar]
BALLROOM Thu 7pm, Sat 11pm, Sun 7pm
Human Head Performance Group
A seminar on effective communication. The audience learns to exude confidence, manipulate bosses, and evade arrest by the secret police. A Kaufmanesque exploration of the ways people with power have Ikea-hacked communication to exert control. [Jean Ann Douglas, Eric John Meyer, Jason Narvy (formerly of The Truck Project)]

Split the First Atom [a ritual in the making of everything]
ISTANBUL Sun 7pm
A storytelling event that breaks as many spells as it casts. The power of these stories combined with a live, dark-pop soundtrack will have you hanging on every word. Follow teenaged Lu on a mythical adventure to a world beyond the Sun and fall into an epic tale that brings character and audience to the heart of interconnectedness.  [Michelle Embree, LadyBabyMiss, writer/performers]

Performance poetry…

Liberty Is Presumed to be Sunk [Burroughsesque film noir poetry]
HAPPYLAND Thu 9pm, Sat 9pm, Sun 9pm
Backed by epic experimental improv musicians and using hacked electronics, loop pedals, a live radio signal, a typewriter wired for sound and innovative lighting, Jackson improvises a radio communication with a lost vessel carrying the spirit of a defunct nation. [Moose Jackson]

Sleeper Cell Show [multimedia slam]
MARCER Thu 9pm, Fri 9pm, Sat 7pm, Sun 7pm
Bombastic, livewire, spitfire, yet delicately nuanced, historically informed, intelligent, activist poetry. From the book “Sleeper Cell”, themed around issues of race and history, oppression and resistance, state sanctioned violence and activism. [A Scribe Called Quess?; India Mack, stage manager]

VENUES