Sideshow Theatre Company is pleased to present a one-night-only streaming revival of its 2018 hit Tilikum on Friday, June 19 at 7 pm CDT, a benefit for the #LetUsBreathe Collective in honor of Juneteenth and the Black Lives Matter movement, and in solidarity with the protests in Chicago and around the world for an end to State-sponsored violence against Black bodies. The presentation will include remarks and conversation with some of the artists who created it.
Written by Kristiana Rae Colón and directed by Lili-Anne Brown, Tilikum features Gregory Geffrard, Sigrid Sutter and Sideshow ensemble member Matt Fletcher*. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a suggested donation of at least $10; however all are welcome and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. To donate, visit sideshowtheatre.org/liberation any time before the event. Patrons will be linked to YouTube Live or Facebook Live to view the production.
Founded by Colón, the #LetUsBreathe Collective is an alliance of artists and activists organizing through a creative lens to imagine a world without prisons and police. It operates the Breathing Room space, a Black-led liberation headquarters for arts, organizing and healing on Chicago's South Side. For additional information, visit letusbreathecollective.com.
Tilikum was nominated for seven 2019 Jeff Awards and won the awards for new play, original music and projection design. Comments artistic director Jonathan L. Green, “Tilikum has been one of the most impactful productions in Sideshow's history and it challenged and changed the way so many of us think about what true liberation means – Kristiana's masterwork allows us to envision a radical and glorious future.”
Playwright and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective Kristiana Rae Colón adds, “Now is the time to get on the right side of history. Now is the time to imagine beyond nightsticks and cages. Now is the time for collective care and responsibility. Dismantling white supremacist ideology and carceral systems is spirit work – metaphysical work – that demands our will to love be stronger than our will to power, that our courage to resist be stronger than our fear of change. We are creators and visionaries; we can imagine beyond police and prisons, and the time is now. Global pandemic has shown us that overnight transformation of social systems is possible, so there is no more time to wait for violent systems to grow a conscience. The time is now.”
Tilikum was a king, and the oceans of the world were his. Now, he is a captive in a marine amusement park, doomed to live as an opportunity for profit. Alone behind bars he forgets the feel of freedom, but when fellow prisoners ignite the fires of his memory, he starts down a path that threatens to consume everything. Ripped from the headlines, Kristiana Rae Colón’s Tilikum explores captivity, violence and rebellion in a vital and visceral blend of theatre, drumming and dance. Poetic and lyrical, Tilikum calls out the power structures – both corporate and human – that ensure continued oppression, and the complicity of those willing to stand by and do nothing.
The original production team for Tilikum includes: William Boles* (scenic design), Izumi Inaba (costume design), Jared Gooding (lighting design), Victoria Deiorio (sound design), Amy Peters (properties design), Paul Deziel (projections designer), Coco Elysses (composer, music director), Melissa F. DuPrey* (composer, musician), Joyce Liza Rada Lindsey (musician), Noelle Simone (choreographer), Isaac Gomez (dramaturg), Chad Hain (technical director), Benjamin W. Dawson* and Ellen Willett* (production managers) and Savannah Clements (stage manager).
Sideshow thanks the generous creators, musicians, actors and designers with whose permission and participation this event could not happen.
*Denotes Sideshow Company Member.
About the Artistcs:
Kristiana Rae Colón (Playwright) is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, creator of #BlackSexMatters and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. She was awarded 2017 Best Black Playwright by The Black Mall. In 2016, her play good friday had its world premiere at Oracle Productions, Octagon its American premiere at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago, and but i cd only whisper had its American premiere at The Flea in New York. Octagon was the winner of Arizona Theater Company's 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and Polarity Ensemble Theater's Dionysos Festival of New Work, and had its 2015 world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London. Kristiana is an alum of the Goodman Theatre's Playwrights Unit where she developed florissant & canfield, an epic reimagining of the Ferguson protests, which was featured in the 2016 Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival. She is one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools and appeared on the fifth season of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. Kristiana is writing, producing and organizing work to radically reimagine power structures, our complicity in them, and visions for liberation.
Lili-Anne Brown (Director) most recently directed School Girls by Jocelyn Bioh at Goodman Theatre. A native Chicagoan, Brown works as a director, actor and educator, and has performed in, directed and produced many award-winning shows, both local and regional. She is the former artistic director of Bailiwick Chicago, where she focused programming on Chicago-premiere musicals and new play development with resident playwrights. Other recent credits include Lottery Day (Goodman Theatre), The Color Purple (Drury Lane Theatre) and Put Your House in Order (La Jolla Playhouse). She is a member of SDC, AEA and SAG-AFTRA, a graduate of Northwestern University and is represented by William Morris Endeavor.
About Sideshow Theatre Company:
Sideshow Theatre Company: Theatre for the Curious. It is the mission of Sideshow Theatre Company to mine the collective unconscious of the world we live in with limitless curiosity, drawing inspiration from the familiar stories, memories and images we all share to spark new conversation and bring our audiences together as adventurers in a communal experience of exploration.
Over its 13-year history, Sideshow is proud to have distinguished itself as a vital member of the Chicago theatre community. Sideshow was awarded the 2016 Broadway In Chicago Emerging Theatre Award by the League of Chicago Theatres. Sideshow is a multiple Jeff Award-winning theatre and has been listed on the “Best of” lists in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2018 by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sideshow is also the producer of Chicago League of Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLLAW), a wildly popular fundraiser held in benefit of Sideshow Theatre Company and other local community organizations. CLLAW has been featured in local and national press, including The Washington Post, Reuters and the Chicago Sun-Times and on WGN Morning News, ABC 7’s Windy City Live and CBS 2. The next CLLAW match is scheduled for Saturday, July 25. For more information about CLLAW, visit cllaw.org.
For additional information on Sideshow Theatre Company, visit sideshowtheatre.org.