Leave it to Chicago’s always-inventive Lucky Plush Productions to pair the aesthetics of retro video games with a turbo-charged line-up of Chicago dance, theater, music and comedy performers for the company’s next major work, The Map of Now, a radically new, interactive digital festival premiering June 25 and 26, 2021.
So ambitious is The Map of Now that it has morphed into a multi-venue, interdisciplinary digital festival presented by Lucky Plush in partnership with four Chicago presenters: the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Links Hall, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago and Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre's LookOut Series.
The event will highlight the richness of Chicago’s arts ecology with a robust roster of local dancers, musicians, theater artists, musicians and comedians including (at press time) BAPS, Donnetta Jackson + Bril Barrett, Chloe Johnston, Lucky Plush, Jeremy Owens, Darling Shear, Sam Trump, avery r. young and Sojourner Zenobia.
See the full list of performers at luckyplush.com/map-of-now.
Not familiar with interactive online worlds? No worries, because The Map of Now will be simple to navigate, and easy to enjoy. Here’s how this wholly unique, fully customizable digital dance experience will work:
The Map of Now will be hosted festival-style on an interactive online platform called Gather.Town. Before each show, audience members will create their own online avatars, who then set out on a digital map of Chicago to choose their own adventures.
After an audience member navigates their avatar to their chosen venue, enters the digital space and finds a virtual seat, they’ll discover each venue virtually rendered in such a way that represents the actual physical space, but in more of a retro, game-like world.
Think Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda meets the city of Chicago and four of its most popular venues. Once “seated,” a simple click on an icon will launch a video of an original short performance, likely recorded in that same venue.
“In addition to dreaming up a new platform to showcase Chicago’s diverse artists and venues, The Map of Now will explore community connectivity in an all-new way,” said Lucky Plush Founder and Artistic Director Julia Rhoads.
“When an audience member’s avatar draws close to someone else’s on the map, a video chat function pops up that allows them to engage in conversation, and maybe even catch up with someone they haven’t seen in a long time.”
Virtual performances of The Map of Now are Friday and Saturday, June 25 and 26. Ticket buyers can sign up for entry times every half hour between 5 and 7:30 p.m.
Once they start, they can spend up to two hours as they wish, navigating to as many venues and performances as they can fit into their self-curated, two-hour experience. Or, they can opt to take a pre-curated tour led by a virtual guide.
On Saturday night, June 26, starting at 8:30 p.m., Lucky Plush will celebrate the end of the run with an added live Zoom post-show dance party.
Tickets are on sale now. Tickets are on a sliding scale, $5-$50, suggested price $25, with discounts for students, seniors and industry. Tickets for both days include entry to Saturday night’s live DJ’d Zoom dance party. For tickets and information, go to luckyplush.com/map-of-now.
Navigating The Map of Now
Which amazing Chicago performers will be found in each virtual venue? Here’s The Map of Now venue and artist virtual performance line-up (at press time):
Harris Theater
- Lucky Plush Productions
*Lucky Plush’s presentation is made possible with support from the Harris Theater Creative Future Fund.
Kara Brody (left) in Lucky Plush's hit Rooming House and a moment from SuperStrip.
Links Hall
- Chloe Johnston
- Darling Shear
- Sojourner Zenobia
Darling Shear (left) and Sojourner Zenobia
Logan Center for the Arts
- Brill Barrett and Donnetta Jackson (M.A.D.D. Rhythms + Chicago Footworking)
- Sam Trump
- avery r. young
Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre's LookOut Series
- BAPS Comedy
- Jeremy Owens
- More artists TBA*
*Note: These will be short video works, not shot in the theater, but presented more like a film festival in the Steppenwolf 1700 Gather.Town space.
BAPS Comedy (left) and Jeremy Owens
“One hope is as audience members navigate their way to the four different venues, they will appreciate again the richness of Chicago’s performing arts and artists across diverse corners of the city,” Rhoads added. “There’s also a huge opportunity for discovery here. This project will actually connect audiences with new artists, across what are typically geographic silos.”
Keep on movin': Lucky Plush Virtual Dance Lab line-up for May now posted
In addition to planning The Map of Now and an eventual return to in-person performances and touring, Lucky Plush has kept Chicago moving and shaking for more than a year with its Virtual Dance Lab, presented in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s dance program.
Launched in March 2020 to offer online dance and movement classes to the public, the Virtual Dance Lab has since received over 5,000 class registrations from 16 countries and 40 states.
Class offerings have ranged from modern, ballet and hip hop to yoga, salsa and West African dance and have been led by 65 teaching artists from Chicago and around the world.
Each week, seven days a week, the Lucky Plush Virtual Dance Lab continues to offer up to 30 live and on-demand online classes, workshops and master classes designed to keep everyone from the movement-curious beginner to the dedicated dance practitioner on their toes while staying put at home.
Classes are taught by Lucky Plush ensemble members including Kara Brody, Michel Rodriguez Cintra, Jacinda Ratcliffe, A. Raheim White and Meghann Wilkinson, along with respected Chicago dance professionals like Damon Green, Leyda “Lady Sol” Garcia and Kevin Iega Jeff.
Classes are free for the UChicago community, or Pay What You Can, with a suggested contribution of $5-$15 per class. All funds go toward paying Virtual Dance Lab teaching artists and administrative staff, all of whose work has been affected by COVID-19.
What better time than now to take a dance class? They’re free for the UChicago community, or Pay What You Can, with a suggested contribution of $5-$15 per class. All funds go toward paying Virtual Dance Lab teaching artists and administrative staff, all of whose work has been affected by COVID-19. See the current class line up and sign up at luckyplush.com.
About Lucky Plush – Reinventing contemporary dance with humor and storytelling
Lucky Plush Productions is a Chicago-based dance theater company led by founder and artistic director Julia Rhoads. Lucky Plush is committed to provoking and supporting an immediacy of presence – a palpable liveness – shared by performers in real-time with audiences. A unique hybrid of high-level dance and theater, Lucky Plush’s work is well-known for its carefully crafted dramatic and rhythmic arcs, pushing its artists to move beyond the predictable by earning the exciting slippage between – and surprising coherence of – technical choreography, casual dialogue, music and humor. Though rigorously composed, much of the company’s work feels like it is generated spontaneously.
Since 2000, Lucky Plush Productions has created 30+ original dance-theater works. In addition to regularly performing in the Chicago area, LPP has presented work in over 75 venues and more than 55 US cities, with international partners spanning from New Zealand to Cuba. Commissioning and development partners include the Harris Theater for Music and Dance (IL), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Krannert Center at University of Illinois, The Yard (MA), Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (MD), Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (VT), Door Kinetic Arts Festival (WI), Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre (IL), Columbia College Chicago, and Links Hall Chicago. Presenting partners include the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (MA), Joyce Theater (NYC), ODC (CA), TITAS (TX), Spoleto Festival/USA (SC), NC State LIVE (NC), Portland Ovations (ME), Skirball Center (NYC), and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (D.C.), among others.
In fall 2019, Lucky Plush ensemble members were memorably seen cavorting larger than life across the 2.5 acre river-façade of the former Merchandise Mart building in Limelight Parade, a collaboration between Julia Rhoads and theater maker John Musial as part of Art on theMART, the largest permanent digital art projection series in the world.
Lucky Plush Productions is the first and only dance company to receive the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, a recognition of the company’s exceptional creativity and impact. Other awards include creation, residency, and touring awards from National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, and National Performance Network; exchange awards from the MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund; a presentation award from MetLife Foundation; and an achievement award from the Lester and Hope Abelson Fund for the Performing Arts at The Chicago Community Trust.
Lucky Plush performances have been cited in many “Best of Year” performance round-ups including in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago, Chicago Public Radio and Boston Globe. New City hailed Lucky Plush “a brand of movement-based theater that can be comfortably called, without exaggeration, genius.”
Lucky Plush productions is supported by the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development, Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Illinois Arts Council Agency, MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts.
Lucky Plush Productions is a resident company at Harris Theater for Music and Dance, where its staff and sustainability initiatives are based. For more information, visit luckyplush.com or follow the company on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
About The Map of Now venue partners
The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance is Chicago’s primary residence for music and dance, connecting diverse audiences with outstanding artists from across the city, the nation, and the world. Opened in November 2003 in Millennium Park, the Theater was the first multi-use performance venue built in downtown Chicago since 1929, and fulfilled the city’s need for a shared home for mid-size performing arts organizations. Today, the Harris features the most diverse arts and culture offerings of any venue in the city, and is a distinctive model for artistic quality, collaboration, and making the performing arts relevant and accessible to the widest possible audience. For more, visit harristheaterchicago.org.
Links Hall encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development and presentation of new work in the performing arts. Partnering directly with independent artists across all performance disciplines, at all stages of their careers, Links hosts residencies, festivals, co-presentations, workshops, and subsidized rentals. Founded in 1978 by choreographers Bob Eisen, Carol Bobrow, and Charlie Vernon, Links Hall became a National Performance Network partner in 1998 and received a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2016. In April 2013, Links and musician/presenter Mike Reed created a collaborative arts venue as the shared home of Constellation Arts and Links Hall. See Chicago Dance named Links Hall as the “Fearlessly Inspired” organization of 2020 noting the adaptive spirit and unfailing desire to support artists of all kinds. For more, visit linkshall.org.
Designed as a home for the creative life of the University of Chicago campus and the city of Chicago, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts is a partner, resource, and catalyst for developing deeper cultural networks and richer creative projects citywide and beyond. The Logan Center is a place where boundaries dissolve and artistic work is amplified through a web of collaborative partners. More than just a building, it is an innovative hub for arts education for UChicago students and Chicagoland students and families, a platform to showcase today’s most innovative creators across all media, and a locus for impactful and collaborative artistic innovations with partners in nearby South Side communities and across Chicago. For more, visit arts.uchicago.edu/explore/reva-and-david-logan-center-arts.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is the nation’s premier ensemble theater. Formed by a collective of actors in 1976, the ensemble members represent a remarkable cross-section of actors, directors and playwrights. The LookOut Series, operating out of the 1700 Theatre, is Steppenwolf's performance series that presents the work of artists and companies across genre and form: emerging artists and performance legends, quintessential Chicago companies and young aspiring ensembles, familiar Steppenwolf faces and new friends. For more, visit steppenwolf.org/lookout.
Enjoy this :46 second sizzle reel for Lucky Plush Productions, an ensemble dance-theater company based in Chicago, led by founder and artistic director Julia Rhoads.