Rough House Theater of Chicago is relocating its annual Halloween seasonal haunt House of the Exquisite Corpse III to Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Space, 1624 N. Halsted St. in Lincoln Park.
Chicago’s one and only immersive puppet haunted house is moving to a new location with an all-new program of immersive acts of puppet horror, guaranteed to shock, scare, astonish and delight.
Rough House Theater's House of the Exquisite Corpse III features puppets by Pablo Monterrubio-Benet (artist and photo credit).
Friday the 13th (Friday, October 13) is Opening Night for House of the Exquisite Corpse III.
Ticketed entries are scheduled every 15 minutes from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Performances continue through October 29 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., with special Halloween Night closing performances on Tuesday, October 31.
Tickets for timed entries into House of the Exquisite Corpse III are on sale now at RoughHouseTheater.com. Tickets are $21-$46. This production is recommended for audiences ages 14 and over. Rough House also offers several Pay What You Want options.
House of the Exquisite Corpse III was originally scheduled to run October 6-31 at Chopin Theatre. Anyone who already purchased tickets is being contacted individually to alert them of the new location, which offers better proximity to public transit, increased access for persons with disabilities and a wide open space to host Rough House’s puppet haunted house homage.
Step inside - if you dare - Rough House Theater’s House of the Exquisite Corpse III
Rats by Kendall Buckingham (credit Mike Oleon)
“If you want to move beyond schlock and shock into an elevated horror experience this October, look no further than House of the Exquisite Corpse,” advised the Chicago Reader.
This year, Rough House’s Halloween peep show/puppet theater anthology is inspired by the book “Our Homes and How to Keep Them Healthy,” published in 1883 by Robert Brudenell Carter.
Top Chicago puppet theater artists have selected different chapters like “The Difficulty of Proof in Cases of Arsenic Poisoning,” “The Dangers of Rebreathed Air” and “Advantages of the Removal of The Sick” to unleash and lay open their darkest creative impulses.
Audiences enter House of the Exquisite Corpse in small groups via timed entries. Once inside, they must brave its dark halls for about an hour, stopping at each room to spy through keyholes, cracks, and hidden doors to witness the horrors within. Through original puppetry, physical performance, soundscape, and illusion, each room terrifies as it enraptures. Collectively, anyone who loves haunted houses or theater of the macabre will feel buyer’s envy after touring the otherworld ills plaguing Rough House Theater’s horrifying domestic spaces.
For 2023, House of the Exquisite Corpse III stitches together six puppet peep-shows created by Chicago artists who work in multiple disciplines, including Pablo Monterrubio-Benet and Grace Needlman, Tom Lee and Sam Lewis, Corey Smith, Claire Bauman, Chio Cabrera and Jacky Kelsey, Justin D’Acci and Sion Silva, Ken Buckingham, and Felix Mayes and Kevin Michael Wesson. Process directors are Claire Saxe and Mike Oleon.
“Our Halloween production gives these artists the freedom to follow their own visions, create their own visuals, and be presented as individuals,” said Mike Oleon, Co-Artistic Director of Rough House, who conceived House of the Exquisite Corpse. “They get to work independently, motivated by whatever flavor of horror that freaks that person out the most. Then we all come together to assemble a collaborative anthology that, collectively, blurs the lines between horror, puppetry and theater, beckoning you to gaze into a variety of nightmares you won’t soon forget.”
This puppet (left) by Jacky Kelsey ponders “The Difficulty of Proof in Cases of Arsenic Poisoning” by Jacky Kelsey and Chio Cabrera. Photo by Chio Cabrera
Health and Safety
For the health and safety of our audiences and performers, Rough House strongly encourages all audience members to wear masks during the entire performance, regardless of vaccination status. For details, visit RoughHouseTheater.com.
About Rough House Theater Co.
Rough House Theater Co. is on a mission to connect individuals and communities through art that celebrates the weird things that make us unique and the weirder things that bring us together.
Rough House creates theater that captures the heart through the eye. Their shows use puppetry, music, and human performance to tell intimate stories, as strange as they are sincere.
Through performances, presentations of work by fellow artists, and artist training, Rough House aspires to make Chicago a national hub of contemporary puppet theater, comprising a diverse and ever-growing community of audiences and artists. The company’s work has appeared in the National Puppetry Festival, The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, punk houses, funeral parlors, a lotion factory, and the woods of Appalachia.
For more information, visit RoughHouseTheater.com and follow the company on Instagram and Facebook.
