Sideshow Theatre Company is pleased to continue its all-virtual 2021 season with the launch of the Sideshow House Party Series, five virtual readings by some of the company’s favorite playwrights – each followed by an interactive celebration – playing March 19 – September 17, 2021.
Remember house parties after a show? Well, we are reviving them as a digital get down for 2021! Scattered throughout the calendar year, Sideshow will broadcast five readings of plays we love, written by playwrights we love. Every party has to have a theme, darling, and we will not disappoint. A play is an event, and so each play will have a customized party experience to bring us together even when we're apart.
The Sideshow House Party Series kicks off with Thin Mints, written by Ellen Steves and directed by Associate Artistic Director Justin J. Sacramone* streaming Friday, March 19, 2021 at 7 pm CST at sideshowtheatre.org/houseparty and the company’s Twitch channel. Tickets for all House Party readings are pay-what-you-can (suggested $10) and on sale now. Please visit sideshowtheatre.org/houseparty to RSVP.
The cast of Thin Mints includes company members Helen Joo Lee* (Drambley), Krystal Ortiz* (Dakota) and Sarah Price* (Marjorie) with Anah Ambuchi (Molly), Elena Maria Cohen (Scoutmaster Hardwick), Gabriela Diaz (Casper), Kayla Forde (Sandy), Evelyn Reidy (Kennedy) and Shariba Rivers (The Mallard).
Thin Mints follows a troop of Bonfire Girls during a five-day woodland jamboree as they prepare for an important election. At the end of the retreat, one scout will be chosen to take over the Troop. The girls use torture, terror, and trauma to claw their way to the top... but who is really pulling the strings? The play scores 100% on the Bechdel Test and offers a warped perspective on the consequences of a community governed by abuse and manipulation.
The production team includes Zach Barr and Justin J. Sacramone* (editing), Aimee Caron and Justin J. Sacramone* (casting) and Catherine Miller (casting consultant).
Comments Sideshow Artistic Director Regina Victor*, “The best digital events I've been to have all placed a big emphasis on creating community and joy. Just because we're isolated doesn't mean we have to be alone! The House Party Series is something we hope to continue when we're back in person, and recreates the vibe of showing up to someone's house for a kickback to hear a new play. These living room gatherings were my favorite part of any new play creative process. So why not bring the play and the party to your living room?”
Other upcoming readings include:
Friday, April 23, 2021 at 7 pm CST
- A Heap See
- Written by Dawn Renee Jones
- Directed by Ensemble Member Arti Ishak*
Koua is a fast-moving whirlwind. By age 24, she had survived the “American War” in Laos and refugee camps in Thailand. This mother of six is determined to give her children a better life in St. Paul, Minnesota where she faces her greatest obstacles.
Friday, May 21, 2021 at 7 pm CST
- Once in a Bleu Moon
- Written by Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom
- Directed by Artistic Director Regina Victor*
As her stars realign and a fateful blood moon approaches on the eve of her thirty-third birthday, Bleu casts a forbidden spell. To undo the damage Bleu must master her ancestral demons by accepting that, with a dash of magick, she can have it all…If not all at once. Once in a Bleu Moon is a witchy fable about womb magick, self-forgiveness and breaking generational curses.
Friday, August 20, 2021 at 7 pm CST
- Fabuloso!
- Written by Makasha Copeland
- Director TBA
Armed with all purpose cleaner and the resilience of that cockroach from Wall-E, three maids and a middle-schooler are tasked with removing the stains from Oak Hill Resort. When their boss is found dead in the master suite, this cleaning crew must launch their own investigation. Who killed whomst, and who gives a sh*t?
Friday, September 17, 2021 at 7 pm CST
- The Whisperer’s Apprentice
- Written by Ensemble Member Walt McGough*
- Director TBA
In a world where storytelling is magic, an ancient kingdom is collapsing. Two young siblings go searching for the one woman who could help stave off chaos, but she is hiding in the forest, haunted by regrets. Will the tale that shapes the world finally break, once and for all? The Whisperer's Apprentice is a magical, theatrical exploration of who wields power in the stories we tell, and what it costs them to maintain it.
As a companion event to this reading, playwright Walt McGough will lead a group of hale and hearty Sideshow artists through a weekly, live-streamed and completely ridiculous campaign of Dungeons & Dragons. Capturing a different (and dice-rolling) kind of magic, this campaign will immerse audiences in an exciting, serialized new form of collaborative storytelling, and highlight just how much is possible when some of the best artists in the city work together to save the world.
*Denotes Sideshow Company Member.
Artist Biographies
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom (Playwright, Once in a Bleu Moon) creates fairy tales for sun-kissed women. A mixed-media artist, writer, intuitive healer and entrepreneur. Mallory was a finalist for the 2019 National Playwrights Conference at The O’Neill and is the recipient of the Tutterow Fellowship through Chicago Dramatists Center for New Play Development. Her talents have been nurtured in writer’s rooms at Victory Gardens Theatre, The New Colony and Jackalope Theatre. Her play, A Laying on of Hands, was featured in The Story Theatre New Play Festival. Mallory is a contributing playwright to The Refracted Theatre Company’s podcast, “The Swell.” She is the author of “Fairy Tales for Sun-Kissed Women,” an anthology of healing fables and immersive audiobooks. Windy City Reviews hailed her as a “craftsman of the English language” for her debut novel, “Reasons for Being.” Going on to say that “Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom’s writing is as clear and beautiful as springtime in a meadow… You’re amazed at the beauty around you and inhale the delicate natural musk to make it a part of your very being.” Mallory was a guest lecturer at the University of California-Davis and Illinois Humanities. Her artwork was recently featured at The Freedom and Movement Gallery in Chicago. Mallory’s passion for diverse representation, mindfulness and mysticism resonates across the vast universe of color she leaves on the page, the stage and the canvas. For more information about this multifaceted artist, visit her @ForSunKissedWomen or www.MalloryBackstrom.com.
Makasha Copeland (Playwright, Fabuloso!) is a playwright, actor, comedian and your babysitter during those formative years. Their plays Extreme Home Makeover and Fabuloso! have been developed and produced with San Diego REP, Vertigo Productions, the Agnes Nixon Festival and Teatro Espejo (upcoming). They are a 2021 Ars Nova CAMP resident artist, a comedy residency where they are co-writing a televisual play with Chase Doggett and Gabrielle Silva. They are also a member of sketch comedy group Resting Witch Face at iO and Second City. They graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Theatre and Latinx Studies, where they performed, wrote and improvised with The Titanic Players, Griffin’s Tale, Mee-Ow and Out Da Box.
Arti Ishak (Director, A Heap See) is a multidisciplinary artist and community organizer originally from Detroit. Recent acting credits include Kiss (Haven), Witch and Buried Child (Writers Theatre), Men on Boats (American Theater Company), Venus in Fur (Circle Theatre), Fantastic Super Great Nation Numero Uno (Second City) and A Story Told in Seven Fights (Neo-Futurists). TV credits Chicago Med (NBC). As a filmmaker, Arti wrote and directed short film Shukran Bas, a satire about Arab American representation. Arti has served on the board of the Muslim Writers Collective’s Chicago chapter and is currently a staff member with The Chicago Inclusion Project. She is one of the founding organizers with MENASA MidWest, an action network and advocacy group for Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian American artists working in theater, film and television. She is represented by Paonessa Talent Agency.
Dawn Renee Jones (Playwright, A Heap See) has been writing, directing and/or producing some form of media for a very long time. Her writing career began on Madison Avenue where she wrote print and broadcast advertising for a broad range of national products and agencies. A recipient of the Ruby Prize for Playwriting for her play A Heap See, and an alum of the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit she has written screenplays for Warner Brothers, Bryanston Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Her feature screenplay Man of the Word, an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine, won the FilmColumbia Festival for Best Screenplay. Dawn Renee has directed main stage productions at numerous Twin Cities theatres. She is the founder and director of many arts initiatives including Midwest Jazz Society (Arts Midwest) and Alchemy Theatre (Minneapolis); the Burrell Fellowship, an academic residency for playwrights of color, and the Young, Gifted & Black Collective, a black theatre history and performance program for students of African heritage at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches theatre history and playwriting. Dawn Renee’s MFA in Creative Writing with emphasis in Playwriting is from Goddard College.
Walt McGough (Playwright, The Whisperer’s Apprentice) is a Boston-based playwright, and a founding ensemble member of Sideshow. He is the founder and lead dungeon master for First Time at the Table, a company that runs online sessions of Dungeons & Dragons for new players. As a writer, Walt has held fellowships with both the Huntington and New Repertory Theatre Companies, and was a finalist for the 2016 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award. His plays include Non-Player Character, Chalk, The Farm, Priscilla Dreams the Answer, The Haberdasher, and Dante Dies!! (and Then Thing Get Weird). He has worked around the country with companies such as The Lark, San Francisco Playhouse, the Huntington, Red Theatre Company, New Rep, the Kennedy Center, NNPN, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Fresh Ink, Sideshow, Orfeo Group, Nu Sass Productions, Chicago Dramatists and Argos. In 2015, his play Advice for Astronauts was selected as the winner of the Milken Playwriting Prize. He previously served on the artistic staffs at SpeakEasy Stage Company and Chicago Dramatists. Walt holds a BA from the University of Virginia, and an MFA in playwriting from Boston University. More information at www.waltmcgough.com, and www.firsttimeatthetable.com.
Justin J. Sacramone (Director, Thin Mints) is the Associate Artistic Director of Sideshow Theatre Company and a Chicago-based director who focuses on new work. Most recently, he directed the 2020 workshop of Ellen Steves’ Thin Mints. He has directed for Raven Theatre, Red Theatre, Orlando International Fringe Festival and has assisted Robert Falls at Goodman Theatre, Lili-Anne Brown at 16th Street Theatre, Steve Scott at Eclipse Theatre and Derek Van Barham at Pride Films and Plays. He is currently developing new works with playwrights Ellen Steves and Preston Choi. He has dramaturged the world premiere of HeLa and the U.S. premiere of X, both at Sideshow. Justin holds a bachelor’s in fine arts in Theatre from Salem State University. He spent 10 years with the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild. He is a member of the 20/21 Observership Class with Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and a nominator for the Kilroy's List. justinjsacramone.com.
Ellen Steves (Playwright, Thin Mints) is a writer and producer from Los Angeles. A graduate from Columbia University's MFA program, she studied under Lynn Nottage, David Henry Hwang and Chuck Mee. She is the co-founder of Chap.Three, a production company that focuses on putting women in the spotlight.
Regina Victor (Director, Once in a Bleu Moon, they/them/theirs) is a Black director, multidisciplinary artist, and arts critic. Presently Sideshow Theatre’s Artistic Director, and one of Newcity’s “Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago” – two years running. They are the dramaturg for Jeannette The Musical, book by Lauren Gunderson, music by Ari Afsar. Victor has helped develop world premieres by Antoinette Nwandu, Anna Deavere Smith (Notes from the Field), Sarah Ruhl, and are directing works in development by Brynne Frauenhoffer (Pro-Am, Kilroys List 2020), and Terry Guest (Marie Antoinette & the Magical Negroes). They co-founded Rescripted in 2017, an arts journalism platform by and for artists, and have written for other publications including American Theatre, Playbill, and the Chicago Reader. Other notable artistic collaborations include Steppenwolf Theater, Jackalope Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Timeline Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre. In their spare time, they serve on the National Advisory Council for Howlround Theatre Commons, and as a board member for The Sappho Project. Learn more at www.reginavictor.com.
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.
For additional information on Sideshow Theatre Company, visit sideshowtheatre.org.