As part of its 30th Anniversary season of Big Stories, Up Close, Lifeline Theatre is thrilled to partner with a host of local performance groups in a vibrant celebration of Chicago’s long-lived storytelling and Live Lit scene.
The 2013 solo performance and storytelling festival features the work of:
- 2nd Story
- enSOLO
- GayCo
- the kates
- The Lifeline Storytelling Project
- Stir Friday Night
- Story Club
- Sweat Girls
- Tellin’ Tales Theatre (featuring Tekki Lomnicki)
- Write Club
- You’re Being Ridiculous
Plus, solo performances by Amanda Rountree, Kim Morris, and Eric Warner.
LOCATIONS
Performances are at Lifeline Theatre and Heartland Studio Theatre (free parking and shuttle available; see Performance Venues below for more details).
TICKETS
Tickets are only $10 for each performance, and Festival Passes are available for only $30, which allow admission to any number of performances. Tickets may be purchased from the Lifeline Theatre box office (773.761.4477) or online.
Buy Festival Passes here!
A collective of story-makers and story-lovers working together to build community through the power of storytelling. 2nd Story hosts events that fuse page, stage, and sound to deliver a unique, live, literary/ theatrical experience.
An ensemble of solo performers who write together and perform alone. A little bit of non-fiction, story telling, and performance art with no 4th wall. Everything biographical. enSOLO strives to find universal truth through specificity and brutal honesty.
A theatre ensemble that specializes in creating sketch-comedy revues based on gay/lesbian themes. Since starting as a lesbigay focused workshop at the Second City Training Center in 1996, they’ve performed for massive, enthusiastic, sexy gay audiences in Chicago and around the country.
An all-female comedy group that encompasses the distinct voices of up and coming Chicago performers. The kates provide an intimate night of comedy with pieces ranging from darkly amusing musical numbers, the awkward art of clowning, absurd solo performances, and uproarious stand up comedy.
The Lifeline Storytelling Project is an incubation program for young professional writers and performers led by Lifeline Theatre Artistic Director Dorothy Milne.
The best lessons learned come from crashes you get up from. Kim’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications. She’s written several short plays and her work has been performed at many venues in Chicago and in New York. She wrote and performed original pieces for the Fillet of Solo festival in 2010 and 2011, performed a devised ensemble piece for the 2011 Chicago Fringe Festival, and wrote and performed her solo show at the 2012 Chicago Fringe Festival.
The art of improvisation creates stories from thin air, making the unseen seen. For Amanda Rountree, this is not just an art form, but a way of life — one that includes unexpected twists and turns — leading, if not to mastery, to enlightenment.
Asian. American. Comedy. Based in Chicago and one of the nation’s premier Asian-American sketch comedy troupes. Having worked with The Second City and iO, Stir Friday Night has become a fixture in Chicago’s illustrious comedy scene
Story Club is like Fight Club, only they tell stories instead of punching each other and everyone talks about it. Story Club mixes the spontaneity of an open mic with the experience of live theatre.
The Sweat Girls speak with honesty, authenticity and humor about the human condition as they’ve experienced it. They have been writing and performing storytelling shows in Chicago for the past 20 years
By the time he turned 30, Eric Warner thought that he’d be married, have a two story house, a Firebird, two kids, three dogs, and a full head of hair. None of those things happened; instead he worked odd jobs, was single for 8 years, and became obsessed with reading about explorers. When he was laid off from his job and his first relationship in almost a decade, he went out into the wild.
Tellin’ Tales Theatre builds community through story — adult solo performances as well as “Six Stories Up”, a mentoring program and show featuring kids and adults, with and without disabilities.
2 opposing writers. 2 opposing ideas. 7 minutes apiece. The audience picks a winner. Write Club is bare knuckled lit. Write Club is literature as blood sport. Write Club does good without being annoying about it. Write Club features a rotating lineup of Chicago’s most audacious and fearsome writer/performers.
Just a group of real people telling real funny stories about their lives with a theme as their guide. Their motto is, “good stories are better than good times.” They laugh at themselves and laugh with each other. Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours?