ONE NIGHT ONLY: Lucky Plush Debuts Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip

Chicago's Lucky Plush Productions is celebrating its 15^th Anniversary with the creation and debut of a new dance-theater work,

Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip

 All Production Photos by Cheryl Mann, graphic design by Liviu Pasare

Commissioned by Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance and the Pamela Crutchfield Dance Fund of the Imagine Campaign, this new evening-length work from Lucky Plush seamlessly blends comic book graphics, sound effects, and immersive video to create an experience like none other - contemporary dance theater meets animated graphic novel. 

Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip will premiere Thursday, 

March 3, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., marking the debut of Lucky Plush Productions at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. in Chicago's Millennium Park. Tickets are $40-$10. Purchase tickets online at HarrisTheaterChicago.org, or by calling The Harris Theater Box Office, (312) 334-7777.

Featuring Lucky Plush's signature blend of nuanced dialogue, complex choreography, and off-the-cuff improvisation, SuperStrip follows a group of washed up superheroes attempting to reinvent themselves by starting a non-profit think tank for do-gooders. Complex training missions and specialized movement techniques bring structure to their collective, but the unlikely supers are unable to find a shared mission and brand. In the struggle to achieve consensus, they discover that real-world problems are far more complex than singular forces of evil, and that having power is part of the problem.

Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip is a collaboration among Lucky Plush's founder, director and choreographer Julia Rhoads, composer Michael Caskey, visual designer Liviu Pasare, lighting designer Kevin Rechner, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel and costume designer Jeff Hancock.  

Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip is commissioned and presented by the Harris Theater for Music and Dance and the Pamela Crutchfield Dance Fund of the Imagine Campaign. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign supports the creation of Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip through a creative and technical residency funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation. SuperStrip is also supported through a production residency at Martha's Vineyard's The Yard, and preview performances at Hope College (MI) and Diana Wortham Theatre (NC).

Additional support for SuperStrip is provided by project grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation. Season support of SuperStrip is provided through operating grants from the Grover Hermann Foundation, the Alphawood Foundation, the MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Peter G. and Elizabeth Torosian Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

In addition to Producing Artistic Director Julia Rhoads, the Company Manager of Lucky Plush is Kim Goldman, and the current ensemble includes Michel Rodriguez Cintra, Daniel Gibson, Marc Macaranas, Elizabeth Luse, Melinda Jean Myers, Benjamin Wardell and Meghann Wilkinson.

For more information, visit LuckyPlush.com or follow them on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Trip the Light Fantastic:  The Making of SuperStrip
(pictured, from left) Lucky Plush Productions ensemble members as their “super” alter egos in Trip the Light Fantastic: The Making of SuperStrip - Michel Rodriguez Cintra (Springster), Meghann Wilkinson (Sparky Lightstep), Benjamin Wardell (The Big Liberjinski), Elizabeth Luse (Professor Visioné), Daniel Gibson (Rapid Glitch), Melinda Myers (Mmm) and Marc Macaranas (Shadow). Photo by Cheryl Mann, graphic design by Liviu Pasare.