ChiIL Live Shows On Our Radar
SANDBOX THEATRE COLLECTIVE PRESENTS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARS ROVER
Now Playing Through July 5, 2026
AT MRS. MURPHY & SON’S IRISH BISTRO
REVIEW
By Bonnie Kenaz-Mara
Happy Birthday Mars Rover is out of this world fun with a scrappy, DIY vibe. Extinction was never so colorful and creative. Don't miss this! ChiIL Live Shows on our radar. Highly recommended. Four out of Four Stars.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sandbox Theatre Collective has produced a show that spans space AND time, from the early days of cave people inventing language, to a stark future on a dying planet. And they manage to make it puppet filled and playful! Best of all, tickets are pay what you can, so they're not sky high, and everyone's welcome. Of course, if you have money, empty your wallet or be generous with a digital donation, so this talented collective can keep making their quirky and compelling art. The cast is a great mix of ethnicities, genders, and types, playing myriad characters with panache. The script is unique and the acting is highly entertaining.
All Production Photos by Alex Albrecht (@shermzilla)
Full disclosure, our son, Dugan Kenaz-Mara was props designer for this show, so we may be a bit biased in that department, but the Mars Rover he designed was charming, and elicited an audience full of awwwwws and empathy the night we caught the show. When the scientists who analyzed it's data anthropomorphized it a bit, the audience was right there with them, and by the time it played happy birthday to itself, in isolation on a distant planet, we felt the loneliness reverberating through the vast emptiness of space. This props heavy production uses items and quick costume changes to present a dizzying array of people and places.
The Sandbox Collective includes a heavy dose of Northwestern University alums, some of the best and brightest creative minds around. These wunderkinds are mostly Gen Z who spent their formative years surviving the covid pandemic, and it's attending isolation, and total shutdown of live performances. It's made them wonderfully weird, insightful, and wise beyond their years. The playwright, Preston Choi aptly claims his work focuses on social science fiction, Asian-American/mixed race/queer lives, and the horror of being alive, and we're here for it. I catch an average of 6 professional shows a week and I've seldom seen a more accurate and enjoyable encapsulation of what it means to be human.
Sandbox Theatre Collective has a delightfully unpretentious aesthetic, and sneaks in poignant pieces and deep truths while you're busy laughing. Happy Birthday Mars Rover spans a Dr Who worthy swath of centuries, in a production that's both playful and thought provoking. In a series of vignettes, Happy Birthday Mars Rover explores humanities curiosity, intelligence, love, loss, and longing to be remembered. We adored the old school overhead projector presentations of extinct animals, the actors each drew for themselves, in the style of elementary school kids.
Happy Birthday Mars Rover proves you can make big ideas come to life in a small space, without a Broadway budget. If aliens were attempting to learn about our planet and people, this production would be a great place to start!
Tickets for this production are pay what you can, with suggested prices ranging from $15-$30+ per ticket. Tickets can be purchased through Sandbox’s website or directly from Ticketsource.
Bonnie is a Chicago based writer, theatre critic, photographer, artist, and empty nester. She owns two websites where she publishes frequently: ChiILLiveShows.com (adult) & ChiILMama.com (family friendly).
Happy Birthday Mars Rover by Preston Choi, directed by Kara Toll.
Performances take place on the second floor at Mrs. Murphy and Sons Irish Bistro on select dates this summer, from June 19th - July 5th. Tickets for this production are pay what you can, with suggested prices ranging from $15-$30+ per ticket. Tickets can be purchased through Sandbox’s website or directly from Ticketsource.
Synopsis:
The Mars Rover sings Happy Birthday to itself as it searches for life on Mars as humans back on Earth search to understand what life is. A medley of snapshots, from cave people naming abstract concepts, bubbles that scream when popped, housewives battling existential dread, cows trying to get to heaven, and
the last human on Earth collecting jars of hair. Happy Birthday Mars Rover is a darkly comedic and whimsically morbid attempt to understand the human condition and life itself.
The cast of Happy Birthday Mars Rover includes Ruby Gibson (she/her, Actor One: “Daughter-ish"), Cooper Eidson (they/them, Actor Two: “Son-ish”) Coco Fernandez (she/they, Actor Three: “Mother-ish”), Gustavo Duran (he/him, Actor Four: “Father-ish”), Emma Marie Montoya (she/they, Actor Five: “Grandmother-ish”), and Nathan LoPinto (he/him, Actor Six: “Grandfather-ish”)
The creative team of Happy Birthday Mars Rover includes Preston Choi (he/him, Playwright), Kara Toll (she/they, Director), Francis Brenner (he/him, Stage Manager), Kate Samuels (she/her, Assistant Stage Manager), Madison Smith (she/they, Fight & Intimacy Coordinator), Rachael Dec (she/her, Movement
Director), Nathan Keiller (he/him, Lighting Design), Emilie Wingate (she/her, Puppet Design), Juan Barrera (he/him, Set Designer), Dugan Kenaz-Mara (he/him, Props Designer), Liza Kolesnik (any pronouns, Costumes), Ave Fitzgerald (she/they, Costumes), and Kate Schnetzer (she/her, Sound Design)
About Preston Choi:
Preston Choi is a Los Angeles based playwright whose work focuses on social science fiction, Asian-American/mixed race/queer lives, and the horror of being alive. His plays include Happy Birthday Mars Rover (2022 Planet Earth Arts Playwriting Award, 2022 Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award), performing class (2021-2022 NNPN Bridge Program, 2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series), A Great Migration or The Migratory Patterns of the North American Monarch Butterfly and the Development of Fatherless Sons (2021 Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award, 2019 NNPN National New Play Showcase, 2017 Agnes Nixon Award), and This Is Not A True Story (2018 CAATA ConFest). His plays have been developed with Interact Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, Artist at Play, Silk Road Rising, CAATA, The Passage Theatre, and Our Perspective. He received a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Playwriting from UC San Diego.
About Sandbox Theatre Collective:
Sandbox Theatre Collective exists to cultivate a supportive theatrical community in pursuit of exciting art and more fulfilled theatre artists. At Sandbox, artists of all levels work together to create the theatre of their dreams while expanding their skills and exploring their curiosity. Founded in 2022, Sandbox Theatre
Collective began as a small group of Chicago artists looking to create a space where theatre-makers of all backgrounds could show up and create their own work. Since that first day, we’ve embraced a non-hierarchical leadership structure, put our focus into new and reimagined works, and created opportunities for as many local artists as possible. In the past three years, we’ve mounted full productions, performed in living rooms and local businesses, and produced multiple new play development workshops (and a new musical workshop!).
Tickets for this production are pay what you can, with suggested prices ranging from $15-$30+ per ticket. Tickets can be purchased through Sandbox’s website or directly from Ticketsource.
Preston Choi is a Los Angeles based playwright whose work focuses on social science fiction, Asian-American/mixed race/queer lives, and the horror of being alive. His plays include Happy Birthday Mars Rover (2022 Planet Earth Arts Playwriting Award, 2022 Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award), performing class (2021-2022 NNPN Bridge Program, 2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series), A Great Migration or The Migratory Patterns of the North American Monarch Butterfly and the Development of Fatherless Sons (2021 Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award, 2019 NNPN National New Play Showcase, 2017 Agnes Nixon Award), and This Is Not A True Story (2018 CAATA ConFest). His plays have been developed with Interact Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, Artist at Play, Silk Road Rising, CAATA, The Passage Theatre, and Our Perspective. He received a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Playwriting from UC San Diego.
About Sandbox Theatre Collective:
Sandbox Theatre Collective exists to cultivate a supportive theatrical community in pursuit of exciting art and more fulfilled theatre artists. At Sandbox, artists of all levels work together to create the theatre of their dreams while expanding their skills and exploring their curiosity. Founded in 2022, Sandbox Theatre
Collective began as a small group of Chicago artists looking to create a space where theatre-makers of all backgrounds could show up and create their own work. Since that first day, we’ve embraced a non-hierarchical leadership structure, put our focus into new and reimagined works, and created opportunities for as many local artists as possible. In the past three years, we’ve mounted full productions, performed in living rooms and local businesses, and produced multiple new play development workshops (and a new musical workshop!).
Tickets for this production are pay what you can, with suggested prices ranging from $15-$30+ per ticket. Tickets can be purchased through Sandbox’s website or directly from Ticketsource.
