ACT OUT OPENING: The Three Musketeers at Lifeline Theatre

The Three Musketeers Through July 21, 2013 Thu & Fri at 7:30pm, Sat at 4pm & 8pm, Sun at 4pm (No performances June 30 or July 4) Lifeline Theatre's thrilling adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' legendary adventure, adapted by Lifeline ensemble member Robert Kauzlaric (adaptor of Neverwhere and The Island of Dr. Moreau) and directed by Amanda Delheimer Dimond, with fight choreography by Matt Hawkins.

Pursuing his dream of becoming a Musketeer, young d'Artagnan travels to Paris, where he befriends the legendary Three Inseparables: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. His acts of bravery catch the eye of King Louis XIII, but ensnare d'Artagnan in the deadly schemes of Cardinal Richelieu and the depraved Milady Clarik. When the love of his life, is kidnapped on the eve of war, d'Artagnan must weigh his loyalties and question the meaning of honor in an age of moral ambiguity. Journey from Paris to London, from countryside taverns to glittering palaces, from a humble Gascon farm to the siege of La Rochelle, in an epic tale of passion, intrigue, and adventure.

Recommended for ages 13 and up.

Based on the classic adventure by Alexandre Dumas 

Adapted by Robert Kauzlaric 

Directed by Amanda Delheimer Dimond

Click here for complete details and to order tickets.      

Summer Camp Music Fest 2013 Photo Filled Sunday Recap #SCamp #SCamp13 #SummerCampFest

Pickin' Workship With Allie Kral, 

The Henhouse Prowlers and More

The SCamp Kids Area

Mud Shots

Sunday... Muddy Sunday

ChiILin' in Chillicothe with ChiIL Live Shows:   Sunday of Memorial Day weekend dawned drizzly.   It was the last music filled day of SCamp 2013.   Our encampment of 5 tents of friends got up and made communal egg sandwiches and French press coffee.   Just because you sleep in the woods doesn't mean you can't brunch like royalty.   Here's our gorgeous, camping spot.

The almighty EGG SANDWICH has become a beloved annual tradition we have down to an art.   We scramble enough eggs for everyone, add sharp cheddar and fresh ground garlic salt, add to buttered bread and enjoy.  A big breakfast is key to surviving a multiday music fest with energy intact.

Most of our group went to see yet another Umphrey's McGhee set (I believe they played something like 9 hours total over the course of the 4 day fest.)   I opted for the intimate, warm & dry "church space" Pickin' workshop with Allie Kral, The Henhouse Prowlers and More.   It was a stellar decision.

We've covered Chi-town's own Henhouse Prowlers and Allie for years.   I had a chance to casually chat with Allie after the workshop.   Summer Camp marked her final sets with Cornmeal after a decade with the band.   She'll be sitting in with several San Francisco bands including Hot Buttered Rum, subbing for a new mama fiddle player this summer.   Click here to see where to follow her adventures.   



Allie said Summer Camp Music Fest is always like a reunion or a homecoming, since she gets to sit in with so many friends she doesn't get to play with otherwise.   That was evident during the rockin' workshop. Here a some of our playful, heat signature shots from the SCamp pickin' jams.   There was some serious heat, lots of laughter, and playful jammin' of the best sort!   

If you follow ChiIL Live Show, you know I shoot shoes.   It's fascinating to me to see where performers get grounded & where they connect to the earth.   I love to see what shoes say about a person, and try to match them later.   Many performers go barefoot or use shoes as an extension of their "stage persona" or costume.   Some of my favorite shots from SCamp13 are the muddy shoes of the Pickin' performers!   Check 'em out.   If a picture's worth 1,000 words, they have tales to tell...   How many can you match to the musicians?

 

SCamp Family Style 
After our morning pickin' jam, we made our annual visit to the Kids' Area.   SCamp is family friendly, too, with a rockin' free play area that includes arts, active fun, and awesome staff that returns year after year. 

  

There's even a designated substance free/quiet zone camping area families can choose to stay in.   The past few years I've had press credentials and come out sans kids so I could work the photo pits and cover late night shows.   Before that, though, we brought the kids to SCamp a number of years and they loved it and are clamoring to come back for 2014.

This year they added a bounce house!  

The adults could learn from the kids when it comes to inevitables like the weather.  Mud was a non issue for them, as it just made SCamp into a giant playground.  Their parents just bagged up their feet so they wouldn't be cold and wet and let 'em play.  I was seriously tempted to kick off my shoes and join them and would have if I didn't have a lap top and expensive camera gear to protect.



Mud Shots

We had planned to see an array of excellent bands all day, culminating with Trey Anastasio & Moe, but severe storms were forecast    The grounds were already a swamp and I didn't want to have to pack up in a downpour Monday morning and schlep all my gear out in more severe mud.   The "parking lot" gets marshy, too, and I didn't want to risk getting stuck.   I heard later that many people had to be towed out of the mud Monday at $60 a pop.   Even with 4 wheel drive I didn't want to wait hours behind all the others getting dragged outta the muck.   





It was a hard call since I missed some major favs like Everyone Orchestra, Avett Brothers,  Ragbirds, North Mississippi Allstars, Van Ghost, Taj Mahal Trio, Lettuce, the above mentioned Trey & Moe, This Must Be the Band, and a late night set of Henhouse Prowlers slated to close the fest at 4am.

This Mama came without her young daughter and missed her, so she made her name in glo sticks and took a photo to send her.   I happened by and loved the visual.    I chose to strike camp during a break in the downpours and get on the road, back to my own kiddos, who were missed, too.   It was the best decision I've made in a long time.   The rains came down with a vengeance, hours earlier than forecast and got so severe they cut Trey's sets short and cancelled the rest of the evening's shows including Moe's final set.





It was a wet & wild ride, but SCamp13 was still full of jammin' tunes, amazing mash ups, fun times with friends, exclusive band interviews, fabulous photo ops, and intimate workshops.
   


Check back with ChiIL Live Shows/ChiIL Mama like we vote in Chi, IL... early and often.   We still have more video band interviews and video footage of the workshops yet to come.

ACT OUT OPENING: 13TH Annual Sketchbook at Collaboraction

Do you like to see creative, thought provoking new works before anyone else?   Hop on board the blue line, green line, brown line, and black line at Collaboraction for a slew of world premiers.   We'll be checkin' out and reviewing the blue and green line shows today.   Last year we did a one day theatre immersion where we saw ALL the Sketchbook plays in one day and it an intense, altering experience.   Highly recommended. 

Flat Iron Arts Building 1579 N. Milwaukee, 3rd Floor Chicago  14 world premiere works of theater    Over 150 participants      Four programs to choose from    Each "line" on the transit map constitutes   a complete mind-blowing theater experience SUNDAY, JUNE 9: THE MARATHON See all 4 Programs in One Day with your Festival Pass! Price Point                            12:00pm  Pentagon   Get Tickets Now! Hospital & WeatherVane 2:00pm Room300   Get Tickets Now! Snapshot & Deadpan Melodrama     5:00pm Pentagon   Get Tickets Now! The Shorts: 9 Destinies with Musical Guest  Antony and the Tramps  7:00pm Room300   Get Tickets Now! Planning on catching the entire festival? Get a Festival Pass and see all 4 programs as many times as you want! Click here to get yours today The Green Line A full-length devised piece   Price Point Co-devised by the ensemble members of Honey Pot Performance:   Felicia Holman, Aisha Jean-Baptiste, Abra Johnson and Meida McNeal Pictured ( clockwise from top left):  Felicia Holman, Abra Johnson, Meida McNeal and Aisha Baptiste-Johnson  Price Point explores notions of fairness and balance, or the lack thereof, in today's economic landscape through a mixture of the tragic and comic. The work combines movement, theater, song and image to examine the state of the American Dream. The Blue Line Two one-act plays with an intermission Hospital Conceived by Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman and Diana Rose and created by Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman, Diana Rose and Robin Toller  & WeatherVane devised by Carolyn Hoerdemann, filmmaker Ann Sonneville and Tony Werner, written by Tony Werner, with creative consultant Jess McLeod    Pictured (from left): Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman, Ann Sonneville, Carolyn Hoerdemann  Hospital A stay at a hospital is a strange and scary theatrical experience. At our most vulnerable moments of losing physical control of our bodies we are asked to surrender emotional and intellectual control, and give our trust to a group of strangers. Hospital brings the audience into the private world of one patient as she journeys through the bizarre and surreal world of the medical system.     Weathervane Christina and Nicole are both outsiders in a system that demands assimilation and loyalty. They married into a powerful family, and Nicole has been guiding her through the process. When Christina's husband goes missing, she goes into hiding. Can she trust the more adapted Nicole and survive the onslaught of the established order?    The Black LIne Two one-act plays with an intermission Snapshot by Brett C. Leonard, directed by Anthony Moseley & Deadpan Melodrama by Bob Glaudini, directed by Scott Illingworth Pictured (from left): Chris Meister, Karl Pontliff, Morgan McCabe, Susan Jamshadi Snapshot The family of a contract killer faces its demons in a battle between amnesia and revenge in this provocative new play by the author of Guinea Pig Solo and The Long Red Road.  Deadpan Melodrama What do parents owe their children? How does a child live up to the expectations of their parents? At 40, Rogers and Trish continue to struggle with who they are and how to live in this world. Their confusion clashes violently with the immobility and inflexibility of their parents.     The Brown Line The Shorts: 9 Destinies Nine short plays of 7 minutes or less Featuring live musical guests every night    Pictured (from left):   Kiley Moore and Aja Wiltshire  The Sorrows of Young Werther  by The Q Brothers, directed by Kimberly Senior featuring Eric Swanson, Torian Miller, Kiley Moore and Mike Hahalyak Young Werther is unlucky in love. He turns from one failed love to pining after an engaged woman. This update on Goethe's classic pokes fun at Werther's misfortune through the lens of his increasingly melodramatic and irrational letters to his friend.    Native American Princess  by Stanley Toledo, directed by Elana Boulos featuring David Seeber, Alex Stage and Aja Wiltshire All relationships start in fantasy. Some fantasies are more extreme than others - as Native American Princess suggests. Believing in fate and true love, Joel follows the signs of the universe, ignoring warnings at every turn.    Everything is Permitted  by Chelsea M. Marcantel, directed by Mignon Stewart featuring Derek van Barham, Ben Gojer, Kanome Jones and Jackie Koester A group of students have constructed their own Dreamachine - a device that can stimulate the brain and induce episodes of lucid dreaming. However, in the hands of these young and inexperienced students, the Dreammachine stimulates greed and obsession as well. Darkness  by Adam Joshua Seidel, directed by Sarah Gitenstein featuring John Crothswaite and Barbara Figgins After 300 years trapped in darkness, Grace is cynical and abrasive. When faced with abandonment by her spiritual advisor, she must determine if her protective outer shell is more important than being honest with herself.    Minus You  by Jennifer Barclay, directed by Paige Riley, featuring Jane Brody and Walter Brody There are those we truly cannot live without, and life without them is distinctly missing something. In the wake of an accident, Lennox and Gracie struggle to reach out for each other and hold on to what they have lost.      Survey No. 5  by Alex Lubischer, directed by John Rooney, featuring Nick Timmons and Lorraine Freund   The audience is polled and drinking games enacted in this sprint across the minefield of breakups and bisexuality.    Shuffle Off  by Gregory Hardigan, directed by Danny Bernardo  featuring Aurora Adachi-Winter, Garrett Lutz, Charlie Oh, Charlie Rasmann, Ray Rehberg, Angelica Roque and Matt Tassell Earl is dying on the side of the highway. His iPod is stuck on shuffle, replaying random moments from his life, trying to find the perfect song to end on, but music can be like life - random and cruel.     Theater McGuiver  co-devised by Jenny Lynn Christoffersen and Jaci Entwistle featuring Jaci Entwistle and Dan Krall Inspired by everyone's favorite TV resourceful Rube Goldberg-esque inventor, one man will enter the theater. Given a task and a box of miscellany he will, through the magic of theater, accomplish his task. The fate of the world is in his hands.    The Most Delicious Little House for Beginners (Clip Her Small to Fit the Boards)  devised and performed by Kelly Rafferty and Heather Warren-Crow Tinkerbell is on uppers, and Wendy is a drunk, desperate housewife who now lives inside the teevee. Together they pine after Peter and sort through the media traces of colonialism that perpetually overwhelm their home in Neverland.

Save the date.   The Decades Project is going to be epic!  June 21 & 22 only.