This three-week showcase features clowns, monologuists, cabaret singers, stage magicians, dancers, and even a cantor. Performers from Chicago are augmented by artists from around the U.S.–New York to California and Minnesota to Hawaii–as well as from Russia, Brazil, and Canada. Produced, as it was last year, by John T. Mills and James Ellis, the Fringe Fest runs through June 23, with shows six days a week–as few as 3 on weeknights or as many as 21 on weekends. (The weekends of June 8 and 9 and 15 and 16 also feature a free outdoor buskers festival on Buckingham and Clark from noon to 10 PM on Staurday and noon to 10 PM on Sunday.) Most performances take place at the Organic Theater, 3319 N. Clark. (The listings below specify which of the Organic’s three spaces each show is in: the South Hall or Lab Theater, both located in the second-floor Organic Greenhouse, or the main stage, whose entrance is on Buckingham just east of Clark.) Selected performances also take place at the Annoyance Theatre, 3747 N. Clark. The phone number for ticket orders is the Organic box offlce: 327-5588. Tickets range from $4 to $12 (including children’s, seniors’, and student discounts) depending on the show; prices for each show are listed below. (A “Fringe Passport” good for 25 performances costs $50.)
This trio of jugglers hails from Brunswick, Maine. Annoyance Theatre, 7 PM. $6-$10.
I Killed My Sorrow, or Solo for a Mad Piano
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Brooklyn-based actor Maureen Brennan’s one-woman show employs dance, mime, and monologue to dramatize Emile Zola’s 1868 tale of a woman who rebels against sexual convention. Organic South Hall, 8:30 PM. $7.
“Metaphysical vaudevillian” Lloyd Brant, who hails from Minneapolis, describes his one-man show as “Beckett dropping acid with the Marx Brothers on a trip through Purgatory.” Organic Lab Theater, 9 PM. $12.
FRIDAY, JUNE 7
The Caterpillars
