Returning from One Place to Another:
A Poet's Theatre Showcase

Links Hall presents a month-long festival of poet's theatre, May 2-25. All of these works come out of a tradition which seeks to use theatrical space as a medium for poetic composition. All performances take place at Links Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 7 p.m. Admission is $12. For additional information and reservations, check the Web at www.linkshall.org or call 773/281-0824.

Program One - May 2-4
Collapsible Poetics Theater

Reminiscent of Commedia Dell'Arte in its traveling, portable, rapid set-up qualities, this performance directed by Rodrigo Toscano assembles itself within a given 72 hour period of each performance. Working with resident poets, experienced actors, non-actors, the persistent question asked by the performers is, "Can the poem be tested any further?"

Program Two - May 9-11
The Widow Party

The Widow Party is collaboratively written and performed melodrama, Wild West show, political thriller, pageant, and farce. With song, dance, projections, sound effects, and mimicry of preposterous acts, visions and revisions of characters, media, genres and events will change, interrupt, and harmonize with each other.

Program Three - May 16-18
Louis Zukofsky's Rudens and Fiona Templeton's Bluebeard

Templeton directs two plays: Rudens is a very seldom performed work, based on The Rope by the Roman comic playwright T. Maccius Plautus. It combines a number of strategies of textual conversion, and is translated to English phonetically by using the sound of the original language. Bluebeard is about two people imagining how each other think, what each other fears or desires, and what each fears or desires of the other. It is a ventriloquial work, in which the onstage action or even speaker may belie the subject of the speech.

Program Four - May 23-25
Five New Works

Carla Harryman is known for her genre-disrupting prose, poetry, and performance works. Recent performance works have emphasized polyvocal text, bilingualism, choral speaking voices, and music improvisation. This program infuses improvisational electronic sound, choral and sound-based performance writing, and Poet's Theater in five new works: Sue, Adorno's Noise, and Mirror Play by Carla Harryman, Bad History by Barrett Watten, and I/Mouth by Ron Allen.

Additional Event - 5/3
Poet's Theatre Panel Discussion

This free panel will provide context for and insight into the work of the artists performing throughout the Poet's Theatre festival. Panelists will examine such questions as: What is Poet's Theatre, and is it its own genre, a hybrid genre, or a way of resisting genres? How have poetry and performance influenced one another over the past century? How does the idea of Poet's Theatre relate to larger questions about the avant-garde? What is the future of Poet's Theatre? Admission is free. The conversation begins at 2 p.m. at Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone.