Project BADASS: Supporting Fresh Squeezed Initiatives With OMPF

Since the Fresh Squeezed initiative began at Victory Gardens four years ago, I have had the distinct privilege of introducing over one hundred new artists to our artistic family. 

 Fresh Squeezed is a series of performances geared to attracting younger and more diverse audiences with the acknowledgement that the only way to do that is to foster artists that fit those demographics.  However, it is also about a conversation between history and the present, between different genres of performance, and between audiences experiencing those conversations.

 

I am so excited to be working with Dominic to present The Chicago One-Minute Play Festival for the first time as part of the program.  This is a community based event, and what is theater without the community of artists that fill our stages and the community of spectators we create that work for. 

 

The word that constantly comes to my mind in regards to this project is BADASS.  I mean that, this is going to be badass.  Where else do you get the opportunity to invite over one hundred new artists into the theater at one time?  Also, getting to see emerging writing talent place their work next to masters in the field helps Victory Gardens, and hopefully audiences alike, contextualize things in a new way.  For a theater built on a commitment to new plays, this experience is priceless.

 

That all sounds way heady, and maybe it is sometimes, but trust me, I love silliness and having fun, and I’ve read this year’s plays.  There is going to be plenty of that too.

 

Oh, and maybe the most important part…this year’s festival is going to benefit Fresh Squeezed, so every dollar we make off of our ticket sales is going right back to fund our next big event, a devised work with members of Young Chicago Authors’ Louder Than A Bomb poetry festival.  If you aren’t familiar with Louder Than a Bomb, do yourself a favor and check it out.  You can hear selections from the festival by visiting wbez.org/ltab and if you haven’t seen the amazing documentary, check outlouderthanabombfilm.com.  The documentary is also going to be making a return to the Gene Siskel Film Center May 20-26.  Do do a little poking and see how awesome LTAB is.  Then imagine what Victory Gardens can create when we support a new theatrical work with these amazingly brave artists.

 

I hope you will make it out to The Chicago One-Minute Play Festival.  Visit us online for tickets.

 

-Will Rogers

Associate Producer, Fresh Squeezed

Director, The Chicago One-Minute Play festival