Pictured: Playwright Mia Chung

Sideshow Theatre Company has announced the line-up for its 2017-18 Season, launching next spring with the Chicago premiere of Mia Chung’s YOU FOR ME FOR YOU, directed by artistic associate Elly Green. The season concludes next summer with the world premiere of Kristiana Rae Colón’s TILIKUM, directed by Lili-Anne Brown.

“We are living in an unprecedented time in the United States and in Chicago – every day feels like a state of emergency. In our eleventh season, Sideshow is focusing on the issues over which we are most divided and amplifying the stories that might allow us to see each other more fully,” comments Sideshow Artistic Director Jonathan L. Green. “IN YOU FOR ME FOR YOU and TILIKUM, we are telling stories of enemies of the state, displacement, violence, exile, and rebellion.”

Sideshow’s 17/18 Season will also include “The Freshness Initiative,” the company’s commissioning and new play development program, now in its fourth year (date to-be-announced) and the wildly-popular semi-annual event CLLAW (Chicago League of Lady Arms Wrestlers).

Pictured: Sideshow Theatre Company’s 17/18 Season playwrights and directors (l-r), Mia Chung, Kristiana Rae Colón, Lili-Anne Brown and Elly Green.

Sideshow Theatre Company’s 2017-18 Season:

March 4 – April 8, 2018
YOU FOR ME FOR YOU – Chicago Premiere!
By Mia Chung
Directed by artistic associate Elly Green

Two North Korean sisters plan an elaborate escape from the “Best Nation in the World,” only to be separated at the border. Now in two strange and separate worlds filled with outrageous characters, they must navigate barriers of language and bureaucracy, reckon with the ways that culture and country can shape us, and discover that survival requires sacrifice. Playwright Mia Chung weaves myth and striking imagery into a deeply affecting and surprisingly funny adventure, portraying the endless lengths to which two sisters will go to find one another again.

June 22 – July 29, 2018
TILIKUM – World Premiere!
By Kristiana Rae Colón
Directed by Lili-Anne Brown

Tilikum was a king, and the oceans of the world were his. Now, he is a captive in a marine amusement park, doomed to live as an opportunity for profit. Alone behind bars he forgets the feel of freedom, but when fellow prisoners ignite the fires of his memory, he starts down a path that threatens to consume everything. Ripped from the headlines, Kristiana Rae Colón’s Tilikum explores captivity, savagery and rebellion in a vital and visceral blend of theatre, drumming and dance. Poetic and lyrical, Tilikum calls out the power structures – both corporate and human – that ensure continued oppression, and the complicity of those willing to stand by and do nothing.

Sideshow Theatre’s Company’s 2017-18 Season will be presented at its resident home, Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. Tickets will go on sale at a later date. For additional information, visit sideshowtheatre.org.