Pictured: TUTALab 2017 ‘s RADIO CULTURE Director Amber Robinson.

TUTA Theatre Chicago has announced the lineup for TUTALab 2017; a performance incubator series aimed at developing new visions of classic and lesser-known texts with this year’s lab featuring pieces that represent a diverse range of global perspectives, spanning across a century of dramatic literature.

Past TUTALab projects have received further development in residency at the Chicago Cultural Center, and full productions at The Side Project and DCASE Storefront Theater.

TUTALab 2017 Line-Up (from the press release):

THE MAN WHO TURNED INTO A STICK
by Kōbō Abe
Directed by Aileen McGroddy
Wednesday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m.

One of Japan’s foremost 20th Century writers, Kōbō Abe’s three short plays compose an absurdist triptych of birth, life and death. We follow the arc of a central actor as he plays the titular object in The Suitcase, a boxer in decline in The Cliff of Time, and The Man Who Turned Into a Stick. This workshop presentation explores the threads of physical action and elegant absurdity that pull us through the three plays.

DON JUAN RETURNS FROM THE WAR
by Ödön von Horváth
Translated and Directed by Brad Gunter
Sunday, June 5, 6:00 p.m.

Written during the run up to the second great war, Don Juan Returns from the War looks back to the aftermath of WWI, as the slightly-past-his-prime Lothario returns to a Germany populated entirely by women. Professing to have abandoned his seductive lifestyle, Don Juan seeks out the one girl he regrets abandoning, only to struggle with his old ways. This new translation explores the conflict between the roles we imagine of ourselves and those society casts us in, as well as the all-too-familiar tendency to repeat destructive patterns when offered the chance to create a new world.

RADIO CULTURE
by Maxim Dosko
Directed by Amber Robinson
Saturday, July 22, at 7:30 p.m.

Winner of “Best Experimental Writing” in the 2014 International Contest of Contemporary Drama, Radio Culture is a portrait of the Everyman in Belarus. The only change in his life: he has recently begun to listen to the radio, the “Cultural” channel. Though he himself is unable to articulate why, the radio becomes his refuge and constant companion. A structurally innovative and quietly moving piece, Radio Culture sketches out the disconnect between the “ordinariness” of daily life, and the greater cultural legacy of Eastern Europe.

Aileen McGroddy

Brad Gunter

All TUTALab performances will be held at TUTA Theatre, 4670 N. Manor Ave, in Ravenswood Manor
$5 suggested donation at the door and seating is extremely limited.
To RSVP, visit TUTA’s Facebook events page at https://www.facebook.com/pg/tutatheatrechicago/events/.