The cast of THE INFINITE WRENCH. Photo by Joe Mazza

The Neo-Futurists have announced their 2017-18 Season, continuing their journey to 10,000 short plays through the first year of their new flagship show, THE INFINITE WRENCH. The ensemble of fifteen, having recently added five new members, brings three full-length Prime Time productions to their 29th season: TANGLES AND PLAQUES created by Kirsten Riiber, A STORY TOLD IN SEVEN FIGHTS created by Trevor Dawkins, and EMPTY THREATS created by Lily Mooney. Neo-Lab enters its third year as the company’s initiative to invite audiences into the development of new work, presenting Nick Hart’s REMEMBER THE ALAMO. THE INFINITE WRENCH continues its ongoing run,  and their annual tradition of presenting the best plays of the year will return, along with Nick Hart’s original 60 SONGS IN 60 MINUTES. All shows are held at The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, unless otherwise noted.

The Neo-Futurists’ 2017-18 Season (from the press release):

TANGLES AND PLAQUES
October 12 – November 18, 2017
Created by Kirsten Riiber
Directed by Neo-Futurist Artistic Associate Jen Ellison

Neo-Lab’s 2016-17 commission, Tangles & Plaques attempts to demystify the experience of dementia in the language of theatre—offering a vivid, poignant, participatory experience that is unique to each audience and different every performance. Ensemble Member Kirsten Riiber, Director Jen Ellison and Memory Care Director Alex Schwaninger conduct a symphony of impossible tasks and egregious forgery with the help of the audience and a cast including Riiber, Kaitlyn Andrews, Ida Cuttler, Justin Deming, Mike Hamilton, Nick Hart and Dan Kerr-Hobert. The ensemble interrogates the life and death of memories— how they persist, when they depart and the ways they distort over time.

A STORY TOLD IN SEVEN FIGHTS
March 1 – April 7, 2018
Created by Trevor Dawkins
Directed by Tony Santiago

A Story Told in Seven Fights finds Creator Trevor Dawkins leading a group of stage combatants smashing their way through the true stories of fistfights and theater riots that erupted within the Dadaist and Surrealist movements at the turn of the 19th century. This will be Dawkins’ second Prime Time creation and the Neo-Futurist debut for former Oracle Productions’ Tony Santiago.

EMPTY THREATS
May 10 – June 16, 2018
Created by Lily Mooney

In Empty Threats, writer-performer Lily Mooney pits different realities against each other in a dark, meta-theatrical experiment, to see who or what survives. The show begins with a fictional character and setting, but is soon invaded by its own author, a “real person,” who takes her creation hostage and stages an interrogation. Alternately stark and hallucinatory, Empty Threatsexplores the violence, the imagination, and the responsibility tied to the task of learning what’s true and what’s not.

2017-18 Neo-Lab presents: REMEMBER THE ALAMO
First Workshop Presentation: Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 at 7:30pm
Created by Nick Hart
Tickets: $8

Nick Hart will take over The Neo-Futurist Theater, refuse to leave, and obstruct all production in the theater until the audience, actors and management work with him to recreate the Battle of the Alamo in its entirety, leading to its sad bloody conclusion.

THE INFINITE WRENCH
Open Run
Created, Written and Performed by The Neo-Futurist Ensemble
Fridays and Saturdays at 11:30 p.m.; Sundays at 7 p.m.
Every weekend except December 15-17 and 22-24, 2017
Best of performances December 1-3 and 8-10, 2017

The Infinite Wrench is The Neo-Futurists’ mechanism for unleashing a barrage of two-minute plays for a live audience. Each week, the new plays offer something different for that audience—some are funny, others profound. Some are elegant, disgusting, topical, irreverent, terrifying or put to song. All of the plays are truthful and tackle the here-and-now, inspired by the lives of the performers. The Infinite Wrench is The Neo-Futurists’ ongoing and ever-changing late-night show, engaging those unreached or unmoved by other types of theater.

60 SONGS IN 60 MINUTES: Mayfly’s Childhood Torn Into Traffic Light Cycles
December 14-16, 2017
Created by Ensemble Member Nick Hart with Andrew Tham

A small ensemble of musicians and artists creates a collage of sound and noise, using anything they can find to write and perform 60 original songs in 60 minutes, featuring special mystery guest artists.