Stage 773 to Present WELCOME TO PLEASURETOWN, Begin. 10/4

Pulling from Chicago's most celebrated live lit producers and storytellers, Welcome to PleasureTown will premier for a limited engagement at Stage 773's cabaret space in October. The show, described by its creators as "Prairie Home Companion meets Caligula," blends storytelling, theatre and folk music to create a unique night of poignant comedy.

"What we are birthing is the bastard child of storytelling and theatre," said co-creator and storyteller Erin Kahoa. "We expect it to be a pretty baby."

Conceived by Kahoa (storyteller and Chicago Moth GrandSLAM contender) and Keith Ecker (creator of the popular live lit series Essay Fiesta and Guts & Glory), Welcome to PleasureTown explores the personalities and relationships of the misfit and degenerate inhabitants of an early 20th-century Oklahoma settlement known as PleasureTown, so named because the town's founders intended to create a community built on the principles of hedonism.

Part of the uniqueness of Welcome to PleasureTown is the collaborative spirit that led to its development.

"Erin and I conceived of the overall concept and the general character descriptions," Ecker said. "We then hand-selected storytellers from the live lit community to take the character sketches we provided and flesh out fully realized monologues. We then provided our own editorial guidance and direction to these monologues and passed them along to our musicians. The end result is a beautiful gestalt."

Welcome to PleasureTown will run on October 4 and October 11 at 8 p.m. at Stage 773. Tickets are $15 each and are available at Stage773.com. Future productions are planned for 2014.

The full cast and crew include:

Creators, producers, directors, writers and performers:
Keith Ecker
Erin Kahoa

Writers & Performers:
Ian Belknap (Write Club)
Jen Bosworth (Why Not Me?)
Shannon Cason (The Moth)
Don Hall (WBEZ and The Moth)
Dana Norris (Story Club)
Scott Whitehair (This Much Is True, StoryLab Chicago)

Music by:
River Rising (Megan Deiger & Tim Hazen)

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