The 34th Annual RHINO FEST Returns June 2 – July 1 At Four Chicago Venues

Curious Theatre Branch has announced the 34th annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival, playing June 2 - July 1, 2023 at four venues across Chicago. The month-long festival of shows will kick off with a special concert event on Wednesday, May 31 at Constellation Chicago (3111 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago) headlined by art/folk/cabaret act The Crooked Mouth. The full line-up will be announced shortly.

Rhino Fest is back in full force for the first time since January 2020, following a pause on all productions in 2021 and a pared-down "Hint of Rhino" in April 2022. Since its inception as one weekend of shows in the Wicker Park neighborhood in 1989, this unique and mutable fringe festival has expanded and contracted to fit the time, and we now find the Rhino in an expansive mood.

Following the 2020 closure of the Prop Thtr storefront space on Elston Ave. (Rhino Fest's longtime home), the festival will run at four venues this year: Facility Theatre (1138 N. California Ave.) in Humboldt Park, Chicago Dramatists (1105 W. Chicago Ave.) in River West and Labyrinth Arts (4477A N. Elston Ave.) and Color Club (4146 N. Elston Ave.), both in the Irving Park neighborhood.

This year's festival will feature plays, music and performances from more than 30 companies and solo artists, with a focus on new work created in Chicago. Among the highlights: A Neighborhood of Starrs (Saturday nights at Color Club), a song-and-spoken-word program curated by Rhino stalwart KellyAnn Corcoran celebrating the work of poet John Starrs, who has the distinction of having performed in every known Rhino Fest since 1989. (Is it true? We think so! Ask him!) Ramona Rotten will stage Yellow (Friday nights at Labyrinth Arts), a performance piece based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's foundational work of feminist horror, The Yellow Wallpaper. Mandi Theatre presents a new production of Fourteen (Sunday afternoons at Chicago Dramatists), the 1919 parlor satire by playwright Alice Gerstenberg of the Chicago Little Theatre Movement. New Curious Theatre Branch company members (and prolific writer/producers) Paul Brennan and Chris Bower will both present new works at Facility Theatre, and much more!

As always, Rhino Fest endeavors to invite in as many participants as possible, both as artists and as audience members. To that end, artists pay no fee to apply or to produce their works, and all tickets are offered at pay-what-you-can pricing, with a $20 suggested price. Tickets and details for all upcoming shows will be available Monday, May 1, 2023 at rhinofest.com.

The event that became the Rhinoceros Theater Festival began in 1988 as an offshoot of the Bucktown Arts Fest, and in its first year featured just two days of performances, including work by Curious Theatre Branch cofounders Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly. Curious went on to produce the Rhino across many neighborhoods and venues over the years, with events variously taking place in Wicker Park/Bucktown, Rogers Park, Andersonville and Avondale; at spaces including the Lunar Cabaret and Full Moon Café, the Neo-Futurarium, the Society for New Things, The Garage, The Firehouse, Remains Theatre and Prop Thtr. In the mid-2000s, Rhino Fest settled at Prop Thtr in Avondale as its long-term base, and Prop and Curious co-produced the festival among a shifting group of curators for many years. Following the closure of Prop's Elston Ave. space in 2020 and a year off during the height of the pandemic, Rhino Fest now returns to its expanded form, producing shows by more than 30 artists at multiple venues.

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