We highly recoomend attending this most anticipated Sc-fi event coming to Chicago, IL! Read on for more details.
(Chicago) Otherworld Theatre Company is proud to present the 3rd annual Paragon - a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Play Festival. Paragon is performed at The Public House Theater 3914 N Clark St., Chicago. Paragon is the largest Science Fiction and Fantasy play festival in the world and features 40 Science-Fiction and Fantasy plays performed over 2 days. Collaborating with hundreds of theatre artists, locally and internationally to increase exposure for an underserved theatre genre, Paragon has become an annual festival and a unique part of Chicago’s diverse cultural landscape. The Paragon Play Festival is curated by Otherworld Theatre Company’s Literary Manager Elliott Sowards and Otherworld’s Artistic Director, Tiffany Keane Schaefer for the third year running. The 40 plays chosen are a small sample of the hundreds that were submitted from all over the world.
Ticket prices for PARAGON are $10 per block, $20 for a single day pass, or $30 for a full weekend pass. Tickets may be purchased at the door, or by visiting OtherworldTheatre.org/Paragon2017 Street parking is available and The Public House Theatre is ADA and CTA accessible by Red Line Sheridan/ #22 Clark Bus and #9 Ashland bus. FAST FACTS: PARAGON 2017 WHAT: Otherworld Theatre Company’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Play Festival, performing 40 short plays in 2 days. WHEN: Performances
Saturday, November 11th, 11AM – 5:30PM
Sunday, November 12th, 11AM – 10PM WHERE: The Public House Theater
(3914 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60613) FULL SCHEDULE AVAILABLE HERE
Chosen plays for Paragon represent playwrights from 14 states, as well as Canada and Australia. Otherworld Theatre’s Literary Manager, Elliott Sowards says: “Paragon is not just the largest Science Fiction and Fantasy Play Festival in the world (40 plays in 2 days). It's a yearly collaboration of over 100 talented artists throughout the Chicago theatre community who learn first hand, through their productions, how well Sci-Fi and Fantasy translates to the stage. We've been fortunate enough to have Chicago award winning directors participate in Paragon every year. For most of them, Paragon was their first experience working on Sci-Fi and Fantasy Theatre. If we can inspire these talented artists to take their experience with Paragon and go out in the world and create more Sci-fi and Fantasy Theatre on their own, than we've really made an impact on growing this genre." Some of the Playwrights for this year’s festival include:
Scott C. Sickles Scott received the 2016 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Composure and won the 2016 Dayton Playhouse FutureFest for Shepherd’s Bush. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and internationally. He is a trree-time Writers Guild of America Award-winner for General Hospital and a five-time Emmy nominee.
E. M. Lewis Lewis received the Steinberg Award for Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for outstanding writing of a world premiere play, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, and the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama. Her play Now Comes the Night premiered at 1st Stage, as part of the Washington, DC-wide Women's Voices Theater Festival, and will be published in the anthology Best Plays from Theater Festivals, 2016. She is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, ASCAP, and the Dramatists Guild. She lives in Oregon.
Derek McPhatter Derek is currently a Tutterow Fellow with Chicago Dramatists where he is developing a new work on American ambition and a Resident Playwright with the National Black Theatre in Harlem, where he is developing a new work as part of their season of black joy. His plays have been presented by The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Horse Trade Theater Group, and Harlem9 among others, with awards from the Jerome Foundation, Harlem Stage, and the United States Embassy in the U.K.
Matt Crowley Matt is a writing fellow at The Onion. He has also contributed writing to The A.V. Club, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, CollegeHumor, and Splitsider, and his short plays for the stage have received over 50 productions in 12 states. He is, sadly, not related to Aleister Crowley. About Otherworld Theatre Otherworld Theatre Company was founded in June 2012 with the mission to bring a theatrical experience to the science fiction and fantasy genre. Our work celebrates the depth of human imagination by engaging our spectators with high quality storytelling. Otherworld Theatre also curates events to create dialogue between patrons and artists, furthering our connection to the Chicago community. Otherworld has been featured in several newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks including: American Theatre Magazine, The Lark, and WGN Radio. Visit the Otherworld virtually at OtherworldTheatre.org and on Twitter (@OtherworldThtre), Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
