Physical Theater Festival Chicago will return for its 12th edition from June. Physical Theater Festival Chicago brings to our city audience-beloved, virtuosic live performances from around the world that inspire theatergoers and local artists to reimagine what a live theater experience can be and do across cultures, languages, and genres.
Schedule:
7:00 p.m: Being Made in Chicago: Well-Balanced Dads + Sensation(S)
The new Being Made in Chicago series offers two local artists or companies up to 40 minutes each to showcase new work developed from pieces previously presented at Scratch Night.
Well-Balanced Dads is a family-friendly comedy about two dads navigating life after their kids leave the nest. Through partner acrobatics, audience interaction, and a lot of cringey Dad-isms, Dick and Dale take the audience on a camping adventure, complete with a beloved minivan, cheese sticks, and spooky ghost stories. This hilarious duo plays with levity while weaving in deeper themes like finding your inner child, hypermasculinity, and their own relationships with their fathers.
Richie Schiraldi and Britt Anderson (Whisper Theatre) are Chicago-based physical theater artists that have been performing locally and internationally for the last decade. Britt specializes in movement and voice for comedy, clown, solo performance, and story adaptation. Richie focuses in ensemble-devised performance, working on projects that involve dreams and cryptic creatures, and is also a Cyr Wheel performer. The Well-Balanced Dads were born from Broken Planet Show, which toured Chicago for 2 years and went to the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Dads have been seen at the 2022 Scratch Night by Physical Theater Festival, Sanctuary at Aloft Circus Arts, and the Body Passages Residency at Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, where they developed the full length show.
Sensation(s)
Coming back from her venture abroad, a depressed woman beyond the verge of a nervous breakdown seeks answers in her sadness and her senses, questioning the world around her in search of relief and through other, more colorful, worlds that she can escape to and find solace in. Through the use of clowning, movement, and song, this time, she embarks on a journey inward towards reclaiming pieces of herself and perhaps gathering some new pieces along the way.
Amanda Raquel Martinez is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist drawing from the realms of theatre, opera, yoga, songwriting, circus, and dance to create multifaceted work. Originally from the Bronx, she has made her home in Chicago's theatre scene over the last decade and is grateful to present some of her original work with Physical Theatre Festival! Chicago credits include: Circus Quixotic (Actors Gymnasium); Somewhere Over the Border (Teatro Vista); American Mariachi (Goodman Theatre); American Bottom; 33 to Nothing (A Red Orchid Theatre); Ghost Quartet (Black Button Eyes Productions); La Ruta (Steppenwolf); Big Lake, Big City (Lookingglass Theatre); Cinderella at the Theater of Potatoes (Hypocrites); As You Like It; Love, Loss and What I Wore (First Folio Theatre); For the Love Of (Pride Films and Plays); Even Longer and Farther Away (The New Coordinates); El Stories: The Holiday Train (Waltzing Mechanics.) Regional Credits include: Kitty Hawk (Adrienne Arsht Center) Frankenstein (The McCarter Theatre in association with Lookingglass Theatre) Pirates of Penzance (Skirball Theatre Center); Resurrecting Wildflowers (HERE:Arts Center); Pirates of Penzance (Pasadena Playhouse); Pirates of Penzance; The Mikado (Olney Theatre Center.) She is a recipient of a Joseph Jefferson Award for her role in this production.
