Live Bait Theater's Annual Fillet of Solo

“ Live Bait keeps the solo fires burning every summer giving some of the city’s most inventive solo artists a place to hone their skills. Raw, beguiling, mesmerizing, idiosyncratic and ambitious……….the Fillet of Solo Festival features solo royalty as well as solo rookies on their way to the major leagues. “

- Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader

A DREADFUL DAY by BoyGirlBoyGirl
No good deed goes unpunished.

Solo performers: Susan McLaughlin Karp, David Kodeski, Stephanie Shaw, Diana Slickman & Edward Thomas-Herrera.

The show opens on July 11th at and closes Saturday July 19th. The show runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.

ON THE MAIN STAGE

Live Bait Theater and Tellin’ Tales Theatre presents
POTHOLES ON THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT
Roads traveled. Lessons learned.

Solo performers: Tekki Lomnicki, Rob Schroeder, Matt Kerns & Maia Morgan.

The show begins with a preview on Thursday, July 10th at 8 p.m. and opens Friday, July 11th and closes Sunday, July 27th. The show runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

Tellin' Tales Theatre returns to Fillet of Solo for a sixth smash year with POTHOLES ON THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT, which will feature tales of saints, painful estrangements and 4 am bars. Tellin' Tales has been featured on the Live Bait stage with the critically-acclaimed BLURRED VISION, BODY LANGUAGE, SHRINK and 2001: A WEDDING ODYSSEY. www.tellintales.org for more info.

Left to Right and down: Joe Steiff, Margot Bordelon, Gloria Coco,
Paul Thomas, and Rohina

IN THE BUCKET

SAMPLER SUPERSTARS!

Joe Steiff, Rohina, Paul Thomas,
Gloria Coco & Margot Bordelon.

Over the past thirteen years we’ve had some cool, talented and memorable solo artists perform in our Solo Festival and we bring back some of our favorites ( and a few new up and comers) for an evening of the best of the best.

Fr 7/25, Sat 7/26 @ 7:30 and Sat 8/9 @ 7:30 pm

Live Bait is happy to announce that Mary Scruggs’s Jeff-nominated show MISSING MAN is going to New York!

MISSING MAN has been accepted into the prestigious New York Theater Fringe Festival in late August. Live Bait is hosting a special fundraiser to offset her expenses and to give you one last chance to catch her amazing performance. So let’s give Mary a royal send-off to the Big Apple and put a little cash in her pocket at the same time.
Join us on Friday, August 8 at 7:30 pm.

All tickets $25.

Post-show wine and cheese reception.

From left to right: Martie Sanders, Cindy Hanson, Clare Nolan, Dorothy Milne, & Pamela Webster.

ON THE MAIN STAGE

SWEATILICIOUS
Written and performed by the Sweat Girls

Performers: Cindy Hanson, Dorothy Milne, Clare Nolan, Martie Sanders & Pamela Webster.

The show runs August 8th to 10th, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

The Sweat Girls kiss and tell. This crew of cheeky females has been at the crux of the center-stage-soul-baring movement for 15 years.  SWEATILICIOUS features tales of fantasy, desire, and hanky panky. From seducing a priest to kissing the whole baseball team, the Sweat Girls truly embrace their hot mama past and present. The Sweat Girls have been creating monologue shows since 1993.
For more info please visit www.sweatgirls.org.

ON THE MAIN STAGE

STRIP MAULED! THE MUSICAL!
Written and performed by Kristin Garrison

The show runs on August 1st and 2nd at 8 p.m. and August 15th and 16th at 8 p.m.

Kristin Garrison returns to Fillet of Solo with a world premiere that begs the following questions: how many Walgreens does one neighborhood actually require?  And just how many support groups does a person have to join to make some friends around here anyway?  Garrison turns her incisive, comic gaze to the search for community in our increasingly isolated, suburbanized and segmented society.

From left to right and down: Martie Sanders, Gerrit O'Neill and Tom McNamara

ME AND MY DAD STORIES
Written and performed by Martie Sanders, Charlie Sanders, Tom McNamara, & Gerrit O'Neill

The show runs July 31st to August 2nd and August 15th to 16th at 7:30 p.m.

Some of Chicago’s best solo artists tell unforgettable stories about a wide assortment of fathers. An Irish boxer (McNamara), an optimistic gambler (O’Neill) and, last but not least, a 79-year-old Charlie Sanders who pulls out his tap shoes after 40 years and joins his daughter Martie on stage. Three striking monologues about three loveable yet complex dads.

For Fillet of Solo 2004 we hosted some of Chicago’s Finest (yes, real Chicago Police Officers) to recount true tales from the streets. Pictured are Sgt. Stacy Kraft, P.O Tom McNamara and P.O. Tim O' Brien.

Monologue excerpt from Chasing the Radio:

" This death thing comes into play when I argue with my wife.
It adds a sense of urgency to our dispute,
“ we need to resolve this before you go to work because I am not sending you out into the ghetto and having these be the last words I said to you.”
She has said to me, full of tears.
We resolve it of course.

My dreams are more violent, of being shot, of dying,
of killing to stay alive.
It is up to the person behind the badge to pick and choose what stories to tell. And to come home to the family in one piece and sometimes that takes great human effort. I have been witness to those who struggle and I just hope that when faced with it myself, the terror, the emotions, that I can go home too, whole. The truth is I do have a dangerous job.
There are a lot of unknowns that come my way 24 hours a day,
seven days a week and the deadly beast that could be.
And how that beast bleeds into everyday life.
It is up to the officer to deal with the beast.
How do I deal with it? I tap dance. "
- P.O. Tim O'Brien

And Some Can Remember Something of Some Such Thing is inspired by David Kodeski's father's Polish family who came to the U.S. in the early 1900's and settled in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls region. Kodeski never spoke Polish beyond a few words and - this regret is a big part of the show, as is his father's favorite Polka band, led by Chicago's Walter "Li'l Wally" Jagiello.

Monologue excerpt from And Some Can Remember Something Of Some Such Thing:

“ This is the story of it.
My mother’s father Jan Kubarski came from Poland sometime in the 1920s via (Canada?) and settled in Niagara Falls, New York. He worked for Hooker Chemical, one of the dozens of factories that benefited from the cheap hydro-electric power generated by the Falls. He was a married man who had He had left behind his wife Anna and his infant son Mietek. He had been a farmer and did what other men in his position did at that time. He sent money back to Poland to buy more land and more livestock so that his wife and his son could one day afford to join him in America.
Which she did, or so the story goes, and it’s true.

Also true is the story that my great grandmother had also just had a son and would nurse her son, my great uncle John and her grandson, my Uncle Matthew together while my Babci worked in the fields all day.

The story goes that my Babci was fairly relieved by this arrangement.

After a few years of hard work, my Dzadzi sent for my Babci and she joined him in Niagara Falls. She was pregnant when the Depression hit, or so the story goes, and Dzadzi sent her back to Poland where she gave birth to my Cioci Jane. Babci left Poland for the final time two years later. She and Dzadzi would rent an apartment on the second floor of a house that’s visible from “The Polish Nook” – a restaurant at 2242 Cudaback Ave. in Niagara Falls that serves amazingly great homemade Polish food in huge family style portions. It’s where pretty much every family goes to shake off the sadness after burying one of their dear departed. My Uncle Mietek took my brothers and sisters and me out into the parking lot after we buried our mother and pointed out the house. He said, “See that window? That’s where your mother was born.”

Nicole Hollander, artist and creator of the popular nationally-syndicated comic strip Sylvia, explores fantasy sex with ex-flames, overwrought family sagas, and the age-old dilemma that eventually confronts every older woman.

Monologue excerpt from Plastic Surgery or A Really Good Hair Cut:

“ About 8 years ago I noticed that I was ageing. That was a bit late to start noticing. A whole lot of denial was going on. At age 40, I had created a cartoon character who would do my ageing for me. Sylvia would be my mentor. She would hack a path for me with her machete. She would always be ten years older than me. She would always have attitude. As I noticed the signs of ageing in myself, I found I was unable to visit those on Sylvia. So while as a smoker she should have a persistent hacking cough and ugly little lines around her mouth, he skin remains as fresh and unlined as on the day she was born, sometimes she even got thinner while retaining her unlimited appetite for donuts. She was unchanged. I was her picture of Dorian Gray. “