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The Hysterical Alphabet |
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Saturday, August 2, 2008 A Live Audio-Visual Performance Terri Kapsalis, Danny Thompson, and John Corbett, ca 70 min. Hysterical historia. Historical hysteria. The ABCs are seized by a convulsive fit in Terri Kapsalis' The Hysterical Alphabet, each letter introducing an episode direct from the annals of medical lore. Backed by Danny Thompson's disquieting film collages and John Corbett's vinyl manipulations, The Hysterical Alphabet tracks centuries of female malady, disproving the theory that time heals all wombs. A Theater Oobleck production. The Hysterical Alphabet is a live audio-visual performance.
Writer, sound-artist and curator John Corbett teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is the co-director of the art gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey. He was artistic director of the Berlin JazzFest in 2002, and he co-curated "Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago" at the Chicago History Museum (2008). Since 1988, he has taught at the School of the Art Institute. Corbett enlisted his sound effects skills in Oobleck's 1992 production of live radio plays. Danny Thompson is a founding member of Theater Oobleck, for which he has written too many plays, including "Necessity," "The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett as Found in an Envelope (Partially Burned) in a Dustbin in Paris Labeled "Never to be Performed. Never. Ever. Ever. Or I'll Sue! I'll Sue from the Grave!!!," and "Big Tooth High-Tech Megatron vs. the Sockpuppet of Procrastination." In addition he has appeared in twenty-five Theater Oobleck shows. "The Complete Lost Works . . ." was given the "Comedy Excellence Award" at the 2000 New York Fringe Festival, "Top Ten of the Fest" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and extensively toured the United Kingdom. He currently lives in Worcester, MA, home of the monkey wrench, the rickshaw, the steam calliope, the first perfect pitched game of Major League Baseball (1880), Robert Benchley, Abbie Hoffman, Sam Fuller, and the yellow smiley face. Terri Kapsalis' recent fiction, "Most Beautiful Experiments," was published in Parakeet and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other writings have appeared in the Baffler, new formations, Public, and Lusitania. She is the author of Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum (Duke University Press). She is a founding member of Theater Oobleck and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. |
