The Beast Women Are Back!

The Beast Women are back by popular demand to take center stage at the 2012 Naked July Festival, and if you saw their performances at last year’s event, you will know why. These talented performers really know how to turn up the heat, and you can be sure that they will add a new dimension to the theme of Naked July 2012—Rise From the Embers.

The Beast Women will perform on the NPT stage only twice this year, so you will have act now in order to get seats for the performances. As you can see by the lists of performers below, each of the two shows features a different group of performers. The acts feature a variety of performance styles, and each ensemble member has been asked to use the “Rise From the Embers” theme as an inspiration for her work. In keeping with the spirit of Naked July, the Beast Women will be taking their acts to exciting new levels of sensuality. To give a sense of what audiences can expect, Jill Erickson, one of the founders of the Beast Women ensemble, suggests, “As always we are going to uncover our ladies in all possible ways--physically, mentally, comically, and erotically.”


Thursday, July 26th At 8:00pm - Hosted By Michelle Power

Alicia Sowisdral - Storyteller/Spoken Word Artist

Diana Carlson - Comedic Burlesque Performer
Marianne Schaefer a.k.a. Gillian Holloroyd - Erotic Poet

Sarah Heston – Modern Dancer

Caitlin Bergh - Standup Comedian
Holliwood Monroe - Singer/Burlesque Artist

Po' Chop - Burlesque Performer

Robin Fine - Poet

Roberta Miles – Monologist

Sunday, July 29th At 8:00pm - Hosted By Michelle Power

Viktoria - Russian Belly Dancer
Kristin Clifford - Standup Comedian

Elle Cassaza - Singer/Guitar Player

Bella Canto - Burlesque Performer

Kamani Raqs - Belly Dancer
Red Hot Annie - Burlesque Performer

Shannon Unick - Poet 

Colleen Lawson - Poet

Marianne a.k.a. Gillian Holoroyd  - Erotic Poet

Sarah Heston – Dancer

The fun starts tonight on the National Pastime Theater stage and continues again on Sunday. Thanks to Hunter Mathews for sharing the photos used in this story.

The Art of Naked July

With a headline show whose title includes an allusion to a famous surrealist artist, it is not surprising that art plays a central role in the 2012 Naked July Festival at the National Pastime Theater. There are fine art pieces for sale in the theater lobby, a beautiful large hand-painted backdrop in the main theater space, and performers who are “costumed” in nothing more than make-up and body paint. The person who has been directly involved in all of these endeavors is Gary Schirmer, a local artist who has been involved with the Naked July events for the past several years.

Gary Schirmer, shown here during a pre-show body painting session with actor Michael O’Toole, is a working artist and educator who has worked from the human form his entire artistic career. He experiments with multiple media such as chalk pastel, oil paint and oil pastel, ink and watercolor, and mixtures of those media. He combines portraiture and anatomical study with formal considerations of composition and surface treatment. He is the curator of the Naked July fine art gallery in the theater lobby again this summer, and he has assembled a very diverse and visually striking collections of art pieces.

Gary also plays an integral role in the production of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot since he does the body painting work on four of the actors in the show. His painting work on Virginia Marie (Gabriela) and Michael O’Toole (Moon) supplements the costume designs created by Molly Kral, but his work on Alison Chemers (Cat) and Cameron Peart (Coyote) is even more critical since these two actors perform completely nude except for the painted designs he applies before each performance. In the sequence of photos below showing the painting process on Alison Chemers, Gary uses a series of French curve templates and an airbrush to create the soft and sensual shapes that are fitting for the domestic housecat character that she plays. The pastel colors applied by airbrush and standard paint brush add to the visual effect.

Schirmer uses a different approach and a different set of painting templates when painting Cameron Peart. Her character is the Coyote, a creature of the wild who survives in the harsh desert environment, and so the painted designs here are more angular with a brown palette to suggest the natural colors of the desert. In this sequence of photos, you can see the progress of the painting process from the beginning until the final touches are applied.

When you see the performance of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, you will also see Gary Schirmer’s work on the NPT stage since he painted the large backdrop that is seen throughout the show. It is original work that took many days to complete. The photos below show the painting work in progress.

Don't Miss the Naked July Gallery

Once again, the halls of the lobby of the National Pastime Theater are filled with outstanding examples of artwork created by some of the most talented artists in the Chicago metropolitan area. As you might expect of an art gallery created in conjunction with the annual Naked July festival, the works all celebrate the beauty of the human form. The art pieces on display represent a wide variety of media including ceramics, chalk pastel, charcoal, photography, silkscreen, and mixed media. Gary Schirmer is serving as the curator of the art gallery again this year, and he has included a few pieces of his own work in the collection. Here are some examples of the artwork in the gallery along with some information about the artists who created the pieces.

Jennifer Prucha is a passionate student of art and works extensively from the figure in a number of different mediums. She is also very interested and active in oil and watercolor painting, as well as photography, outside the genre of figure painting.  Her work with the figure has focused on experimentation with medium mixing and handling, the development of textural nuance, and the anatomical subtleties of the human form. Her work has been an invaluable asset to her personal fulfillment and growth.

Dorey Kronick is a mixed media artist, graphic designer, photographer, and an art and music curator who is freshly moved to Chicago from San Francisco. As a nomadic soul, she has worked all over the state of California in the creative field for over three years. Before, during, and after graduating with a BA in Graphic Design and a Minor in Studio Arts in 2009, she's been developing an ever-expanding list of dynamic art/design projects for a wide range of unique clients. A majority of her design work has been done with non-profit organizations, small businesses, entrepreneurs, private clients, musicians, and artists, with the exception of a few corporate clients. Outside of these endeavors, she has also instructed group 5th-9th grade classes in both Graphic Design and Digital Photography, as well as written a Graphic Design summer program curriculum called “Creativity for Life”.

Louis Mustari is a retired professor of Art History from Northern Illinois University and draws regularly from the human form. He also brings local artists together and maintains a drawing group with figure models in Dekalb. His work carries not only a personal discipline, but the discipline of the classical tradition of the rendering of the human form. 

Roy Villalobos is a self-didactic artist who finds in art the way of bringing to light the deepest feelings of the spirit and soul. He believes that art is a cleansing process that exposes the weaknesses and strengths that reside within him and that noble gifts come from a divine source. He leaves his subconscious to guide him through the creation of surrealistic metamorphic human figures. These figures become a reaction of personal experiences lived with all relations searching for the muse that will bring about balance.

More pieces from the NJ collection will be showcased in future blog posts in the weeks ahead. The artwork will be on display during the entire run of the 2012 Naked July Festival, and all of the pieces are on sale. When you come to see the performances on stage this month, be sure to arrive at the theater lobby early so that you have time to look over these outstanding works of art. Members of the NPT staff will be on hand to answer any questions you might have about purchasing a piece of art.

The Cat and the Coyote

In the fabric of magical realism that Jose Rivera has woven in References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, the central character is a woman named Gabriela who moves seamlessly between two worlds. One is the harsh reality of her lonely existence in a bleak desert setting and the other a more sensual dream world filled with an amorous Moon who plays a violin while perched atop an old refrigerator and two anthropomorphic creatures—her household Cat and a wild Coyote with a taste for hot animal sex. We see firsthand the state of her strained relationship with her husband Benito when he returns from a tour of duty in the Middle East, but it is only when Gabriela steps into her fantasy world that we truly grasp the magnitude of her real desires.

The Cat and the Coyote are key players in the dream sequences in the play since their sexual encounters reflect some of the fantasies and sensual desires that haunt Gabriela. The following exchange between the two exemplifies Rivera's poetic style as the Coyote describes the exhilarating power of unrestrained sex:

Coyote:
You scream so hard your ancestors hear you.
 It’s not even sex.
It’s beyond sex.
Beyond bodies, come on, Cat.

Animal on animal.
I’ll knock you around so hard
All nine of your lives will have orgasms.

Cat:
…All nine?

Coyote:

Then you’ll hear little coyote—cats--

Tough mutant sons of bitches
Who love the taste of blood
And the chase and the moonlit night.

Cat:

I can’t do that—I’m fixed.

As Gabriela watches the steamy exchange between the two creatures, we begin to understand the circumstances of her own life and the fact that her relationship with her husband is unfulfilling to her both physically and emotionally.

Keely Haddad-Null and her artistic team have made some creative decisions as to the ways in which the Cat and the Coyote are portrayed on stage in their production at the National Pastime Theater. First, unlike many other productions of Rivera’s play in which these dream world denizens have typically been clothed in costumes of fur or masks, in this play Alison Chemers as the Cat and Cameron Peart as the Coyote play their roles completely nude, covered only in body paint to suggest their animal qualities. It is a bold staging decision that demands considerable poise and courage from these two talented actors, but the result is a visually striking presence on stage that helps draw the audience even deeper into Gabriela’s fantasy world that provides her with a sensual refuge from the harsh reality of her lonely and isolated life in the desert. Second, while the role of the Coyote is typically played by a male actor in most productions of this play, the NPT production features a female actor playing the role. This casting creates a different and powerful tension on stage as we watch the two creatures make sexual advances toward each other, and it also provides another dynamic to the surreal fantasy world that is played out before our eyes.

The Coyote is badly wounded by a violent outburst from the amorous but angry Moon early in the story, and near the end of the play, we see the Coyote pacing slowly and quietly across the stage wearing a diaphanous white gown to suggest her ghostly presence in Gabriela’s dreams. It is a portent of events to come as the final events of the story are played out on stage.

Alison Chemers and Cameron Peart give outstanding performances in their challenging roles, and artist Gary Schirmer is to be congratulated for his work each night to create the surreal animal illusions with his body paint.