Rave Reviews for "Kill Your Boyfriends"

The new play titled Kill Your Boyfriends is one of the featured shows at Naked July 2013 at the National Pastime Theater, and it is getting very strong reviews in many of the local newspapers and theater blogs. The show is directed by Derek Van Barham and is produced by Pride Films and Plays. Marya Hornbacher at the Chicago Reader gives the show a "Recommended" designation, and other writers are effusive in their praise for this compelling and erotic drama. Here is a sampling of the recent reviews:

Chicago Theater Beat (Lawrence Bommer)
“Doing most of the dancing, James Nedrud and Erik Strebig transform their passions into contortions symbolizing repeated sex and the exhaustion that follows. Their approach-avoidance movements translate equally well into passive aggression. Mainly, however, their supple bodies speak for themselves, advertising their youth as much as anything in the action. As they use each other’s bodies like props for their lust, they suggest the literal trust that comes from balancing on your boyfriend. The territoriality of ardor is never more blatant than when competing partners try to pull each other through a picture frame separating their clashing egos. Indulging in appropriate or merely distracting soliloquies, the other four dancer-players are caught up in the lovers’ quarrels or observe the fray from a safe distance. Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but it’s the death of love.” Click here to read the entire review.

Windy City Times (Scott C. Morgan)
“The various texts, spoken largely by Carmen Molina and Christopher Young as a universal bickering couple, serve as a non-linear framing device for the pure dance pieces featuring the fine movement ensemble of Sarah Goldberg, James Nedrud, Erik Strebig and Karen Vance. So amid the largely petty spoken snipes about bedding, privacy, sleep disorders and bed times, there are some incisively silent and powerful dance pieces that can interpretively communicate relationship issues about loneliness, trust, abuse (both physical and mental) and love all along the sexuality spectrum…Particularly good is the amazingly limber and heart-wrenching dance work by Strebig and Goldberg. Though paired mostly in same-sex dance formations, Strebig and Goldberg combine to do a show-stopping dance involving an empty frame that suggests how one partner can manipulate the other by controlling the perceptions self-image and self-worth.”  Here is a link to the entire review.

CenterStage (Colin Douglas)
“Around the dimly lit stage, six young, athletic men and women strip, dress and strip again while performing Van Barham’s steamy, often erotic choreography. Using only a mattress, a stool and a chair, the sextet create couples who seduce, caress, fear their relationships and strain to make it through one more night. The entire company is superb. Expressive and agile, two company members give voice to the text while individuals, pairs and sometimes the entire ensemble physicalize to music what is being verbally expressed. Erik Strebig, however, is a stand-out demonstrating the greatest versatility and athletic prowess. Often paired with Jeff nominee James Nedrud, the couple takes Van Barham’s choreography to new levels, often seeming to defy gravity. This scintillating production is bound to contribute greatly to the summer’s heat.” Click here to read the complete review on the CenterStage site:

There are only three remaining performances of Kill Your Boyfriends, so be sure to get your tickets now before the show closes at the end of July. There is a special midnight performance on Friday, July 26, a performance at 8:00 pm on Saturday, July 27, and a 3:00 performance on Sunday, July 28. You can purchase tickets at the door or use the secure Brown Paper Tickets site to purchase tickets online.

Naked People 2013

If you are looking for something new and inspiring to do on a Friday night in the heart of the Uptown neighborhood, why not make your way over to the National Pastime Theater in the historic Preston Bradley Center to take part in a special program titled Naked People 2013. Gary Schirmer will moderate this special art event that runs from 6:00 pm-8:00 pm on Friday, July 12, and he will showcase many examples of his outstanding nude figure drawings as well as conduct some short demonstrations on figure drawing techniques. The best news is that this is a free event and it is also a BYOB affair. Just stop on by with your favorite beverage and enjoy the casual atmosphere and fine art.

The chances are good that you will enjoy Naked People 2013 so much that you will want to purchase a ticket for the event that follows—Le Chat Noir. Gary Schirmer will continue to lead informal drawing sessions with a variety of nude models. Ticket holders can choose to sit back and watch the activities, but most choose to walk around the studio space to observe the models more closely or take up pastels or pencils themselves to sketch the models. Some even choose to experience what it is like to be a figure model and pose for friends or others in the studio. You can buy tickets at the door or purchase them online using the Brown Paper Tickets web site. 

Vaudezilla: Urban Jungle
Once you are settled in for these Naked July events, you may want to stay on even longer to see the bold and entertaining burlesque show called Urban Jungle performed by the talented members of the Vaudezilla ensemble. Where else can you find beautiful people dressed in NASA space suits, clowns, fan dancers, belly dancers, and other amazing performers all wearing little or nothing in the spirit of Naked July. There are only three Vaudezilla performances left this summer (July 12, 19, and 26), so be sure to get your tickets now before the show closes at the end of the month. More details are available at the Naked July web site. Thanks to Cozzie and Pea Photography for graciously sharing these images of the Vaudezilla performers!

Kill Your Boyfriends
As noted in a previous story, a powerful and intense new drama titled Kill Your Boyfriends opened last Saturday and performances are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday through the end of the month.  The script is taken from selected passages from several noted writers and poets, but it is the erotic and athletic dance numbers that really heat up the stage. The show marks the second year that Pride Films and Plays has collaborated with National Pastime Theater as part of the Naked July Festival, and the bold and fearless performances by all of the actors mesh perfectly with the spirit of the Naked July concept.

The Living Canvas: For the People
Finally, there are two more chances to see The Living Canvas: For the People. Pete Guither’s captivating multimedia experience has been a favorite at Naked July for the past several years, and once again, audience members have the chance to see a talented ensemble of nude performers move through colorful projected patterns and textures as their bodies are transformed into human canvases.

As in past years, there are opportunities for audience participation at the end of each show, and ticket holders have a unique opportunity this summer to join the cast for a workshop on the day of the show, participate in the collaborative process of developing new performance pieces, and even take the stage during the evening show if they wish. Be sure to visit the Naked July web site for more information about The Living Canvas.

Summer is heating up, and as the artistic team at the National Pastime Theater like to remind us, that is when the clothing starts to fall during the Naked July Festival. There is no other event like this on Chicago stages, and since all of the events are BYOB, it is a great chance to relax with your favorite beverages and be inspired by the beauty of the human body. Don’t miss Salon des Naked July: Art Stripped Down this summer.

"Kill Your Boyfriends" is a Killer Hit

As the audience members take their seats, they see two lovers seated on opposite ends of the stage clad only in skimpy underwear as they listen to classic oldies and observe the action downstage center as the other four characters take turns relaxing on a tattered old mattress. Clothes are strewn across the stage, a bit of foreshadowing for the many informal costume changes that take place during the performance. When the lights come up on the first scene, two lovers played by Carmen Molina and Christopher Young are nude as they begin the first of many conversations about their lives and their relationship. Soon after, the mattress is filled with two men and two women who are trying desperately to make it through one more night. We soon discover that Molina and Young will be the only actors to speak and that their words are artfully crafted distillations of the works of noted writers such as Alex Dimitrov, Richard Siken, Sylvia Plath, and Sharon Olds.

The play is titled Kill Your Boyfriends and is produced by Pride Films and Plays under the direction of Derek Van Barham. During the course of the play, Molina and Young explore their feelings about life and love and sex as they sift through memories and experiences that are at once passionate, erotic, depressing, and frightening. These moments in time are expertly captured by the remaining four actors—Sarah Goldberg, James Nedrud, Erik Strebig, and Karen Vance—as they convey the panic and the obsession and the desperate sexual longing that ultimately consume all lovers at some point in their relationships. The scenes are incredibly powerful and intense, and all of the actors deliver bold performances that are punctuated at times with full nudity that artfully add to the intensity and the eroticism of the story.

The title of the play is a reference to lines from a poem by the same name written by Alex Dimitrov:

Kill your boyfriends—kill your boyfriends, ladies.

While they kiss you, just before they say

"I'm close," just before they can forget to miss you.

When they mouth sweet things,

when they ask once more to see you.

Why not kill what's yours?

Why not make it lethal?

You are so in love with love.

You are carving out another heart,

you are filling it with nothing see-through.

You must kill your boyfriends.

You must kill what wants,

like death, to keep you.

The dialogue is also filled with many references to the dark and often depressing world view of Sylvia Plath and other evocative poetic passages such as this line from a poem by Sharon Olds titled “Sex Without Love” that captures so well the underlying theme of the play:

How do they do it, the ones who make love


without love? Beautiful as dancers,


gliding over each other like ice-skaters


over the ice, fingers hooked


inside each other's bodies, faces


red as steak, wine, wet as the


children at birth whose mothers are going to


give them away.

Kill Your Boyfriends is a complex and thought-provoking story, and the narration built from the works of many noted writers and poets meshes well with the actions onstage. The performances delivered by the six talented actors are intense, athletic, and passionate, and the combined effect is an extremely compelling tableaux that draws us closer into the lives of these troubled lovers.

With its erotic message and tasteful artistic nudity, Kill Your Boyfriends is a very fitting addition to the Naked July schedule this summer, and it is a show you will not want to miss. The show will be presented each Saturday in July at 8:00 p.m. and each Sunday at 3:00 p.m. There will also be a special midnight performance on July 26th. If you want to see this compelling new show, just click here to order tickets from the secure Brown Paper Tickets web site.

Le Chat Noir is a Bold Art Experience

Last Friday, the main stage at the National Pastime Theater was transformed into an art studio as several nude figure models posed for a group of people who spent the evening sketching them with pencils and pastels. The same scene will be re-enacted each Friday evening in July from 8:00 pm-9:30 pm as NPT hosts Le Chat Noir as a part of the Naked July Festival. The sessions are modeled after the famous Toulouse-Lautrec salons in Paris in the Nineteenth Century and are moderated by an experienced figure artist named Gary Schirmer.

On this evening, some of the models were posing nude for the first time, and several of the artists were people from the audience who were invited to participate, even though they had no drawing experience. Gary Schirmer provides the easels and the materials for the Le Chat Noir sessions, and he also offers some quick introductory lessons to those who are attempting to do figure studies for the first time. In the spirit of Naked July, some of the artists also chose to be nude including one of the female models who decided to try her hand at sketching after her stint on the modeling platform.

Relaxing Music and a Convivial Atmosphere
From the moment you step into the NPT performance space, you feel that all of the barriers of a traditional art studio have been lifted. Since it is a BYOB event, you are free to bring your favorite beverages and just sit back, relax, observe, or participate as you wish. Zhenia Koval offered live music throughout the evening on June 28, and the dimmed lights created a comfortable environment for those who chose to participate.

All who attend are invited to walk around and talk to the artists and models, but last Friday, nearly everyone decided to do more than merely observe the proceedings. Every easel was in use at one point, and some people tried their hand at both sketching and posing during the evening. The members of the artistic team at National Pastime Theater are striving to create as many opportunities as possible this summer to involve audience members in all phases of the creative process, and the success of the first Le Chat Noir session demonstrates their efforts are bearing fruit.

Naked People 2013
NPT has scheduled a companion piece titled Naked People 2013 on Friday, July 12, to go with Le Chat Noir later that same evening. Naked People 2013 will be held from 6:00 pm-8:00 pm and is billed as an art opening that will showcase the figure work of Gary Schirmer. It is a free event, so interested people may want to come to see Schirmer’s fine work and the NPT performance space during this event. Once they see the art and the inviting environment, they are likely to want to purchase tickets for Le Chat Noir and stay for the evening to become a part of the experience.

After tonight, there are only three remaining Le Chat Noir sessions (July 12, 19, and 26), so time is running out if you want to be a part of the fun. You can find more information about all of the Naked July performances and events by visiting the Naked July web site. You can click here to purchase tickets for any of the remaining Le Chat Noir evenings. You might want to go with a group of friends and make beautiful art together!