As Told by the Vivian Girls
As Told By the Vivian Girls
World Premiere devised play
by associate artistic director Devon de Mayo and Dog & Pony's ensemble
Theater on the Lake, Fullerton & Lake Michigan
April 30 - May 25, 2008
In this unprecedented, choose-your-own-adventure promenade staging, audience members wear masks and move throughout the performance space at will creating their own experience. The audience follows 15 characters on separate, overlapping journeys through celebrations, conflicts of faith and acts of war that culminate in a selection of two simultaneous endings.
This Chicago story draws inspiration from renowned outsider artist Henry Darger, a recluse who lived in Lincoln Park and shared his art with no one. His imagination overflowed in his prolific stories and drawings, The Realms of the Unreal, where little girls battled against child slavery. As Told by the Vivian Girls interprets Darger's 15,000-plus pages where innocence is destroyed, allegiances are betrayed, and war rages.