In December of 2008, The Neo-Futurists will celebrate the company?s 20th anniversary, a milestone we will commemorate throughout 2009 with a variety of special events and programming. We are an ensemble devoted to writing, directing, and performing theater that is fun, candid, and current. We have earned a reputation for high-energy, whip-smart live performance that reflects and questions the state of the world. Fifty weeks a year, we present the constantly evolving production Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, 30 Plays in 60 Minutes, the longest-running all-original show in Chicago theater history that has employed 69 ensemble members to date. Too Much Light premieres over 325 short plays each year. As of this writing (March of 2008), Too Much Light has presented over 6,400 twominute world premieres. Each season since 1996, we have presented a full prime-time season of full-length, world-premiere productions written by members of our ensemble. The Neo-Futurists tour Too Much Light to schools, colleges, and other venues; we conduct post-show discussions; we teach workshops and classes in Neo-Futurism, both at our theater in Chicago and around the country; and we make frequent in-kind contributions to area non-profits. The company?s programming reaches an annual audience of nearly 30,000 people. At a time when most theaters struggle to attract young people, the overwhelming majority of our audience is under age 25. Our racially and ethnically diverse audience comes to us from across the socio-economic spectrum from a wide geographical distribution throughout the city of Chicago and surrounding suburbs. In 2007, we were named as one of only ten companies in the nation to receive a two-year audience development grant from the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) New Generations/Future Audiences program as the result of our demonstrated ability to reach the underserved youth audience. We brought Too Much Light to the Capital Fringe Festival at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington D.C., where it sold out for a week, have already returned for another sold-out engagement in January of 2008, and have been invited to return once again in the fall of 2008. In addition to extensive local media coverage, the company has been profiled in a wide array of national media, including The Village Voice, Harper?s Weekly, The New York Times, American Theatre Magazine, Variety, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal, to name a few. The company is finalizing an extensive and rigorous strategic planning process that will determine our course for the next three years, and includes expanding our educational outreach, re-articulating our mission, and increasing touring opportunities, among several other initiatives.

The Neo-Futurists are a collective of wildly productive writer/director/performers who create: ? Theater that is a fusion of sport, poetry, and living-newspaper. ? Non-illusory, interactive performance that conveys our experiences and ideas as directly and honestly as possible. ? Immediate, unreproducible events at headslappingly affordable prices. ? Work that embraces those unreached or unmoved by conventional theater ? inspiring them to thought, feeling, and action.

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, 30 Plays in 60 Minutes will play for 50 weeks in our Andersonville theater, the Neo-Futurarium, and will tour to theaters, colleges and universities, and schools around the country. The show has a rotating cast of 5-8 Neo-Futurist writer/performers and introduces 2- 12 new short plays each and every week. Fake Lake by Sharon Greene, Aug ? Sept 2008. The show weaves together the events of an intense trip Ms. Greene took to Utah?s Lake Powell with the story of this manmade body of water. The production will take place in and around the Chicago Park District?s indoor pool at Welles Park. A live DJ will join the cast of five to create a live soundtrack for the action of the show. Fake Lake has been named an NEA Access to Artistic Excellence grant recipient, and the rental fee for the pool will be deferred in exchange for a series of free kids? performances of Too Much Light for the Welles Park Summer Camp. A Very Neo-Futurist Christmas Carol, curated by Kristie Koehler Vuocolo, Nov ? Dec 2008. Continuing the tradition of the ?guided tour? show (Crime and Punishment, Alice, Mr. Fluxus, etc.), NFCC will involve a series of short pieces created by ensemble and guest artists inspired by the resonant and timeless themes of greed, loss, and redemption in the Dickens classic. Beer, by Steve Mosqueda and Sean Benjamin, Jan ? March 2009. By adopting the simple, straightforward style of a fairy tale, Beer will both chronicle the artisan process of brewing beer to create a timely parable regarding notions of ?purity? and armed conflict. The show will involve puppetry and highly physical performance to convey its layered story. TML 20, curated by Jonathan Mastro, April ? June 2009. Too Much Light is an undeniable cultural phenomenon that has transformed the landscape of Chicago theater. This constantly changing show has been in production since 1989, making it the longest-running all-original show in the city?s history, and reaching an audience of half a million people. TML 20 will unite current and former Neos to perform a rotating lineup of new and existing plays from the show?s archive of over 6,400. Each weekend will have a new cast and new lineup of plays, and will include a special series of panel discussions, workshops, and readings. Strange Interlude, by Eugene O?Neill. Feb 2009. Founding Director Greg Allen will participate in a monthlong festival celebrating the works of master dramatist Eugene O?Neill that includes companies from Brazil, the Netherlands, the UK, and Chicago. Mr. Allen has selected this incredibly demanding (and equally weird, since all the characters speak their subtext) seldom-produced play, which he will adapt (trimming it down from its original 5-hour length) to heighten the self-referential text and plumb it for more modern thematic resonances. As always, the ensemble will continue to teach classes, residencies, and workshops at our theater and at schools and colleges around the country