‘ Too Much Light’ creator yanks show from Neo- Futurists
The signature show of Chicago’s Neo- Futurists theater company is going elsewhere.
The show’s creator, Greg Allen, announced Wednesday his intention to pull “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” from the Chicago company he founded and nurtured until leaving its ensemble four years ago.
He said he’ll be forming a new group to present “Too Much Light,” produced on a trademark license that he owns. The hip, popular, fast- paced show features an ever- changing collection of short plays chosen by the audience from numbers hanging over the stage.
The new incarnation will be more political as a reaction to the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president, he said.
“I was searching for an artistic response to the firestorm to come and realized I had to put my strongest artistic foot forward to combat the Trump administration and all of its cohorts,” Allen said in a statement.
A New Year’s Eve performance at the Neo- Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, will close out the show’s 28- year run, the longest in Chicago theater history.
The decision caught the Chicago Neo- Futurists off guard, current artistic director Kurt Chiang said in a statement. “For the past year, the company entered into negotiations in good faith about continuing this facet of our work together,” he said. “While we are disappointed that it has come to this conclusion, throughout our long history with Greg there have been considerable artistic differences and irreconcilable personal conflicts.”
Allen vowed the new “Too Much Light” would incorporate “a specifically socially activist mission.” A cast entirely made up of “people of color, LBTQ+, artist/ activist women, and other disenfranchised voices” will perform at spaces in a variety of Chicago neighborhoods, he said.