On The Move

After 12 seasons, alternative theater company Single Carrot Theatre will perform their final show at their Remington home this June. But while the theater on North Howard Street will be closing, the ensemble isn’t going anywhere. Well, rather, they’re going everywhere.

In an effort to continue their socially relevant shows without being tied to one location, Single Carrot Theatre will start performing in various spaces—early ideas include private homes and abandoned school buildings—around the city. The idea of incorporating unique aspects of each venue into the experience is not a foreign concept to the experimental company, which once performed Promenade on various city streets while the audience rode a bus from location to location.

“We’re just honing in on the elements of the work we’ve been doing that excite us the most and that we think have been the most exciting for audiences,” says artistic director Genevieve de Mahy. “We’re thinking about social relevance and activating neighborhoods in different parts of the city that may be less seen.”

Single Carrot Theatre now has a brand-new mission and format, but before they move into this new era, there’s one more story to tell in Remington. On April 26, the company will premiere Pink Milk, a reimagining of codebreaker Alan Turing’s life story from Chicago-based playwright Ariel Zetina, who is working with Single Carrot to revisit the play’s text and score for the first time since writing it in 2014.

“It’s a piece about Alan Turing and the parts of his life outside of his work, who he might have been internally, and the interpersonal relationships in his life,” says director Ben Kleymeyer. “The play is a look back at Turing as this queer figure from history through the eyes of a modern trans woman who is now reclaiming the history that has been erased.”

That Pink Milk will be the last piece performed on the Single Carrot stage is no coincidence. The play not only epitomizes the types of experimental, inclusive theater that the company has become known for, but its psychedelic, Technicolor setting offers a final chance to use their performance space to its fullest potential.

“This felt like a really good fit in terms of the tricks we’ll be pulling out of our sleeves for lights and sets and things like that,” says de Mahy. “It felt right for this to be the last show we do in a traditional theater space for a while.”