It’s not often that someone finds poetry in trash, but the poets and performers in Unnatural Spaces look at how the perks and conveniences of urban life sometimes have their own environmental consequences.
Unnatural Spaces is a new theater production put on by the Guild Literary Complex (@guildlitcomplex) and its Poetry Performance Incubator, in partnership with Logan Square’s Voice of the City. It will have its world premier at the Hairpin Arts Center (@hairpinarts, 2800 N. Milwaukee), on Oct. 5, and runs Friday, Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m. through October.
The Poetry Performance Incubator is a unique hybrid of poetry and theater. “People should not come expecting to see a … traditional play where there is one storyline,” said Coya Paz, director and developer of Unnatural Spaces. Paz explained the style of Unnatural Spaces is “lots of small vignettes and episodes that connect.”
Unnatural Spaces is made possible by a generous grant from the artistic and cultural diversity initiative of the Chicago Community Trust. Find more information about Unnatural Spaces and buy tickets here.Unnatural Spaces is a theatrical performance about environmentalism in Chicago, including the struggles of living in an urban landscape from an environmental perspective. The poetry performance is intended to open up honest conversations with multiple perspectives on the choices we make in order to eat, look beautiful, not have to make everything by hand, live within our budgets and get to work on time. The conflict in a play like this is “in difference of opinions and contradictions in our own lives,” Paz said. The show will explore the humor, frustration and other mixed emotions in the personal stories behind this theme.
Photo: Coya Paz
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