\Rise of the Numberless is a world-premiere musical co-produced by The New Colony and Bailiwick Chicago with an artistic collaborative process that stretches back more than two years.
The artistic staff of The New Colony were hankering to do an world premiere rock 'n' roll musical that would tie into the company's mission of producing original, company-generated work through their process of actor improv exercises, workshops and script conferences. So the folks of The New Colony started looking to collaborate with another theater company willing to work in their style and to also bring extra skills to the table.
"We approached Bailiwick Chicago because they obviously have a history of doing musicals," said Andrew Hobgood, the out artistic director of The New Colony. "They have the capacity to do really great rock 'n' roll productions, which was something that The New Colony was lacking in terms of resources and expertise."
As for Bailiwick Chicago, collaboration has been one of its main missions since artists from the former Bailiwick Repertory Theatre reconfigured and re-branded the company in 2010 to produce roving productions at different venues around town. Bailiwick Chicago notably teamed up with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater for an acclaimed 2010 production of Elton John and Tim Rice's Broadway musical Aida. It also joined with the band JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound for a widely praised 2011 staging of the Broadway musical Passing Strange.
However, Bailiwick Chicago's artistic staff were also on the lookout to produce more world-premiere works rather than just finding new ways of staging recently produced shows from elsewhere. According to newly appointed Bailiwick Chicago artistic director Lili-Anne Brown, the company recently worked with Teatro Luna on a project that didn't come to fruition as an official co-production (though as an outgrowth of that collaborative process, Teatro Luna did yield its own 2011 world premiere production of Crossed: How Going South Flipped Our Script.)
"Just for us to go through that creative process with another company, even though we didn't get a show out it, I thought it was extremely instructive in what to do in creating something together," Brown said.
So far, Brown said Bailiwick Chicago's collaboration to create new material with The New Colony has been a lot of fun and great to learn from because "they are old hands at this."
The New Colony's Hobgood was equally effuse at collaborating with Bailiwick Chicago.
"While The New Colony is leading the artistic creation, Bailiwick has been leading the producing responsibilities," Hobgood said. "It has actually been probably the easiest process I've ever gone through because there's such an equality of work spread around really nicely by people who have the talent in areas that The New Colony ensemble doesn't. It's just been a contribution that has been unimaginable to us."
Akin to previous productions by The New Colony like Frat and 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, Rise of the Numberless is meant to be an immersive audience experience. The musical is set in a dystopian version of America where a rigid "One Child, One Nation" government induced population control system is showing signs of strain after being enforced for 50 years. A whole mass of unaccounted-for and "numberless" siblings are struggling to come out of hiding, and their traveling protest and awareness-raising show, Rise of the Numberless, is supposedly being hosted by sympathetic groups in underground settings (in this case, the Collaboration Studio 300 at the Flat Iron Arts Building in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.)
Rise of the Numberless comes with a rather large writing team, with the script credited to Patriac Coakley, Evan Linder and Hobgood, music by Chris Gingrich and Julie B. Nichols and lyrics by Hobgood and Gingrich. Hobgood also directs the overall production.
According to Hobgood, the creative team took their artistic inspiration from glam rock and the sci-fi writings of Kurt Vonnegut, while their political approach was to imagine a futuristic America where resources are scare and rigid population controls are the norm.
"We started developing this piece before 2011 became the year of the protestor," Hobgood said. "And after we started developing it, the actual American political and cultural environment for some reason just kept kicking toward what was happening… we all actually started laughing one night when [Minnesota Republican Rep.] Michelle Bachmann went on the record to say that ]President] Obama's healthcare policy will actually lead to requiring women to only have one child. At that point we were like, 'This is insane that these conversations are actually happening when we thought we were just writing this futuristic concept.'"
The New Colony and Bailiwick Chicago's Rise of the Numberless continues at 7:30 and 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through May 26 at Collaboraction Studio 300, Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets are $10 for previews and $20-$25 during the regular run; visit www.numberless.org for tickets and more information.
