"Do you have a naked show on now?"
That's a question that Laurence Bryan of the National Pastime Theater says he gets year round from people calling in, even though the theater's summer festival—called Naked July: Art Stripped Down—specifically names the summer month when most of it takes place.
However, Bryan doesn't mind the connection that people make with nakedness and National Pastime Theater. He also hopes that fans of Naked July will follow the company's fourth annual festival now that National Pastime Theater is in a new space in the historic fourth floor Masonic Hall of the Preston Bradley Center at 941 W. Lawrence Ave. This year's festival carries the theme of "Rise from the Embers," appropriately to match with the move.
"We had been in our previous space for 20 years," said Bryan of its former speakeasy location at 4139 N. Broadway. "Basically we had started to outgrow it and we felt like we needed a larger venue—a venue that we hoped would have a little more commercial potential."
National Pastime had hoped to open its new venue with a play called Bend in the Road, but that production was postponed when the facility wasn't ready in time. So now National Pastime is opening with Naked July shows—a much racier proposition, especially since its neighbor downstairs in the same building is the People's Church of Chicago.
As the centerpiece main stage show of Naked July, National Pastime is presenting Jose Rivera's 2001 deja-vu-filled off-Broadway play References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, which focuses on the troubled relationship between a Gulf War veteran and his wife, not to mention other surreal bits of business like a talking coyote who tries to sexually woo a cat.
The show's director is Keely Haddad-Null, and she is putting a unique twist on the Rivera's material by casting two women as the coyote and cat.
"I always try to look at roles that can be cast as female, partly because there not a lot of female roles, " Haddad-Null said about reassigning the gender of the coyote as a woman. "It has somewhat unintentionally brought out this new aspect of how universal love is. And it is in no way necessary to be male and female to have this romantic love."
But for audiences looking for more explicitly gay material, Pride Films and Plays is joining Naked July for the first time with a revival of Cal Yoeman's little-known drama Richmond Jim, which is about an older man who shows a younger city transplant the ropes of New York's gay scene in the 1970s.
"Like all of Cal's work, it reflects a sexuality of the time that soon fell out of favor as the AIDS crisis hit. But I like that fact that it is sexy and honest," said Richmond Jim director David Zak. "The two guys in our cast—Kris Hyland and Chris Kossen—who spend a great deal of time naked, are terrific together."
The festival also sees the return of two other troupes that have had great Naked July success in the past. The Living Canvas—a performance-art troupe famed for featuring naked performers as the canvas for digital and projected artwork—offers its new show Eureka!, while the women's theatrical troupe Beast Women returns for one weekend with a show featuring plenty of comedy, burlesque and belly-dancing.
Also new this year is a collaboration with Chicago Filmmakers to get independent film into the mix of the festival. Screenings of Sounding: 4 Films of James Herbert focuses on the famed filmmaker (best known for music videos like R.E.M.'s "the End of the World As We Know It") and his series of shorts about heterosexual couples in highly stylized settings of Southern decay. There is also a fine arts gallery display that Gary Schirmer is curating.
Although Bryan and his colleagues are mostly focused on getting Naked July up and running in its new vintage venue, he hopes in the future that someday National Pastime can run Naked July in theaters across the country, if not the world.
"Starting this year, we're going to work on Naked July the whole year round," Bryan said. "We'd like it to happen in other cities and have them communicate with each other at the same time. We would hopefully have some of these shows tour or run in rep and hop from festival to festival in July."
National Pastime Theater's fourth annual Naked July: Art Stripped Down summer festival themed Rise From the Embers runs from Friday, June 29, through Saturday, Aug. 11, in the historic Masonic Hall on the fourth floor of the Preston Bradley Center, 941 W. Lawrence Ave. National Pastime Theater's production of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. June 29-Aug. 11.
The Living Canvas: Eureka! plays 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays June 29-Aug. 11. Pride Films and Plays' Richmond Jim plays Fridays and Saturdays at midnight June 29-30, July 6-7 and Aug. 3-4, with 8 p.m. shows July 10-12, 19, 24 and 25, Aug. 7 and 8. There are also 6 p.m. shows July 15 and July 22. Beast Women plays 8 p.m. July 26-29.
Soundings: 4 Films of James Herbert screen at 5 p.m. July 21 and 8 p.m. July 22. Tickets to each show are $20 and $8 for films. A $60 festival pass is good for all events and shows. Visit www.nakedjuly.com for updates and more information.
