Last year the Curious Theatre Branch’s Rhinoceros fringe festival celebrated its 25th year by celebrating one of its founders, Jenny Magnus. This year the appreciation continues with a tribute to the other founder, Beau O’Reilly. The seven-week 2015 Rhinoceros Theater Festival, aka Rhinofest, will culminate in an extended visit to “Beautown” (Thu 2/26-Sun 3/1), where you’ll find six of his idiosyncratic, beboppy plays plus a concert of songs he wrote for his late, lamented, profoundly underrated rock band Maestro Subgum and the Whole (Fri 2/27, 9 PM). Don’t expect a Vaseline-lensed wallow in nostalgia: one of the O’Reilly scripts on offer, the tale of a crabby old playwright at a festival, is titled Go Fuck Yourself (2/26-3/1: Thu 9 PM, Sat 4 and 9 PM, Sun 4 PM).
Louise Cloutier serves a “big salad bowl” of vocal music drawn from wildly diverse sources in I Have No Bleeping Clue (Sun 2/22, 8 PM). Playwright/poet Kristiana Rae Colón not only dramatizes poetry slams but conducts one in Octagon Live (Sat 1/17, 10 PM): local poets compete against cast members performing in character. Ira S. Murfin’s “talk duet” Our Theatrical Future (Sun 1/18, 3 PM; Mon 1/19 and 1/26, 9 PM), deploys a series of guest artists to recapitulate conversations Murfin had with a collaborator in Hong Kong about theater they have, haven’t, and may yet make together. Whiskey Rebellion’s The 236th Annual Summit of the Moose Scouts of America (Mon 1/19-2/16, 7 PM) sounds like fun even though it takes place in a near future plagued by ice tornados and smart bees. And I wouldn’t want to miss Curious’s Judith Harding appearing opposite Theater Oobleck’s David Isaacson in Sex and Minutia (Sat 1/24-2/21 and Sun 3/1, 7 PM), a Beautown selection about weathering 25 years of “love, lust, Scrabble, betrayal,” and—yes—fringe festivals.
Through 3/1: dates and times vary, see website Prop Thtr 3502 N. Elston 773-492-1287rhinofest.com $15 ($12 in advance) or pay what you can
