Denison Fringe Festival: 'Marriage (a work in progress)'

Denison University’s Fringe Festival presents ”Marriage (a work in progress),” with director and Assistant Professor of Theatre Jim Dennen, Vail Artist-in-Residence Lauren Katz and Vail Artist-in-Residence Joey Slotnick.

“Marriage (a work in progress)” is a completely improvised exploration of the ultimate Western commitment between two people. Staged so that players explicitly share and struggle for agency and spectatorial attention with (and as) the married characters they create, the pacts of theatre and marriage begin to mimic and reveal each other.

Katz, Slotnick and Dennen have collaborated as performers and director for over 20 years. As members of the influential Chicago-based company, ED, their pioneering work in improvised theatre has been the seen at Steppenwolf, Lookingglass, Victory Gardens, Organic, and Remains Theatre Companies, and at festivals and theaters across the United States and abroad. Their work has been nationally recognized as foundational in the emergence, for better or worse, of what is now commonly known as longform improvisation. However, rather than intentionally comedic, it has been described by American Theatre as “a kind of walking meditation, a process of discovery… consistently brilliant… funny and otherwise,” and as rooted in the experimental theatre tradition. Their last improvised exploration took the form of “Wants and Needs,” a piece on Privilege in North America, developed in Los Angeles and finally produced in Chicago for the Tony award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company. Their current work was performed in progress as an open workshop, under the title “In the Room” (again at Lookingglass), in 2015, and will premiere at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival this June.