Curious Theatre Branch

Starting January 16, 2016, the 27th Annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival will be based solely around the work of Eugene Ionesco, particularly his 1959 play, Rhinoceros, to be staged in a full production by Curious Theatre Branch co-founder Beau O%u2019Reilly, with six weeks of new theatrical work by invited artists and companies that will engage with and reconsider this elusive writer of Absurdist theater.

Founded in 1988 by Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly--as the Curious Theatre "Branch" of the alt-rock cabaret act Maestro Subgum & the Whole--Curious has consistently worked with an ensemble of artists in a non-hierarchical decision-making process, through which the philosophy of collaboration as a social force is explored on every level.

Curious has produced more than 100 full productions of world-premiere plays in 20 years, including Jenny Magnus's Round & Round: a sexfarcetragedy, Bryn Magnus's Love Horse, Shawn Reddy's White Suit Science and Beau O'Reilly's The Madelyn Trilogy. Curious has developed its own recognizable style, using an economy of means and production to make deeper and deeper, rather than larger and larger, work.

In 1995, Beau O'Reilly was named one of the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater by Chicago Magazine. In 1998, Beau O'Reilly and Jenny Magnus were named among the Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, and almost every year since 1998 Newcity has included them among the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater.