''Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes'' (Too Much Light or TML) was the longest running show in the history of theater in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and was the only open-run

Off-Off-Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the prof ...

show in New York. The show was originally performed by the

Neo-Futurists The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988, based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity. Neo-Futurists in theatre were inspired by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century. Origin ...

, an experimental theater troupe of which creator Greg Allen was a founding member. Opening in Chicago December 2nd 1988, the show ran 50 weekends of the year through 2016. As its subtitle states, the show consists of 30 original short plays performed in 60 minutes. All were written, directed, and performed by an ensemble. The plays tend to be a mixture of autobiography,

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, and living newspaper.

History

Neo-Futurism Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture. Described as an avant-garde movement, as well as a futuristic rethinking of the thought behind aesthetics and functionality of design in growing ...

as an aesthetic, as well as the format of TML, are both creations of Neo-Futurist Founding Director Greg Allen. The

aesthetic is an updating of the early 20th century Italian

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...

movement with hefty doses of Fluxus, Dada, Surrealism, Brecht, Boal, and performance art thrown in. Greg Allen came up with the name from a case study of a young autistic child who would smash light bulbs and repeat, "Too much light makes the baby go blind. Too much light makes the baby go blind." Later, when he was creating this show, the saying came back to his mind. Subsequent productions were staged by branches of the Neo-Futurists in New York (1995-1998, 2004-2016), San Francisco (2013-2016), and Montreal (2007-2012). A London production was staged in 2016 as part of plans for a permanent UK-based ensemble. From 1990 to 2014, numerous volumes of plays from the show have been published. The book "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 90 Plays from the First 25 Years" published by Playscripts has been produced all over the world with over 100 productions a year. In November 2016, Allen revoked the Chicago Neo-Futurists' rights to perform ''Too Much Light'' in a public announcement. Allen's revocation of the performance rights did not extend to the New York, San Francisco, and London branches of the Neo-Futurists. However, in solidarity with the Chicago branch, the New York and San Francisco branches ended their runs of ''Too Much Light''. Allen subsequently founded the Detroit-based UnTheatre Company, which currently continues to produce ''Too Much Light''.

Tone of the show

The show is the work of the

movement, a variant of the Italian

movement and reflects their aesthetic of non-illusory theater, where, as Allen states it, "all of our plays are 'set' on the stage in front of the audience. All of our 'characters' are ourselves... We do not aim to 'suspend the audience's disbelief' but to create a world where the stage is a continuation of daily life."

Structure

The structure of TML since 1988 has remained consistent: a random ticket price for the show is determined by the roll of a die with a fixed amount (currently $9 for the Detroit show) being added for each person. Upon payment, a member of the ensemble wearing noise-canceling headphones asks "What's your name?" of the audience member before giving them a name tag with an erroneous or approximate "name" on it. Audience members are then given a "menu" of the play titles for that evening from which the plays are selected by audience members calling out their number - the first number heard by the ensemble being the play performed. Plays begin with the word "Go!" and end when a member of the cast calls "Curtain!" Many of the plays contain elements of randomness and audience interaction. The list of plays is perpetually rotating. Every week between two and twelve plays (determined by two rolls of a die by someone in the audience) are removed from the "menu" and replaced with new plays, written and staged over the course of the week. As part of an interactive tradition, when a particular evening sells out, the cast orders pizza from a local restaurant, allowing the audience to order toppings. Only a single pizza is ordered, however, which the entire audience must share.

References

{{Reflist

External links

UnTheatre Company website

Publisher website
American plays Theatre in Chicago Futurist theatre 1988 plays

History

Tone of the show

Structure

References

Further reading

External links