Song About Himself
By Mickle Maher
[no director]

Mickle Maher sets this play in a dystopian future where the Internet has been effectively destroyed by viruses and malware, and people communicate in little more than mumbles.

Looking for human interaction of any kind, Carol ― a woman made extraordinary by her ability to speak relatively clearly ― signs in to a mysterious social media site created by a rogue artificial intelligence within the Web itself, only to find that, strangely, she is its only member. The secrets she uncovers there will either cure or break her lonely heart.

Employing extremely minimalist staging and an original form of ornate verse derived from a corruption of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Song About Himself goes at the question every play asks: “Do words, in the end, help?”

The cast features Theater Oobleck ensemble member Diana Slickman, along with Oobleck irregulars Vicki Walden and HB Ward. The play was developed in conjunction with the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit. It will be presented with limited seating for each night.

Praise for Song About Himself

“Of [Maher’s] many artful, resonant plays, this one has the potential to eclipse them all.” — Chicago Reader

“Recommended… It is a rich psychological and metaphysical landscape through which to travel.” — Newcity

“Maher crafts an engaging, resonant online ode.” — TimeOut Chicago

★ ★ ★ “Ultimately Maher is digging his finger around in that gaping hole of what it means to connect with another person — the wistful, persistent desire for it, and the technology that we’ve come to rely on to make so much of it possible.” — Chicago Tribune

Bios

DIANA SLICKMAN is veteran of Chicago fringe theater. A Theater Oobleck ensemble member since 2003, she has appeared in many productions, including The Hunchback Variations, There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, and Letter Purloined and others. She is a member of the group solo performance ensemble BoyGirlBoyGirl, with whom she creates shows inspired by found text. Last She’s also a writer/performer who has presented work with The Neo-Futurists, Curious Theatre Branch, Lucky Pierre, Write Club, 20 x 2 and elsewhere.

H.B. WARD has worked with many Chicago theatre companies, including Shattered Globe Theatre, A Red Orchid Theater, The Artistic Home, Timeline Theater, Theater Oobleck, American Blues Theater, Jackalope Theatre, and Rivendell Theatre. Film work includes Ghostlight and Saint Francis. Television work includes Chicago Fire, Chicago Med (NBC), and Somebody Somewhere (HBO). He is represented by Paonessa Talent Agency.

VICKI WALDEN is an ensemble member of Curious Theatre Branch with decades of experience in Chicago’s storefront theater scene. She is an actor and director/writer whose most recent credits include I Love You Permanently, Moon at the Bottom of the Ocean, The Ship and the Sea, This is Not a Churchill, Valence, (Not) Another Day, One Boppa, and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. She has performed with other storefront stalwarts, including Barrie Cole and Theatre Oobleck, and is a former company member of Cook County Theatre Dept, Lucky Pierre, and DOG, a theater company. She plays bass and sings in The Crooked Mouth and Broom People.

MICKLE MAHER. Called “one of the most original voices in American theater today” by the Houston Chronicle, Mickle Maher is a cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, and teaches playwriting at the University of Chicago.  Song About Himself along with five of his other plays are published by Agate Publishing in the collection Six Plays. Recently, his adaptation of Jason Lutes’ graphic novel Berlin was premiered by Chicago’s Court Theatre.

Theater Oobleck: No director. New works. Free if you’re broke. Thirty-seven years.

Theater Oobleck is an artistic collective dedicated to producing and performing original works of theater for the benefit of, and at low or no cost to, the Chicago community and beyond. All our works are created and developed by members of the Oobleck ensemble, working in concert to create a collaborative vision without an overseeing director. We have produced over 70 world-premiere productions over the past 37 years, as well as 20+ remounts of earlier productions.

While we are focused in creating work in Chicago, we have also toured to New York (eight times); Puerto Rico (twice); Madison (twice); Milwaukee; Houston; Ann Arbor; South Bend; Providence; Worcester, Massachusetts; New London, Connecticut; Northfield, Minnesota; Champaign, Illinois; Lewiston, Maine; Yellow Springs, Ohio; and Durham, Raleigh, & Carrboro, North Carolina. Oobleck works have been re-mounted by theaters in American cities including Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Portland, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Cleveland, Denver, Tuscon, and Savannah; and internationally in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Scotland, and Luxembourg.