About:
Rhinoceros Theater Festival
Each year, Curious curates and produces the Rhinoceros Theatre Festival, which provides production and exhibition opportunities to hundreds of artists, drawing thousands in attendance each year. The longest-running fringe festival in Chicago, the Rhino features works in theater and performance from Chicago companies and national artists alike.
First organized 24 years ago in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, the Rhinofest is unique among national fringe festivals in that artists are never charged a fee to participate, and each year our programs are individually curated rather than selected on a lottery basis.
Curious teamed up with Prop Thtr Group for the 2007 festival, presenting 38 programs (including 15 world premieres) over the span of ten weeks and five venues including Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art—resulting in one of the biggest and most successful Rhinos in the history of the festival.
To submit a show for consideration, please download our Rhinofest proposal form. For complete schedule, tickets and information regarding the current Rhino, visit rhinofest.com.
The list of past Rhino participants reads like a who's who of Chicago's fringe and performance scene....—Chicago Daily Herald
Known for showcasing Chi-town's most innovative theater companies and performance artists...—Windy City Times
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the Rhino fests to Chicago.... [T]he fest is all about risk taking, form bending and brain stoking...—Chicago Reader
[V]irtually no other outlet exists in the city for nonnarrative, multidisciplinary work in this vein....—Time Out
[G]enuine moments of mind-bending poetry, off-kilter wit, and intriguing stage images..... for those who like finding fringe diamonds in the rough, Rhino still provides a place for oddball tales delivered on a shoestring budget, at a price anyone can afford. For true fringe lovers, that's outrageously fortunate.—Chicago Tribune
“Fringe” is usually a synonym for “fresh out of college,” but the lineup here includes seasoned vets as well as rambunctious youths.—Chicago Reader
Rhino logo by c.hil
