Over thirty years of Curious theater!
Founded in 1988 by Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly—as the Curious Theatre “Branch” of the alt-rock cabaret act Maestro Subgum and 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 Theatre Branch has produced more than 100 full productions of world-premiere shows in nearly 30 years, amazing audiences year after year in how much can be accomplished for so little. 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 nearly every year since 1998 Newcity has included them among the 50 most influential people in Chicago theater.
Curious's Waiting for Godot and The Caretaker were named among the top five theater productions of 2006 and 2009, respectively, by Newcity. In 2007, Curious Theatre Branch won an Orgie Award for Original Theater for the year-long Samuel Beckett festival, No Danger of the Spiritual Thing: 100 Years of Beckett (best ensemble), and in 2011 Curious was granted a season-long residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, culminating in Jenny Magnus’s Still in Play: A Performance of Getting Ready.
