Overview
Curious Theatre Branch is one of Chicago's only all-original theater companies. Founded in 1988 by Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly, Curious Theatre Branch has consistently worked with an ensemble of artists, in a non-hierarchical decision-making process, where the philosophy of collaboration as a social force is explored on every level. Curious Theatre Branch ensemble includes: Mark Comiskey, Hallie Gordon, Paul Leisen, Bryn Magnus, Jenny Magnus, Kat McJimsey, Beau O'Reilly, Colm O'Reilly, and Shawn Prakash Reddy. Curious Theatre Branch has produced 52 full runs of world-premiere shows in just 11 years, consistently amazing their steadfast audience with how much they can accomplish for so little. Truly one of Chicago's great undiscovered treasures, Curious Theatre Branch proves the adage that "perseverance furthers", determined to outlast everyone and bring back the cultural commitment to live theater. As some kind of proof to that adage, in 1994, Curious Theatre Branch was one of 5 small theater companies, loosely gathered into a consortium that was awarded a 3-year grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in recognition of their contribution to the Chicago cultural atmosphere. That grant was renewed in 1997. In 1995, Beau O'Reilly was named as "...one of the 50 most influential people in Chicago Theater..." by Chicago Magazine. And in 1996, Beau O'Reilly and Jenny Magnus were named among the Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune.

Past Shows
2004 Season

2003 Season

2003 Rhinoceros Theater Festival

2002 Rhinoceros Theater Festival

Reviews
"...Curious Theatre Branch...of the most intriguing and influential avant-garde companies in Chicago...have tapped their imaginations and collected some of the most radical, poetic, life-affirming fantasies Chicago has seen in recent years..."
Hayford, Chicago Reader

"...If Curious Theatre Branch had been based in New York over its nine seasons in existence, this troupe of mature and accomplished performers would be receiving national attention. Graduate students would be writing masters' theses on its intense, collectively conceived work; progressive magazines would be writing laudetory articles; its shows would be appearing on college art series all across the country...this rich, complex, and stylistically daunting work is every bit as fascinating as, say, Mabou Mines ..."
Jones, Chicago Tribune

"Clean, spare, and electrifying...(Curious) builds intensity and intricacy the way the best of David Mamet's plays do."
Chicago Reader

"...By turns marvelous, thought-provoking, important, trivial, tedious, infuriating, fascinating, vague, confusing, absorbing, off-putting, flawed and flawless...really shouldn't be missed by anyone who cares about experimental theater..."
New City

"...If the theater world valued rarity as much as the art world does, they (Beau O'Reilly and Jenny Magnus) would be considered priceless..."
Chicago Reader

"...A playful yet exquisitely formal hallucination-full of bangs and whimpers- performed by the subtlest, hippest comedy team in town..."
Critics Choice, Chicago Reader