The Wild

Rhythmic, muscular, and full of risk, THE WILD licks at the wounds left by the man-made rifts between body and love and reason. Beginning with the Greeks, the performers re-enact fragments of The Bacchae before deconstructing a party of wealthy elites in a miasmic excerpting of Charles Mee’s Global Warming. In a bacchanalian frenzy of longing for spirit and for belonging in a group, this performance examines what happens to people when institutions crumble and deities fail to show up.

THE WILD was presented in 2014 as part of Steppenwolf Theatre’s Garage Rep Series; in 2015 at Chicago Physical Theater Festival and Ball State University; and in 2016 at Columbia College and at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav Festival in Delhi, India.

The initial production of The Wild included sequences drawn from West African and Afro-Carribean dance traditions. The company acknowledges and apologizes for the use of these sequences as acts of cultural appropriation, and would specifically like to recognize Chicago West African dance teacher Idy Ciss (credited below) for the dances that ensemble member Dana Murphy learned in his classes, which were then brought into the production. If you would like to read more about our work toward accountability, restitution, and repair, please click here.

Directed by Gabriel Thom Pasculli with dramaturgy by Kendra Miller

Created and performed by Nigel Brown, McCambridge Dowd-Whipple, Al Evangelista, Cooper Forsman, Katie Mazzini, Kendra Miller, Dana Murphy, and Paul Scudder. Delhi performances included Amba-Suhasini Jhala and Anirudh Nair.

Text adapted from Charles Mee’s Bacchae 2.0 and Global Warming, Euripides’s The Bacchae, and Anton Checkov’s Three Sisters.

Production team includes set designer Stephanie Pasculli, lighting designer Sarah Hughey, sound designer Cooper Forsman and Andrew Rovner, choreography by Al Evangelista, members of the ensemble, and Idy Ciss, Wildermann costumes by Paul Scudder and ensemble, costume advisor Delia Baseman, make-up advisor Zofia Otvos, production stage manager Dina Klahn, production manager Glenn Potter and rehearsal stage manager Katie Mazzini.