Contact:
PO Box 578545
Chicago, IL 60657-8545
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OUR MISSION:

The Plagiarists steal from literature, visual art, history, and the culture at large to create new theatre that finds the familiar in the strange, the unique in the commonplace and ultimately enlarges the world.

OUR PHILOSOPHY:

The Plagiarists grew up submerged in both high and low culture, and their work reflects the allusion, criticism, remixing, and repurposing that flourishes in the postmodern era. Yet they are driven by the idea that it is not enough to simply adapt or appropriate. They also seek to make new art out of work has gone before, rather than remake the same art over and over. To that end, the company's mission is not simply to steal, but to also bend and break those stolen objects into new forms, new ideas, and new theatre. There is a deep streak of compassion in this: the quest to interpret something familiar in a truly new way. The attempt to make something strange seem as close as you are to yourself is ultimately a quest for balance between empathy and alienation, between the holistic and the hostile. The Plagiarists recognize that what has gone before is connected to where we are now, and that what seems distant and foreign is also just like us. But the company also acknowledges that what seems simple and comprehensible is terrifyingly complex, and what seems pedestrian and dull may roil with hidden life and meaning. The Plagiarists work to create entertaining theatre that crackles with breathless energy and purpose, and in the end, leaves the audience with their minds and hearts newly energized.