Crip Slam is Victory Gardens' Sunday night series of performances, readings, movies and other events "that promote, explore, and celebrate disability culture." All Crip Slam events are accessible to people with mobility, hearing and vision disabilities.
According to the Tony Award-winning VGT, Downsizing Camus "takes place over the course of a blizzard-bound evening in a college tavern, where two strangers debate everything from the meaning of love to their best college stories concerning the involuntary evacuation of bodily fluids. When an idealistic 19-year-old coed enters the intimate environment, the emotional and intellectual tension builds to the point of devastating explosion."
Bauer has been a member of the Victory Gardens Access Project Artist Development workshop, which teaches the art of playwriting and performance to individuals with and without disabilities, for the past eight years. During that time, he has completed four full-length plays. He is currently enjoying a residency at the Ragdale Foundation, where he is fine-tuning Downsizing Camus. He is also the guest artist for the New York-based disability theatre group Visible Theatre, for which an NEA Challenge America Grant has recently been awarded.
Bauer continues to be an instructor at the Newberry Library, where he has been teaching for the past ten years. He is a graduate of Miami University (B.S.) and Northwestern University (M.A.).
The 7:30 PM reading is at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago. This Crip Slam is free, but reservations are recommended. For reservations and more information, call the Victory Gardens box office (773) 871-3000 (TTY: 773/871-0682) or visit http://www.victorygardens.org.
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Now in its 16th year, the Victory Gardens Access Project "is a nationally recognized model outreach effort designed to involve people with disabilities in all aspects of theatre, both on and off the stage." Through the program, Victory Gardens has been Chicago's earliest adopter of assistive services such as providing Sign Language interpreted performances, as well as captioned and audio-described shows, large-print and Braille programs, pre-show Touch Tours of the theatre and set, dedicated wheelchair seating, and TTY phone lines.
The Crip Slam series was launched in 2005 as Disability Culture Sundays. In its second year, Access Project participants re-named the series to the more bawdy "Crip Slam" to generate attention and discussion. To receive updates on upcoming Crip Slam events and all Access Project activities, subscribe to the Access Project Newsletter by calling (773) 549-5788 ext. 2131 (voice), (773) 871-0682 (TTY), or sending email to [email protected].
