Mecca is living her life backward. She begins old and full of memories, as she gets younger she has fewer memories.

The original incarnation of Mad Joy emerged from Free Street's ensemble process. We began working in the fall of 1995 with a group of teens who came from all over the city of Chicago. In workshops that met for six hours a week, we worked developing skills and creating material without a sense of what the final outcome will be. We knew we would be performing in the Spring.

At a certain point in the process, we know that an idea will pop out and that will become the "strange attractor" around which the piece forms. In this case, the concept came around December when Ron asked the teens what kind of characters they would like to explore. One of the answers was "someone who is getting younger." At that point we began to look at the writing that had been generated to find connections that would tell our story. We talked about time, we talked about the theory of relativity, we talked about memory. We banged our heads on the floor trying to figure out the logic of this conundrum we'd invented. Then Ron adapts a script from all the material the teens create, keeps working with the teens to develop the skills necessary for them use their authentic instincts to be virtuoso performers.

Behind the Scenes
Director: Ron Bieganski
Writing Instructor: Bryn Magnus
Costumes: Ann Boyd
Jazz Choreography: Happi Price
Original String Music: John Paul Pacino & Barbara Sit
Assistant Director: Anita Evans

Writers and Performers:
Valerie Hilderbrand
Happi Price
Tameka Flowers
Tomeka Hayes
Trulawn McCray
Joshua Mitchell
Brian Vines
Keli Stewart
Karla Galva
Barbara Sit
John Paul Pacino

Additional writers: Chanta Jackson, Kim Johnson, Theresa Nazario


Performances
March, April 1996 - Free Street Theater in Pulaski Park, Chicago, IL
June, July 1996 - European Tour (7 cities in Germany)
September 1996 - Steppenwolf Studio, co-produced with Steppenwolf
February 1997 - WTTW Public TV..... Video Production


1996 - Best of the Year in Chicago Theater:
"Mad Joy is one of the riskiest, most innovative and sophisticated pieces of original theater I've seen"
- Gabrielle Kaplan, Reader

"Take the absurd spirit of Eastern-European literature, from Kafka to Kundera. Spin it together with the funky, sometimes dissonant marching music of a New Orleans funeral. And you may just get a hint of what awaits you in TeenStreet's haunting, hugely imaginative work about what it means to be alive."
- Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times