UPTOWN — A local theater company is looking for help bringing its choose-your-own-adventure-style production to Mason Hall in Uptown.
The folks behind nonprofit theater group Nothing Without a Company launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fund their biggest production to date, "Down the Moonlit Path."
In it, audience members will be able to "choose their own adventure" by traveling around Mason Hall inside the Preston Bradley Center, 941 W. Lawrence Ave., to see different performances based on familiar fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and other tales from around the globe.
"You're not going to be walking in and sitting in a chair," said producer Anna Rose Ii-Epstein, 31, who also co-founded the group. "If you're watching one story and you hear another story that's more interesting, you can go see what's happening on the other side of the room."
As of Monday afternoon, the group had raised $3,695 toward its $5,000 goal. But Ii-Epstein said it will be putting on the show at the Uptown banquet hall regardless of whether or not the goal is reached.
The money will go toward paying the team involved, including 16 actors and their crew, as well as set design, including props, costumes, puppets and other materials.
"We believe in paying our artists," she said, adding that the group's goal is to cover all of the costs without charging anyone admission.
While she estimates it'll take $13,700 to cover all of the costs, the group listed $5,000 as their goal on Indiegogo because "it's more realistic," Ii-Epstein said.
"The more money we raise, the more people we can get in for free," she said.
Since 2005, the roughly 35 Chicago-based artists who belong to Nothing Without a Company have created and developed more than 20 productions, all of which have been held in unconventional venues.
For the 2012 production "Loom," audience members were guided through three different alleys to a garage, where the production took place, according to Ii-Epstein.
Even though "Down the Moonlit Path" will be held in a space that more closely resembles a theater, the group is not planning on taking up residency there. In fact, Nothing Without a Company doesn't plan on putting on any other productions in the 90-year-old theater, according to Ii-Epstein.
Despite that, Ii-Epstein and about eight other members of the nonprofit group offered to spruce up the historic venue by repainting the ceiling for the first time in 40 years, she said.
"I was thinking while I was painting that we're doing all of this work for this one show and we'll be done with this space and not do anything here again," she said. "But it's worth it. I'm prideful that I'm helping this [banquet hall] get to a better place."
Built in the 1920s, Mason Hall has 24-foot ceilings, antique chandeliers and original murals. It's located inside the six-story Preston Bradley Center, which also houses the Uptown Arts Center on the fourth floor and a homeless shelter in the basement.
The building is situated on the eastern side of the neighborhood, an area Ii-Epstein said is often "neglected" compared to Clark Street and Broadway and the Wilson Red Line.
Ii-Epstein said the troupe plans to invite those who live in the homeless shelter beneath the banquet hall to a free dress rehearsal performance.
"We want to support the homeless and people who are using this area as a safe zone by simultaneously bringing art to the community and involving them too and not just passing by them and hoping they leave," she said.
Once the Indiegogo campaign ends, tickets for "Down the Moonlit Path" will go on sale.
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