HYDE PARK — A seven-person theater company is pedaling their costumes, sets and actors across the country by bicycle and will stop in Hyde Park for an Aug. 1 performance.
The Agile Rascal Traveling Bike Theatre is touring from San Francisco to New York City performing “Sunlight on the Brink,” and is doing the entire run traveling by bicycle.
The group will perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 1 at Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone Ave., after biking to Hyde Park from a July 21 performance in Columbia, Mo.
The play is about a group of holdouts who refuse to leave a gas station in the Southwest after drought drives most people east in search of water. The script, inspired by the work of author George Saunders, tackles the intersections of capitalism, spirituality and technology.
The troupe has been documenting getting up at 2 a.m. to bike to a venue and rallying the energy to perform after a day of biking all day in the deserts outside Yuma, Ariz.
“Even on the days when we arrive at our destination by noon, we have little energy to do anything but douse ourselves with water, splay out in a shady spot and wait for the heat to subside,” the group wrote on its tour journal. “By the time it does cool down, we have to go to bed almost immediately, as there’s yet another 2 a.m. wake up call the next morning.”
The group is likely pedaling somewhere between Kansas City, Mo., and Columbia, Mo., for its last stop before its Chicago show.
The performance is open to the public and Experimental Station is not setting ticket prices, but asking the audience to pay what they can.
For more information, visit agilerascaltheatre.com.
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