For the fifth year, National Pastime Theater devotes a month of events to the unclothed human body. Naked July 2013: Art Stripped Down, which features opportunities for audience participation as well as more traditional performance pieces, comprises four main parts:
Using bodies as a canvas and light as a medium—and set to music—The Living Canvas: For the People! tells stories by projecting images onto nude human forms. Tickets to the show also buy a movement workshop (6/29-7/20: workshop Sat 10 AM-1 PM and 2-5 PM, performance Sat 10 PM).
The troupe Vaudezilla performs Urban Jungle, an hour-long burlesque that mimics a walk through busy Chicago on a hot night (6/28-7/26: Fri 10 PM). Also on Fridays, artist Gary Schirmer hosts Le Chat Noir, a Toulouse-Lautrec-inspired figure-drawing salon (6/28-7/27: Fri 8 PM).
Pride Films and Plays presents Kill Your Boyfriends, which uses text by Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and Richard Siken (et al) to tell a tale about two couples sharing a bed—and not much else. Choreographed by Derek Van Barham, the production features music from the likes of Andrew Bird, Cat Power, and Portishead (7/6-7/27: Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Sat 6/29, 8 PM, and Fri 7/26, midnight).