Tony Fitzpatrick
Artist and actor Tony Fitzpatrick is one profane motherfucker—and relishes it. In between posts of his latest etchings, he offers his 2,375 FB friends uncensored reflections such as “Art Chicago? . . . would rather pick up hot coals with my ass-cheeks.” He had a field day with the Rapture that failed to come, e.g., “There were some Rapture Dip-Shits on TV tonight and they really are kind of a . . . . superior bunch of Slap-Dick’s . . . . they can’t wait for the rest of us to melt like jelly into the fires of hell come Sunday . . . . so Monday? . . . . lets bust their onions . . . .y’know . . . . ask them how all that good heavenly shit is . . . . ask them if the Angels rubbed their sacks and made them S’mores.” But he also uses Facebook to develop material. His play This Train, which debuted last year at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater, was shaped in part by posts he’d written about his encounters with his neighbor, “the old Ukrainian lady,” who calls him “Mr. Big Shot” and calls his mutt, Chooch, the “leetle devil dog.” He’s taken the same route in developing the new two-man show Stations Lost, which grew out of posts he wrote while on a trip to Istanbul. The second in a projected trilogy, it opens at Steppenwolf July 7 and runs through July 24. —Kate Schmidt