Live Bait Theater
3914 N. Clark, Chicago
773-871-1212

Live Bait Theater was founded in 1987 to produce new work by emerging Chicago playwrights and solo artists. We choose work that employs a rich and compelling use of language, explores unusual subject matter, and strongly emphasizes the visual component. We seek out diverse artists who find inspiration in a wide variety of life experiences and artistic points of view. Over the past twenty-one years, Live Bait has produced more than 110 world premieres.

We have an interest in the history of Chicago, most notably our award-winning 1001 Afternoons in Chicago and Nelson and Simone, about the Chicago-based love affair between Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir. We have also presented new plays inspired by Hollywood history: Death On A Pink Carpet , the Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato murder scandal; the indie-film satire Film Flam ; and Paramount Girl , an irreverent bio-play about 1950s actress-turned-nun Dolores Hart.

Live Bait is also known for its dramatic adaptations of unconventional literature. La Svengali , one of our first productions, was based on the British novel Trilby by George du Maurier. We later presented Colette’s Cheri in its first professional English-speaking stage adaptation in fifty years. I Was Really Very Hungry: A Portrait of M.F.K. Fisher was a huge hit drawing lovers of literature as well as local foodies. Memento Mori was adapted from the essays of F. Gonzalez-Crussi, a pathologist who wrote about the mysteries of death, both medically and historically. Of Diamond and Diplomats , Letitia Baldridge’s memoir of her years on the Kennedy administration as the social secretary to the First Lady, premiered in the summer of 1995 and was remounted at the Chicago Field Museum’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Exhibition in 2005.

Directions:

Romantically situated in Chicago's historic Wrigleyville neighborhood between Wrigley Field and Graceland Cemetery, Live Bait is located at 3914 N. Clark St.

Street parking is generally available, but during the summer when the Cubs are playing at home, we recommend you use public transportation. Either way, you can take the #22 Clark Bus to the Byron Stop or take the Red Line to the Sheridan or Addison stops.

If you take Lake Shore Drive or the Kennedy Expressway, exit at Irving Park Road and then head south on Clark St.