A Hayfamzone Regret

A Comic Book Five StoriesTall!
That's what I wanted to use as the title for this article.

The Redmoon Theater Group is known for presenting creatively off-kilter productions here in Chicago. Through the month of September their brainchild was The Astronaut's Birthday, an outdoor performance of what amounted to a comic book projected onto the facade of The Museum of Contemporary Art. There were even silhouettes of live actors in the Museum windows at certain points and maybe even a little puppetry. Doesn't that sound interesting? I wanted to attend the performance and then tell you all about it.

But I missed it.

Longtime readers of The Hayfamzone Blog will remember that I inaugurated this site four years ago with my ruminations about The Masters of Comic Book Art show at The Milwaukee Art Museum (90 miles from Chicago) and I followed that up with a report of the same Masters of Comic Book Art show as it traveled to The Jewish Museum in New York City (700 miles from Chicago), but I somehow found myself unable ambulate over to the Museum of Contemporary Art which is a mere twelve miles from my house.

I'm hoping they will have more performances of this show in the future so I'll get another chance. For now, though, here is a very good explanation of the production which even includes some behind-the-scenes photos. Here is a video entitled "The Making of The Astronaut's Birthday" posted to YouTube by Redmoon. Here is video of some actual scenes from the production. And here and here are two glowing newspaper reviews.

(Non-Anachronistor's Note: Although this post is tinged with regret, it is simultaneously celebratory. I am writing and presenting this article on 9/30/2010 and please notice that is exactly the date indicated in the headline above. Finally! I have traveled forward in time from the past and, like Bruce Wayne himself, I have arrived back again at the present day. There will be no more anachronisms in The Hayfamzone Blog!)