Steppenwolf announces its LookOut Series lineup for Fall 2017

Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series, with its eclectic, genre-crossing performance programs designed primarily for the stage of the 80-seat cabaret-style space in its relatively new Theatre 1700, has enjoyed considerable success recently, with everything from “How to Be a Rock Critic (Based on the Writings of Lester Bangs),” to “Standup Shakespeare” (which required the larger venue of Steppenwolf’s mainstage).

Now comes news of the lineup for the Fall 2017 season, which will feature a very definite Latin beat as it inaugurates the Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, dubbed “Destinos.” Produced by the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA), the month-long festival will feature four works by Latino companies from across the globe during each weekend in October.

LookOut also will be giving dance a greater profile, showcasing new works by Lucky Plush, Kelly Anderson Dance Theatre and the Mexican-based company, Delfos Danza Contemporánea.

Here’s a brief overview of what will be on tap:

In the Round: Labor Day BBQ with Kevin O’Donnell (Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.; $20): Kevin O’Donnell, a member of House Theatre of Chicago company, will gather a group of musician friends from Chicago and beyond for an evening of performance and talk.

Pride Films & Plays Presents “The Pulse Project: A Reading” (Sept. 13 at 8 p.m.; $15): This one-hour play by four writers is comprised of monologues inspired by the people who died, survived, and shared their accounts of the night of June 16, 2016, when a Latin Night at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub turned into a nightmarish attack on “the queer community.”

Edge / Sharp Mined (Sept. 19 at 8 p.m.; $5): Matthew Bodett draws on personal experiences to explore aspects of mental illness, and more specifically schizophrenia. Note: This performance is one part of a larger residency project supported by UIC’s Bodies of Work and 3Arts, with “Twelve: a series of performative koans,” consisting of 12 performance art projects to take place across the city during Sept. and Oct.

Erik & Jessie and Everyone You Know Variety Show (Sept. 25 at 8 p.m.; $15): Local actor/musicians Erik Hellman and Jessie Fisher return to LookOut to present their updated version of the classic variety hour that will include original music, special guests, comedy, magic, improv, and a country-soul band.

Chicago International Latino Theater Festival: “Destinos”: The Festival will include Puerto Rico-based company ArteBoricua’s production of “Madea” (“Medea”) by Euripides (Oct. 5-8; Tickets $25); the Chicago-based company Teatro Aguijón in “La Muerte y la Doncella” (“Death and the Maiden”), Ariel Dorfman’s play about a torture victim in South America (Oct. 12-15; Tickets $25); Cuba’s Teatro Ludi in “El Espejo” (“The Mirror”), Abelardo Estorino’s tale of machismo, gender violence, family and religion, with the sounds and dances of chachacha, bolero and rumba (Oct. 19-22, Tickets $25); and Vueltas Bravas Producciones & Mitchell Productions Inc. in a bilingual production featuring live music, of August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie,” with the action moved to Colombia in order to explore the power relationship between the United States and Latin America (Oct. 26-28; $25).

Kelly Anderson Dance Theatre: Skits and Pieces (Nov. 8 at 8 p.m.; $20): The program will blend dance, theater and comedy and feature pieces about terrible dates, broken hearts and the common struggle of an artist “waiting for the big break.”

Lucky Plush Productions presents “Rooming House” (Nov. 4 – 18; $30): This world premiere dance theater work, co-created by Julia Rhoads and Leslie Buxbaum Danzing, spins around a disagreement about the classic story of Orpheus and Eurydice that drives a group of friends into a physically and psychologically complex game of whodunit. It asks the question: What makes a person do something that could have shattering and irreparable consequences?

Proa: Delfos Danza Contemporánea and Ensemble Dal Niente (Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 3 at 4 p.m.; $20): This collaboration between the Chicago-based contemporary classical collective Ensemble Dal Niente and the Mazatlán-based Delfos Danza Contemporánea will include the world premiere of Chicago-based composer Tomás Gueglio’s “Proa” (“Prow”), a work for four dancers and harp, in which harpist and dancers use sound, clothing, and bodies to explore themes of migration, immigration, alienation and identity.

For tickets (most of which will go on sale Aug. 8), call visit www.steppenwolftheatre.org/lookout.