IGNITION Spark Plug Party August 8th Boasts Exciting Lineup of Performances, Tasty Food and Local Celebrities

As part of Victory Gardens Theater’s IGNITION: Emerging Playwrights of Color festival, Victory Gardens’ Fresh Squeezed series will throw open the doors of Chicago’s historic Biograph Theater for SparkPlug, a post-reading party showcasing local emerging artists of color.

SparkPlug - Friday, August 8th at 9:30 pm at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue - will boast appearances by Chicago's premiere storytellers from 2nd Story; live painting by Pablo Perea of Havana Gallery; Instant Theater, a project of Chicago Dramatists; the magic of Benjamin Barnes; a print your own T-shirt station hosted by Modati; and a delicious spread courtesy of Sugarplum Catering.

SparkPlug will start after the 7:30 pm staged reading of Michael Lew’s new play A Better Babylon, one of the six winning plays of Victory Gardens’ first-ever festival showcasing emerging playwrights of color from around the U.S.  A Better Babylon is set in 1960s UC Berkeley, where a wave of student radicalism engulfs a young Chinese couple, a black protester, and a Chicana biologist. Personal dreams collide with political conscience, testing the limits of mentorship, friendship, and love.  Andrea J. Dymond, Resident Director at Victory Gardens, will direct.  The cast includes Charin Alvarez, Allan Aquino, Kevin Hope and Jennifer Shin.

Tickets to SparkPlug are only $5.  Tickets to A Better Babylon are an additional $5.  An IGNITION Festival Pass, offering entry to every reading and special event, is only $20. For tickets, information, and the complete IGNITION schedule of events, call the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater box office, 773.871.3000, or purchase tickets online at http://www.victorygardens.org/ignition