2021 Turns One Audience Member Into a Dying Veteran
Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn and Sam Ferguson's live game puts one audience member in the role of Brian, a dying veteran, while Brian's daughter narrates from the stage.
- When
- Nov. 12 to 14, 2026, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 14 also 2 p.m. online
- Where
- Wirtz Center, Northwestern University, Chicago
- Cost
- $20; $12 students
2021 puts a single audience member on the controller each night. They play Brian, an unhoused veteran reliving a final few weeks in a looping digital hospital, with missions as blunt as Leave Hospital and Find Medication, while Brian's daughter narrates from the stage and an AI reconstruction of the father's voice answers back. It is a grief game performed in public, with the question of digital resurrection placed in the hands of a room full of witnesses.
Guilty by Association’s trailer for the Chicago run of 2021. Via the company’s Instagram.
The Chicago run lands at Northwestern's Wirtz Center Nov. 12 to 14, through the Wirtz Artist in Residence program; the company announced the dates last week. The piece is produced by Guilty by Association, co-produced by The Elbow Theatre and STUDIO FUNFUG, and was developed with support from Canada's National Creation Fund and Theater Mitu. Chicago is a tour stop rather than a premiere, following runs in New York and at Vancouver's PuSh festival.
The makers come out of games-adjacent theatre: Patrick Blenkarn is half of the team behind asses.masses, the eight-hour performance that passed one controller through a hundred strangers' hands, and Cole Lewis and Sam Ferguson complete the trio under the Guilty by Association banner.
Killscreen tracks the performances, screenings and runs where games cross onto stages, and most are gone after a weekend. The free KS Radar letter gets them to you while there are still seats.
