Fight Night: Battle of the Bard

Back To Whence You Will Be From
Written by Scott Ray Merchant & Christopher Mueller
Directed by, starring and featuring the fight choreography of Christopher Mueller, John Gleason Teske & Scott Ray Merchant

Ghostlight Ensemble is excited to join The Factory Theatre and five other companies for the next installment of the revived Fight Night — a violent cabaret celebrating the art of stage combat through original storytelling and violence design. The latest installment of this annual series features original scenes inspired by ol' Battlin' Bill Shakes himself (a.k.a. William Shakespeare).

Ghostlight's contribution is Back To Whence You Will Be From. In the near future, high school students are still being forced to read Shakespeare in their English classes, but luckily for one bored teen (and unluckily for William Shakespeare) time travel also happens to exist. Tired of slogging through dense text in nearly incomprehensible English, the teen takes matters into his own hand and travels back in time to beat the sh*t out of Shakespeare so that he never writes again.

Fight Night: Battle of the Bard features pieces from The Factory Theater, Babes With Blades, Bold Works Combat, Counterfeit Combat, Ghostlight Ensemble and Abyssal Zone Collective.

Fight Night was originated by Nothing Special Productions and in its original iteration last laced up its boots and took to the mat in 2016. Factory brought it back in 2024 with Fight Night: Origins.

Details
Where: The Factory Theater in Rogers Park (1623 W Howard St, Chicago, IL 60626)
When: Friday, December 12, and Saturday, December 13
What time: 8 p.m.
How much: Tickets are $25.