Survive!

Through June 20, $11-$20, Underground Arts at the Wolf Building, 340 N. 12th St., 847-309-1266, swimpony.org.

by Emily Currier

theater

"We are humanity. We are here." That's the simple message NASA shot into space in 1972 on a pair of satellites, with the hopes of communicating with intelligent (English-speaking) life beyond Earth. Thirty-eight years later, brand-new theater company Swim Pony Performing Arts (formed by the folks who brought Purr, Pull, Reign: A Litigious Fantasy in D to last year's Philly Fringe) wonders what might happen if we finally received a response. "The show is the universe's message to humanity," explains Survive! director Adrienne Mackey, who also heads up the collective. The sprawling, 20,000-square-foot basement of Chinatown's Wolf Building will morph into the expanding universe, allowing audience members to venture boldly through the set and various otherworldly narratives. Part-performance, part-installation, Survive! explores different dimensions of the universe through the guises of quirky characters such as Kinetic Girl and Gentle Scientist. "The journey of the show," says Mackey, "is really about the audience understanding themselves in relation to all that space."