The Chicago Underground Library is pleased to announce Orphan Works, a new reinterpretation series. Unlike traditional reading series, our performers are not reading from their own work. Some of them won’t even be reading. We’re calling upon a variety of the most creative minds in Chicago to burrow deep into our collection of anonymous works or ones for which no further information on the author can be found. Commonly referred to as “Orphan Works,” these lost publications will be brought back to life: read, reinterpreted, and reunited with the audience they’ve been missing. There is an ongoing debate on the status of works like these, and a number of groups and individuals are fighting to keep them free for creative reuse and artistic exploration.
