Frank Maugeri knows something about picking himself up after a shutdown. When Redmoon Theatre, the spectacle-oriented company where Maugeri worked for 23 years (the last few as producing artistic director) folded in 2015 in the wake of the failure of the Great Chicago Fire Festival, Maugeri took some time to regroup (including a stint developing education and community engagement programs with Chicago Children’s Theatre). Then in 2017, Maugeri unveiled his new company, Cabinet of Curiosity, which, in Maugeri’s words, focuses on “this desire to investigate the spiritual, the sacred, and the supernatural through objects, devices, actors, and songs.”
But there was also an earlier personal inspiration for Maugeri. “I was in Mexico City even before Redmoon and I was studying ritual and local art and one of the things I saw that blew my mind were these old cigar boxes strapped to telephone poles full of detritus and oddity. I saw them all over Mexico City and I loved them. They were sort of filthy and strange and didn’t make any sense. They were like working-class Joseph Cornell boxes. When I finally pursued a local about what they were, the local said ‘Oh, the artists make those, so the businessmen are reminded to look up.’”
Achieving “Transcendence”
