November 20, 2020 at 7pm CT
An Evening with Bullets for Dead Hoods: An Encyclopedia of Chicago Mobsters, c. 1933
Featuring readings by John Corbett, David Isaacson, Terri Kapsalis, Mickle Maher, and Diana Slickman and the alto saxophone of Nick Mazzarella.
This book launch event celebrates the publication of a mysterious anonymous manuscript composed during the height of the Chicago mafia, consisting of 140 detailed portraits of the outfit's insiders, from icons like Al Capone and Tony Accardo to a host of lesser minions. Written in pulp-noir style, they're irresistible reading, and this evening will find them irresistibly read by a troupe of Chicago actors, all associates of Theater Oobleck: David Isaacson, Terri Kapsalis, Mickle Maher, and Diana Slickman. John Corbett, who discovered and salvaged the manuscript, will read from his introduction, and the great alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella will play some Mob-beloved melodies. Bullets for Dead Hoods is published by Soberscove Press and is now available online or at your favorite independent bookstore.
John Corbett is a writer and curator who co-owns Corbett vs. Dempsey, an art gallery. A Japanese version of Corbett's A Listener's Guide to Improvised Music (University of Chicago Press) was just published. His great grandfather's clinic at Lake and Ogden was once guarded by a pet lion named Duke.
David Isaacson is a founding member of Theater Oobleck. He was published most recently in Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology (Belt Publishing), and appeared most recently in the online production of Barrie Cole's Reverse Gossip. He lives near the former home of the "vice-mongering lad" Willie Bioff, who police suspected of "putting muscle on the sausage sellers."
Terri Kapsalis is a writer, educator, and cofounder of Theater Oobleck. Her essay "Hysteria, Witches, and the Wandering Uterus: A Brief History, or Why I Teach 'The Yellow Wallpaper,'" published on LitHub, is the starting point of her current book project. Kapsalis' Greek grandmother always claimed to be Medici.
Mickle Maher is a Chicago-based playwright and a cofounder of Theater Oobleck. He's currently adapting Jason Lutes' graphic novel Berlin for production at the Court Theatre, sometime post-COVID.
Nick Mazzarella is a Chicago-based saxophonist, composer, improviser, and presenter. All About Jazz says: "Continuing the approach taken by like-minded trailblazing altoists Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, and Gary Bartz, Mazzarella seeks to embody the history of the music while pushing it forward into new realms."
Diana Slickman is a writer, performer, and Theater Oobleck ensemble member. She lives in Chicago, not far from where Leo Mongovern was ambushed by Sam Hunt, the “golf-bag gunman,” in May of 1930.