Diana Slickman

Editor’s note: With so much of the publishing industry focused on the coasts, Chicago writers often make a name for themselves at readings in dive bars, small theaters and the like. This week we introduce a new regular feature, profiling one of Chicago’s many writers who finds an audience on the stage.

A reading by Diana Slickman goes something like this: Poised and composed, the 45-year-old actor-writer delivers her words with an inviting tone, incorporating subtle physicality, visual aids and the occasional breaking of the fourth wall (we once caught her calling out the audience as “feeble-minded cowards”). These theatrics are important to her, Slickman says, allowing her to tell stories the way she wants them told: “So much of what I write reads differently to people who don’t know me; a lot of humor comes out of the performance of it. I’m not a good enough writer to put that across without a performance aspect to it.”

This last point doesn’t seem to bother her; and given her diverse artistic background, the rest makes perfect sense. Slickman moved to Chicago from Kansas City in 1985, and immediately fell in with a now-defunct Shakespearean company. (“Many of the theater companies I’ve worked with are now defunct,” she admits. “I try not to take that personally.”) Four years later, writing came into play with the Women’s Theater Collective—a melting pot of styles, including readings (Slickman), stand-up comedy (also Slickman) and a rapping female impersonating a male drag queen (not Slickman). While performing in these shows in 1993, Slickman was spotted by Greg Allen, founder of the Neo-Futurists and creator of the wildly popular show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. After eight years with the prolific theater company, she picked up on its aesthetic—like fearlessness onstage and the ability to write well under tight deadlines.

“You learn [from the Neo-Futurists] that everything is material for writing,” she says. “I don’t need to make up a story cuz the world has plenty of stories in it.”

Since her departure from the theater company, Slickman has carried the torch into similar projects. She’s a member of BoyGirlBoyGirl—a writer’s group that uses found texts to inspire solo-performance pieces—and a cocreator of Drinking & Writing, a show that explores the blurry line between the two. Though she still spends a little straight-up stage time with Theater Oobleck, her heart is set on remaining a writer-performer. “I get a great deal of satisfaction from creating something out of cloth and putting it out on the audience,” she says, “to connect with them about something that’s important to you, as opposed to a playwright.”—Steve Heisler

BoyGirlBoyGirl pairs off Thursday 10.