Mick Napier's subtext

Last Friday, I headed to Uptown in the afternoon to meet with Mick Napier, the founder and artistic director of the Annoyance Theatre. His company will be remounting its runaway success, Co-Ed Prison Sluts, starting July 11, so I wanted to talk with him about the show, his changing perspective on the theater and get his thoughts on, you know, generic things like the state of Chicago improv and stuff. (I ended up learning some interesting tidbits, like: Did you know the show Defending the Caveman tried to get a run at the Annoyance roughly 15 years ago? Ha!)

I met him in front of the theater, and he suggested we pop down the street to Crew, a bar that Napier frequents. He asked my permission to say "fuck" a lot, and, of course, I was cool with it. I was pumped. It quickly dawned on me, though, that another story needed telling ASAP.

Roughly six months ago, Napier started taking an anti-smoking drug called Chantix. At the time, there was no warning of possible suicidal side effects on its website (it's made by Pfizer), but that's what Napier experienced in spades. He shared that his mind was consumed—upwards of 40 times a day—with thoughts of killing hmself with anything he could get his hands on. Both he and his girlfriend, the Annoyance's Jennifer Estlin, were concerned, so he stopped taking the drug post-haste—about a month after he started. Sadly, though, that's not the end of the story.

Napier and I talked for more than an hour, and you can read the rest here. (Or wait in suspense until it hits our print magazine next week.)