Presented by Rumble Theatre. Produced by Theater Conspiracy in Association with Pi Theatre
Ionesco’s Cabaret
July 23 - 25, 2026
Location: Progress Lab 1422 (1422 William St)
Tickets starting at $15!
Buy Tickets Here!
About the Cabaret
Come one, come all to Ionesco’s Cabaret!
Society is collapsing. The crowd is losing its mind. Someone brought wine.
For 3 nights only, Progress Lab transforms into an absurdist cabaret featuring Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two, and The Leader, alongside the debut audio/visual novel installation Lost Hands by Tim Carlson.
Part double-bill, part art party, Ionesco Cabaret’s is a playful encounter between friends and foes, entangling audience members in love-collisions, mass persuasion, and social unraveling.
Come for the theatre. Stay for the existential dread.
Starring
Nyiri Karakas | Khoa Mai | Sophia Radford | Christiaan Westerveld
The Leader (1953) directed by David Mesiha
The Leader is coming. The crowd cheers. Everyone loves him. No one knows why…
Sharp, chaotic, and unsettlingly familiar, this dark satire is a portrait of mass hysteria, adoration and blind devotion. Witness how easily power and persuasion takes hold—and how seductive it can feel as it happens.
Frenzy for Two (1962) directed by Richard Wolfe
A tortoise and a snail. Different or the same?
A high-stakes collision of love, ego, and survival. As the world fractures outside, a couple clings to conflict instead of connection, picking fights over nothing, while chaos creeps closer and closer to their door. A front-row seat to a relationship unravelling while everything else burns.
Lost Hands (Photo Installation)
Lost Hands is an audio/visual novel by Tim Carlson/feral.i.d. Echoing themes in Frenzy for Two and The Leader, absurdly worrisome narratives play on multi-channel speakers while a slideshow of absurdly worrisome found objects provide evocative documentation of said worrisome absurdity. Created with literary/philosophical support from Richard Wolfe.
