Hearing that Sean Benjamin and Steve Mosqueda, the founders of the Drinking & Writing Theater, were back in business after the pandemic years and opening a new play this week, I was thrown back nearly a quarter of a century ago when these two thought it would be a good idea to walk the length of Western Avenue and stop for a drink in every tavern they encountered.
Western Avenue, if you didn’t know, is the city’s longest street, 24.7 miles from 119th Street on the south to Howard Street on the north. It is, and I am sure you don’t know this, also arguably the longest in the world.
It features, give or take, some 60 places to get a drink, from taverns that might have you believe you have landed in the heart of Dublin to spots where English is rarely spoken.
They survived. It was a trip that compelled Mosqueda to say, “Meeting the people, learning about the different neighborhoods, was a wonderful, eye-opening experience.”
Neither is from Chicago. Mosqueda is from Los Angeles, and Benjamin from upstate New York, but their affection for the city, and especially its theater community, is deep and palpable.
They created other theatrical journeys after that, based on their Western Avenue jaunt. They had a radio show for a while, staged a couple of film festivals and otherwise took full advantage of the city’s nurturing creative soil. Their latest is based on a modus operandi expressed by Benjamin when he says, “Whenever we find something interesting, as writers and actors, we think how it might work as a play.”
This latest theatrical venture was born of a dream.
“I was sleeping, and in this dream I was sitting in a bar when a woman walked in,” Mosqueda says.“She was wearing a leopard coat and when she took the coat off, I walked over and said, ‘Do I know you?’ and she said, ‘I am Miersten Wolf.’ That was it. I woke up and wrote down her name because I didn’t want to forget it.”
Since he was spending much pandemic time in the basement of his house practicing guitar and writing songs, this creative excursion somehow began to merge with his long fascination with water. “From the moment I arrived in Chicago in the late 1990s, I have always been fascinated by the lake and especially by those cribs that sit out there and the troubles the city has had with sewage, with getting clean water. I spent a lot of time at the Harold Washington Library reading about them,” he said. Water cribs are the structures far out in the lake, connected by miles of underwater tunnels intended to bring clean drinking water to the city.
Chicago’s history has always shadowed Drinking & Writing Theater. Officially, it operates as Tied House Productions, which Mosqueda says is a nod to the history of tied houses in Chicago, which were bars owned by brewing companies.
In time, Mosqueda’s songs and his water interest began to merge with the Miersten Wolf dream character and, he says, almost matter-of-factly, “I wrote a musical.”
“Miersten Wolf” is a 75-minute, 10-song theatrical production that runs through March 8 at the Neo-Futurist Theater.
Directed by Phil Ridarelli, another Neo-Futurist alum, it stars Mosqueda, Gary Damico and Rebecca Resman as characters, and also as musicians and singers. Playing the title character is Carolyn Benjamin, Sean’s wife and a veteran of the local theater scene, a former member of Trap Door Theatre.
She and Sean met when she was working at Haymarket Pub and Brewery, where the Drinking & Writing gang often performed. She charmingly tells the story, saying, “Sean came up to me and said, ‘Are you an actor?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Maybe you should be in our shows,’ and next all these years later, here we are with a couple of kids.”
She is from Mississippi. In addition to acting, she plays piano and sings and has a lovely voice. I know because I have listened to much of the music, and found it upbeat and clever, such songs as “CTA,” “Baring Cross Road,” and “What Time Do We Start Drinking?,” which is the show’s closing number. Others have heard these songs over the last year, as some cast members, forming the “Miersten Wolf Band,” performed at venues such as the Lizard Lounge and Hideout.
The band performed at Simon’s too, that ancient (nearly 100 years old) and welcoming Andersonville tavern. That is where Mosqueda and the Benjamins were sitting last Sunday, following a rehearsal at the Neo-Futurists space, a quick walk away. They were, as is their wont, drinking beer. One of them was having a shot of Malort and all of them were excited.
“We do like to think there may be a future for this play, maybe a production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe,” said Mosqueda.
“It’s so great to be at it again. This is the first Drinking & Writing show since COVID,” says Sean Benjamin.
“I really am humbled to be part of this show,” said Carolyn Benjamin. “We have all put so much time into it.”
“Miersten Wolf” runs Feb. 19 to March 8 at the Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N. Ashland Ave.; drinkingandwriting.com
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
