'Sex' makes headlines

By Doris Dadayan
A&E Editor

Courtesy of The Neo-Futurist Theate The cast of The Neo-Futurists discuss sex in the newsroom in their newest production, ‘SEX!’ which opens Jan. 15 at The Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N. Ashland Ave.r

With unbiased news reporting, ethical dilemmas, deadlines, proper spelling and AP style apparently no longer needed in news reporting, The Neo-Futurists, now in their 16th year, have produced a show that defies all that was formerly known as objectivity in journalism.

The Neo-Futurists, the theater group that brought us "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 plays in 60 minutes" and "Drinking & Writing," have gone into major investigative mode to get the scoop on a very "special report" on "SEX!"-a show which takes place on the set of a television news show, portraying journalism at its finest.

Sean Benjamin, the creator and one of the performers of "SEX!" came up with the idea after a night of joking around with Neo-Futurists Steve Mosqueda and Diana Slickman about how once they're finished writing and performing "Drinking & Writing," their "two great loves," there would be nowhere else to go from there.

"So then I thought sex!  What could be better than that?" Benjamin said.  "And I thought if I were to do a show like that, I would like to set it in the world of the media.  I had already proposed a show for the Neo-Futurists about a satirical, highly subjective news show and of course called it, simply, "The News Show." 

When he started working on "SEX!" Benjamin said that he kept coming back to the idea of "The News Show" because no other medium besides news writing could take a topic and completely make it important on its own, whether it really was important or not. 

So Benjamin decided to just combine the two.  "The News Show" would still be a show that would go on even after "SEX!" ends in February and the group would have to choose a different topic every month to make it the "headline" of that edition of "The News Show." 

"Part of the idea behind 'The News Show' is that we are not at all objective.  We are highly subjective and write the stories as they relate to our personal lives, which isn't too far from the news these days," he said.