Miersten Wolf — Drinking & Writing Theater — Rhino Fest 2026

“MIERSTEN WOLF” is a hybrid/experimental musical with 4 performer/musicians.

Creator/Writer Steve Mosqueda spent most of his time during the pandemic in his basement playing guitar and writing songs. One night he had a dream about meeting a mysterious woman in a bar wearing a leopard coat. He asked her what her name was and she replied, "Miersten. Miersten Wolf." In the middle of the night he jumped out of bed and wrote her name down so he wouldn’t forget it. The next morning when he read her name scribbled on the back of an old receipt he knew he needed to write a song about her. Over the next few months he continued to write other songs and soon realized they were somehow connected to the Miersten Wolf song. And that’s when he decided to write the musical, “Miersten Wolf.” With the help of a full band performing 10 original songs, the story of Miersten Wolf comes to life. Interwoven is the history of Lake Michigan and Chicago’s waste problem, as well as Steve’s upbringing in Los Angeles and stories of his father's admiration for LA gangsters

Dates: Thursdays 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22 at 7:00

Venue: The Labyrinth Club, 3658 N. Pulaski

Tickets: All Rhino Fest tickets are offered at sliding scale prices in an effort to make theater more accessible to more people in our communities. We say "pay what you can" and we mean it. Rhino Fest is co-produced by the Curious Theatre Branch and the performance venues. Additional donations are always welcome. 

About the venue: The Labyrinth Club is located at 3658 N Pulaski Ave, just north of Addison in the Irving Park neighborhood. Street parking is usually possible nearby. The venue is 0.5 miles south of the Irving Park Blue Line station, and 0.2 miles west of the Addison Blue Line station. Labyrinth Arts is a first-floor space with an accessible entrance, no stairs, and one single-stall restroom; the restroom doorway is slightly smaller than ADA standard, and may be difficult for some wheelchairs to navigate.

Note: Labyrinth is structured as a private club rather than a public venue. Visitors will be asked to sign a guestbook on entering, which confers a 24-hour membership at the club. There is no extra fee due at the time of ticket purchase or on arrival. For more information: https://www.instagram.com/labyrinthartsperformance/

About Rhino Fest: The event that became the Rhinoceros Theater Festival began in 1988 as an offshoot of the Bucktown Arts Fest, and in its first year featured just two days of performances, including work by Jenny Magnus and Beau O'Reilly. When the event's founder moved away from Chicago in 1990, he asked a ragtag group of local artists (including Beau O'Reilly and Theatre of the Reconstruction’s Scott Turner) to keep the festival going, and the Rhino Fest was born. The Curious Theatre Branch went on to produce the Rhino across many neighborhoods and venues over the years, with events variously taking place in Wicker Park/Bucktown, Rogers Park, Andersonville and Avondale; at spaces including the Lunar Cabaret and Full Moon Café, the Neo-Futurarium, the Society for New Things, The Garage, The Firehouse, Remains Theatre, and Prop Thtr. In the mid-2000s, Rhino Fest settled at Prop Thtr in Avondale as its long-term base, and Prop and Curious co-produced the festival among a shifting group of curators for many years. Following the closure of Prop's Elston Avenue space in 2020 and a year off during the height of the pandemic, Rhino Fest is once more itinerant, currently producing more than 30 shows at The Labyrinth Club, Chicago Danztheater, and Chicago Dramatists.

https://rhinofest.com/