Eric Ziegenhagen                        

 

Director, playwright, folksinger, humdinger.  Revamped website coming soon.

Upcoming theater:
--Directing The Revengers’ Comedies by Alan Ayckbourn at Northern Illinois University, October 23 through November 3.

 

--Directing Ethnic Cleansing Day by Brett Neveu as part of The Side Project’s Cut to the Quick Festival, November 16 through December 21.

 

Also, earlier this year I became a company member of Collaboraction Theatre Company.  In May 2008 I wrote and directed the play Bad News as part of their Sketchbook ’08 Festival at the Steppenwolf Garage.

 

Upcoming music:
--I will be recording a new CD this coming fall and winter, and will be posting more live dates soon.

 

My first CD, You’re Talking to the Wrong Guy, is available at iTunes and CD Baby.  Recordings of two shows I played at Schubas in Chicago in 2004 and 2005 are for sale at emusiclive.

Contact information at the bottom of this page.

Eric Ziegenhagen
























 

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 Chicago Reader profile from 2005.

"Chicago’s Eric Ziegenhagen (a native Minneapolitan) makes strikingly unconventional folk music on his debut longplayer, You’re Talking to the Wrong Guy, opting for a rarely seen approach to acoustic guitar playing (he writes and performs on a four-string nylon-string open-tuned guitar slung flat across his lap). The unconventional approach may have been born out of necessity (Eric’s father would only let him play his guitar as long as he kept it in the case, and after he learned to play in that unconventional manner he never let it go), but it yields truly rich results, a sweetly plucked sound that feels oddly full in its nakedness. With a warbly voice strangely reminiscent of outsider music legend Daniel Johnston in its boyish innocence, Ziegenhagen has turned plenty of heads in search of something new in his current place of residence. Come on down and see what all the fuss is about. "
-- Rob Van Alstyn, Pulse of the Twin Cities (March 9, 2005)

"Here's an odd tidbit.  Local folk singer/songwriter Ziegenhagen learned to play guitar as a young child, but his father wouldn't let him take the guitar out of the case, so he learned with the instrument lying on its back.  That's why he plays with it in his lap.  Weird.  Tonight [Friday, 1/28] sees the release of his first record, 'You're Talking to the Wrong Guy,' a collection of fourteen folk songs played on a four-stringed acoustic guitar, sung with true Midwest intimacy. 'Can't Hold Love at Bay' begins the record and puts you next to a dirty, boat-ridden lake down south, like an opening to one of those movies, when you're trying to establish Southern climate.  Ziegenhagen sounds a little like Leonard Cohen but comes off more lighthearted, with his lyrics bouncing from the extremes of weather to the disappointment of love.  When it's all said and done, Ziegenhagen shows how to balance personal lyrics with the general mouthful that appeals to everyone, and 'You're Talking to the Wrong Guy' exists on its own as a record of despondency that wisely never takes itself too seriously."
-- Tom Lynch, New City Chicago (January 26, 2005)

"An intelligent and entertaining tunesmith with a vivid and playful imagination."

-Dan Wilkinson, Americana UK (May 2005)

More Nice Things Said

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(c) 2008 Eric Ziegenhagen