Mortal Fools turn literature classics into one-time-only music mashups that land somewhere between Bruce Hornsby, Steely Dan, and The Replacements, and include irreverent narrative that you never got from your English teachers.

The Chicago Tribune called it “good old lyric-driven rock,” and the lyrics for this show come from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 weird masterpiece Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The words will stay unchanged but they’ll find new relevance and meaning when played through amps turned up to 11.

Mortal Fools has dusted off other classics and rocked out in front of standing-room only audiences, starting with Paradise Lost Reimagined, then Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reborn and, most recently, The Odyssey Retold. A fifth show, A Christmas Carol Regifted, is in development.

Imagine songs like Milton’s Eve saying goodbye to her flowers, Shakespeare’s thoughts about lust, and the moment Homer reunites Odysseus with his son. You get the idea.

The band is made-up of seasoned Chicagoland musicians who regularly play around town, so you may have seen them in other shows. This project is a labor of love, if not restitution for all the homework they skipped.

They’ll only come together once to play Wonderland Revisited. Come jump down the rabbit hole with them.