In 2010 Chicago’s Theater Oobleck decided to put music to the words of 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire, and it did not shy away from the hits. The group picked Baudelaire’s most famous work: Flowers of Evil. The 1857 book of poems deals with sex and death, melancholy as well as sacred and ‘profane’ love. 

Theater Oobleck has approached the poems in a series of ‘episodes’ over the years, calling the shows Baudelaire in a Box. Episode 9: Unquenched kicks off on October 5. Morning Shift talks to some of the performers about the show and hears them play some of the music.