It’s hard enough to get into one character well. Try getting into three. That’s what Nick Giles is doing this Saturday at the opening show of his one-act I Wanna Life Like… at the Sip Coffee House, 1223 Grand Street.

Giles, a Northwestern alum with a degree in performance studies, portrays an upper-class white hip hop fan, a lesbian writer dealing with the loss of her lover and a businessman trying to reconcile his life with his religious upbringing. Giles uses a combination of hip hop and slam poetry to convey the characters’ conflicts and to draw uniting themes among them.

Giles, also the writer of I Wanna Life Like…, started performing the one-act while living and studying in Johannesburg, South Africa, before moving the show to Chicago where it is produced by Hometown Theatre Project.

The theatre company, like Giles, got its start at Northwestern, with the show bobrauschenbergamerica produced by WAVE in 2004. The show received such a positive reaction that Hometown Theatre Company, a non-profit organization, was created to remount it. It officially launched Memorial Day 2005 in Evanston.

Sip Coffee House is a small venue on the corner of Ogden and Grand downtown. It serves coffeehouse fare: pastries and sandwiches and, of course, coffee. If you’re hungry make sure to hit up an ATM beforehand. Sip only takes cash.

I Wanna Life Like… runs from Nov. 11 to Dec. 2. Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows start at 7 p.m. Sunday shows start at 5 p.m.

$5 suggested donation. General Admission. To reserve tickets call 847-922-3827