Michael Shannon & More to be Featured in A Red Orchid Theatre 2023-24 Season

A Red Orchid Theatre has announced its 31st Season, to include the world premiere of Revolution by Ensemble Member Brett Neveu (September 16-October 29), the Chicago premiere of In Quietness by Anna Ouyang Moench (January 11-March 3) and the world premiere of Turret by Ensemble Member Levi Holloway (April 25-June 15), whose play Grey House, which premiered at A Red Orchid Theatre in 2019, is currently playing on Broadway. Additionally, the theater welcomes new Ensemble Members Esteban Andres Cruz, Sherman Edwards, and John Judd, and Resident Stage Manager Kathleen Dickinson.

Subscriptions to the 31st Season are on sale now and can be purchased by calling the box office at 312-943-8722 or visiting www.aredorchidtheatre.org.

Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald shares, "I am honored and grateful to see A Red Orchid continuing our artistic growth with three new Ensemble Members, a resident Stage Manager, and three premiere productions for Season 31. Each of these individuals brings new perspectives, passions, and artistic anomalies to our ongoing collaborations. In the 2023-24 Season, we bring you a series of physical, emotional, and spiritual collisions. With two world premieres and a Chicago premiere, we will dig into family, friendship, and faith; challenging and celebrating our humanity in wildly unexpected fashion."

About Red Orchid Theatre's New Ensemble Members:

Esteban Andres Cruz

was most recently on stage at A Red Orchid in Last Hermanos. They were born in Berwyn and raised in Cicero, IL and are thrilled to be joining this esteemed ensemble. Chicago theater: Steppenwolf, Writers' Theater, Victory Gardens, Factory Theater, 16th Street, Lyric Opera (as Puck), and many others. West Coast: Pasadena Playhouse, Celebration Theater, Cygnet Theater and Sacred Fools. Regionally: T.A.T.C., Peninsula Players, St. Louis Rep, Milwaukee Rep, and Miami New Drama. Off-Broadway: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (Drama Desk Award nomination). Other Guirgis plays: Jesus Hopped the A Train (Jeff Award winner) and Motherfucker with the Hat. Esteban also won the prestigious Theatre Communication Group's National Fox Fellow Actor Award. Select films: Spa Night (Cassavetti Best Feature), Valley of Bones, The Thin Line, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and Rattled. TV credits: Chicago Fire, Awkward, Easy, Idiot Sitter, The Bridge, You're The Worst and South Side. Mad love to the whole AROT ensemble & company.

Sherman Edwards

joined the Ensemble in 2023 during AROT's production of Is God Is and has appeared in A Red Orchid's productions of Killing Game, The Malignant Ampersands, and their audio play American Bottom. In Chicago, Sherman has performed with Hell in a Handbag Productions (Poseidon! An Upside-Down Musical), The Annoyance Theatre, iO Chicago, Second City's Educational Touring Company and their Diversity and Outreach Ensemble. He was named 2012's 'Best Stand-Up Comic in Chicago' by the Chicago Reader. He tours and performs locally doing stand-up and performing with a few improv and sketch comedy groups, notably BLACKOUT, Sherman and Rob, and Tomato/Tomatoe. TV and Film credits include Southside on HBOmax, FOX's Empire, Chicago PD on NBC, and the independent films Monuments and American Schemers. Sherman holds a bachelor's degree in both Theatre and Mass Communications from Old Dominion University and is the Co-founder of Comedy Plex, a comedy club in Downtown Oak Park. He is represented by Stewart Talent.

John Judd

is honored, grateful, and genuinely thrilled to join the ensemble at A Red Orchid Theatre. The invitation to share an artistic home with so many of his favorite artists is both an affirmation and a challenge. He can't wait to work again with old friends and establish new bonds with those with whom he has yet to collaborate. He has appeared with A Red Orchid Theatre in The Malignant Ampersands (2022), Gagarin Way (2005), and in the remount of Simpatico at McCarter Theatre in 2017. John began his onstage life as part of an improv troupe under the tutelage of Del Close in 1985. Over the last thirty-five years in Chicago, he has been seen on virtually all this city's stages where singing is not required. He has also appeared Off-Broadway in NYC, at regional venues across the US, and internationally.

Kathleen Dickinson

is always thrilled to be back with A Red Orchid Theatre. Past shows include stage managing Is God Is, The Malignant Ampersands, The Moors, American Bottom, and Sick by Seven, and assistant stage managing 3C, Traitor, 33 to Nothing, Victims of Duty, Small Mouth Sounds, Fulfillment Center, Killing Game, and Grey House. Other stage/assistant stage management credits include Steppenwolf Garage Rep, The House Theatre of Chicago, Remy Bumppo, Vitalist Theatre Company, Rasaka Theatre, Eclipse Theatre, and Collaboraction. Kathleen also completed the 2013-2014 Stage Management Apprenticeship at Steppenwolf.

A Red Orchid Theatre's 2023-2024 Season is:

The World Premiere of

Revolution

By Ensemble Member Brett Neveu

Directed by Associate Artistic Director Travis A. Knight

Featuring Ensemble Member Natalie West

September 7-October 29, 2023

Previews September 7-September 16 / Regular Run September 21-October 29

Press Performances: September 16, 2023

Who celebrates their 26th birthday in the alley? Puff, that's who. With the help of her best friend Jame and the unlikely company of Georgia, Puff rings in her new year with laughter, connection, a dose of danger, and Miller High Life. Revolution interrogates and celebrates the very nature of creating community and building friendships in our ever evolving, ever disconnecting world.

Brett Neveu joined A Red Orchid's ensemble in 2004. His productions at AROT include The Malignant Ampersands, Traitor, Pilgrim's Progress, Megacosm, The Meek, The Earl, 4 Murders, and Eric LaRue. Past theatre work includes productions with The Royal Court Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare Company in London; SkyPilot Theatre Company in LA; and The Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, The House Theatre, The Inconvenience, The Side Project, TimeLine Theatre Company, American Theatre Company, Greenhouse Theatre, Signal Ensemble, and Strawdog Theatre in Chicago. His film productions include the Shudder original feature film Night's End, the short film Convo with Breakwall Pictures, and the feature The Earl with Intermission Productions. A Sundance Institute Ucross Fellow, Brett is also a recipient of the Marquee Award from Chicago Dramatists, the Ofner Prize for New Work, the Emerging Artist Award from The League of Chicago Theatres, and an After Dark Award for Outstanding Musical (Old Town). He has developed plays with companies including The Atlantic Theatre Company and The New Group in New York and The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. Brett is a resident-alum of Chicago Dramatists, a current member of TimeLine Theatre Company's Writers Collective and an alumni member of the Center Theatre Group's Playwrights' Workshop in Los Angeles. He has been commissioned by numerous theaters and has had several of his plays published through Broadway Play Publishing, Dramatic Publishing and Nick Hern Publishing. Brett has taught writing at DePaul University, The Second City Training Center, and Northwestern University.

Travis A. Knight: Revolution will mark Travis' directing debut at A Red Orchid. Previous acting credits at A Red Orchid include The Malignant Ampersands, Grey House, and Small Mouth Sounds. He is a proud member of the artistic ensemble and serves as the Associate Artistic Director. Other Chicago credits include: The Crucible (Steppenwolf); Toni Stone, Ah, Wilderness!, Christmas Carol, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, Measure for Measure, and Camino Real (Goodman); How a Boy Falls (Northlight) and Camelot (Drury Lane). Regional credits include The Brothers Size (Milwaukee Chamber), A Streetcar Named Desire (Uprooted), and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Forward Theatre). Selected credits from his five seasons at American Players Theatre are: The Tempest, Glass Menagerie, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Troilus and Cressida, and Richard III. TV and web series: Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Mind Games, and Dad Man Walking. Film credits: Henry Gamble's Birthday Party and Runner.

The Chicago Premiere of

In Quietness

By Anna Ouyang Moench

Directed by Ensemble Member dado

Featuring Ensemble Member Sadieh Rifai

January 11-March 3, 2024

Previews January 11 - January 20 / Regular Run January 25 - March 3

Press Performances: January 20, 2024

A former consultant follows her born-again husband to a Southern Baptist seminary. There, she enrolls as a student at the Homemaking House, the nation's premier training ground for future homemakers and a place where marital bliss means never having to say thank you for cleaning the toilet. In Quietness asks us all to consider how fidelity to self, family, community, and faith coexist as we work to manifest our futures.

Anna Ouyang Moench is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include Mothers, Sin Eaters, Man of God, 100 Days of Darkness, Birds of North America, Hunger, and In Quietness. Her plays have been produced at Williamstown Theatre Festival, NAATCO/The Public Theater, The Geffen Playhouse, the Playwrights Realm, East West Players, InterAct Theater, and many other theaters across the country and around the world. In television and film, Anna has worked with Apple TV+, HBO, Netflix, UCP, eOne, PictureStart, and Universal. She is a Supervising Producer on Severance and a Co-Executive Producer on The White Darkness, both on Apple TV+. Anna was a member of the pilot cohort of the WarnerMedia Access Showrunner Program. Anna lives in Los Angeles with her family.

dado is an ensemble member at A Red Orchid Theatre. Her most recent AROT productions were Act Five (director/conceiver), The Moors (in which she played the Moor-Hen), Killing Game by Eugene Ionesco (director), and Grey House, in which she originated the role of The Ancient. Her AROT production of Sam Shepard's Simpatico moved to the McCarter Theatre. Dado portrayed Karla Stock in the world premiere of AROT's production of Traitor by Brett Neveu, directed by Michael Shannon; this adaptation of Ibsen's Enemy of the People won three Joseph Jefferson Awards. Dado is the recipient of the Edes Prize from the University of Chicago and produced David Lang's chamber opera little matchgirl passion (Facility Theatre) with this award. She is also the director of Erik Satie's surrealist Ruse of Medusa (Facility Theatre) and the original Vacuum Cleaner Opera, which was produced at the MCA and Prop Thtr. At A Red Orchid, she has directed The Mutilated, The Unseen, The Room, Megacosm, Fastest Clock in the Universe, The Grey Zone, and others. Dado is currently a professor at Purdue University Northwest and holds an MFA in visual art from the University of Chicago.

The World Premiere of

Turret

By Ensemble Member Levi Holloway

Featuring Ensemble Members Michael Shannon and Travis A. Knight

April 25-June 15, 2024

Previews April 25-May 4 / Regular run May 9-June 15

Press Performances: May 4, 2024

Two men survive in a facility deep underground somewhere in the wild woods of the Pacific Northwest, hiding away from something terrible looming just outside. Ensnared in a relentless loop of endless tomorrows, they discover the wolf isn't at the door, he's already inside, waiting in the creeping darkness all around them. Turret is an excavation of masculinity, love, loss and isolation. A claustrophobic carnival of carnage, carrier pigeons, cribbage, whiskey, music, mischief and mayhem.

Levi Holloway is a Chicago-based writer, director, actor and teacher. As a playwright, world premieres include his adaptation of Pinocchio at Chicago Children's Theatre, Haven Place and Grey House (Jeff Award, Best New Work) at A Red Orchid Theatre, with which he is an ensemble member. The Broadway premiere of Grey House is currently onstage at the Lyceum Theatre, directed by Joe Mantello. Levi is the co-founder of Neverbird Project, a youth based Deaf and hearing theatre company. He spent a decade as head of the Sign/Voice theatre program at Chicago's Bell Elementary, one of the country's oldest and most prolific Deaf and hearing integrated schools, founded in 1917. As a stage actor, he's worked most recently with A Red Orchid Theatre, Steppenwolf, Chicago Children's Theatre and Northlight. He teaches playwriting with Silk Road Rising, fulfilling residencies throughout Chicago, most recently with Heartland Alliance, helping refugees tell their stories. He is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content.

Subscription Information

Guarantee your seat and save %10 off single ticketing by becoming a SUBSCRIBER at A Red Orchid Theatre. Subscriptions will be available for purchase starting on Tuesday May 16 at 12pm.

Subscribers enjoy date flexibility and exchanges, additional ticket discounts, and reserved seating. The Regular Run Subscription is $140 and includes one ticket to each of the 3 productions in our 31st Season, excluding Opening Nights. The Preview Subscription is $105 and includes one ticket to a preview performance of each of the 3 shows in our 31st season. Each production has 8 preview performances leading up to its opening.

Subscriptions may be purchased online starting Tuesday May 16 at 12pm at www.aredorchidtheatre.org or by calling the box office at 312-943-8722. A Red Orchid Theatre is located at 5631 N Wells St. in Chicago.

About A Red Orchid

A Red Orchid Theatre has served as an artistic focal point in the heart of the Old Town community of Chicago since 1993 and was honored with a 2016 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Over the past 31 years, its Resident Ensemble has welcomed into its fold an impressive array of award-winning actors, playwrights, and theatre artists with the firm belief that live theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit. A Red Orchid is well known and highly acclaimed for its fearless approach to performance and design in the service of unflinchingly intimate stories.

A Red Orchid Theatre is: Karen Aldridge, Lance Baker, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Esteban Andres Cruz, Dado, Mike Durst, Sherman Edwards, Myron Elliott-Cisneros, Jennifer Engstrom, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Joseph Fosco, Steve Haggard, Levi Holloway, Mierka Girten, Lawrence Grimm, John Judd, Karen Kawa, Karen Kessler, Travis A. Knight, Danny McCarthy, Shade Murray, Brett Neveu, Sadieh Rifai, Grant Sabin, Steve Schine, Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen, Doug Vickers and Natalie West.