A Red Orchid Presents MISSED CONNECTIONS, A Live, Interactive Play With Magic

A Red Orchid Theatre presents Missed Connections, a live, interactive play with magic, conceived for virtual experience, co-written by Jon Tai & Alex Gruhin, performed by magician Jon Tai, and produced by Alex Gruhin. Missed Connections runs February 2-February 28, 2021.

Missed Connections is an intimate and immersive evening of story and magic where things imagined become real and connection is possible through the shared experience of wonder. The play, a magician's cosmic love story inspired by the work of Haruki Murakami, Marshall McLuhan and Derren Brown, takes 25 audience members on a roundtrip voyage to the stars in search of the invisible thread that connects them all.

Tickets for the virtual production, $25, are now available at A Red Orchid Theatre's website www.aredorchidtheatre.org.

"Missed Connections isa??nota??a passive viewing experience, a livestream or a virtual magic show," says A Red Orchid's Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald. "Ita??isa??a totally unique theatrical event, designed for a new performing arts media landscape, enabled by and co-created with its audience on a performance-by-performance basis. Missed Connections is intimate and seemingly impossible and completely original - exactly the type of work that A Red Orchid is all about. We are thrilled to share this cutting-edge piece of theater with our community."

From Magician Jon Tai: "In Missed Connections, I ask audience members to join me in taking a leap into the strange unknown, to explore the complexities of fate and discover the universe's most beautiful magic trick of all. I cannot wait to forge connections with audiences in Chicago and around the world."

Co-Author/Producer Alex Gruhin: "Missed Connectionsa??is a love letter to the future of the performing arts.a?? We are so excited to partner with Chicago's intrepid, innovative A Red Orchid Theatre to launch its pioneering mission across the universe."

Jon Tai is a celebrated magician and storyteller, whose mission it is to foster connections between people through shared moments of astonishment. He performs magic across the country and around the world, in person and virtually, and has called the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Liberty Magic Theater his home base since its grand opening in early 2019. Jon is a ten-year veteran of the medical software industry and is proud to support several health and human services nonprofit organizations through his magic, including Hello Neighbor, the Cancer Caring Center, Beverly's Birthdays, and Pace Schools. A graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Psychology, Jon lives with his wife Kate and tiny dog Nina in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, right around the corner from his favorite coffee shop/cafe - The Pear and the Pickle.

Alex Gruhin is a playwright, producer and serial corporate intrapreneur focused on customer experience innovation. Favorite conceptions to date beyond Missed Connections include: over 75 magic, music and wellness inspired immersive event collaborations with Chef David Bouley, Nightcap Riot: Mombucha at Magick City, Natti Vogel's Yom Kippur Spectacular at Feinstein's 54 Below, the first ever classical music series for Bed Bath & Beyond, a leading-edge avatar-driven customer experience strategy for St. Regis Hotels, and a digitally transformed Helen Hayes Awards for theatreWashington during Covid 2020. Alex's most influential theater training has been as an audience member at 2000+ shows across the country and around the world. Also - his time spent as the playwright Ken Ludwig's PA and in the classroom with extraordinary teachers like Fishamble's Literary Manager Gavin Kostick, the director Bruce Levitt and the comedian and solo performer Judy Gold. Alex is a proud graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications. He lives in Hell's Kitchen, NYC with his far better half, Ariel, and their two cats - Golda Meir and Cali.

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