AstonRep Theatre Company Opens Season with Labour and Leisure, Previews 11/12

As the opening production of its first official season, AstonRep Theatre Company proudly announces Labour and Leisure: The Good and Faithful Servant and The Erpingham Camp by Joe Orton. This is a celebration of two very strong yet more obscure works by the great Joe Orton. Labour and Leisure will run at The BoHo Theatre at Heartland Studio, 7016 N Glenwood Ave. Chicago, Illinois 60626.

The show will run November 12 thru December 11. Labour and Leisure will preview on Friday, November 12 at 8pm, open on Saturday, November 13 at 8pm and continue Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. There will be no show on Friday, November 26 and an added show Thursday, December 9. Press and industry are especially welcome to attend performances opening weekend: Saturday, November 13 and Sunday, November 14. Tickets are $15. For more information and reservations, please call (773)828-9129 or go to www.astonrep.com.

A semi-autobiographical satire, The Good and Faithful Servant is the blackest of Orton's black comedies but still has touches of "Ortonesque" wackiness. Buchanan, the title character, has earned his rest after fifty years of service. On the day he retires, he discovers a grandson he was not aware of and joins forces with Mrs. Vealfoy, his company's HR director, to ensure his grandson learns the satisfaction of a job well done and a rest well earned. This naughty indictment of capitalism, labor, religion and sexual mores will have you laughing in the theatre and arguing about socialism on the way home.

Orton's own adaptation of The Bacchae, The Erpingham Camp is an outlandish farce in which a respectable group of English campers are innocently pleasuring themselves at a 1960's holiday camp before catastrophe strikes and they find themselves fighting against the camp's rigid, moral and patronizing manager, "Erpingham". When their rights are violated, the campers take a stand. Led by a bloke in leopard-skin and a chap with no pants, revolution ignites and pandemonium reigns.

Labour and Leisure will include direction by Ray Kasper (The Good and Faithful Servant) and Robert Tobin (The Erpingham Camp), and will feature actors Barbara Button, Charlie Cascino, John Collins, Johnny Garcia, Sara Greenfield, Amy Kasper, Ray Kasper, Ian Knox, Kathleen Lawlor, Jeff McVann, and Kipp Moorman. Produced by AstonRep Theatre Company. Stage Management will be by Samantha Barr. Set and lighting design will be by Jeremiah Barr. Fight choreography will be by Charlie Cascino. Graphic Design is by Lea Tobin.

http://www.astonrep.com/

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