Theatre News Wire

A Red Orchid Theatre announced its 29th Season, kicking off the with the Chicago Premiere of The Moors by Jen Silverman, directed by Artistic Director and Ensemble Member Kirsten Fitzgerald (January 6 - February 27, 2022) and followed by the world premiere of Last Hermanos by Exal Iraheta (April 21 - June 12, 2022). Subscriptions to the 29th Season are on sale now and can be purchased by visiting www.aredorchidtheatre.org.

Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald says, "Isolation is a tricky thing; simultaneously distorting and clarifying priorities for many. I find myself in a moment where I am actively working to reorder what is my responsibility to interrogate and how I will or will not make it the same moving forward. I know I am not alone in this investigation, and I cannot think of two better plays with which to come together and dig in. Whether the wickedly funny and terrifying anthem to boundlessness that is The Moors or the heart-wrenching pull between reconciliation and revolution of Last Hermanos, both make me insatiably curious about how priorities accumulate and where we are all headed."


A Red Orchid Theatre's 2021-2022 Season includes:

The Chicago Premiere of
The Moors
By Jen Silverman
Directed by Artistic Director & Ensemble Member Kirsten Fitzgerald
Featuring the work of Ensemble Members Karen Aldridge, Dado, Myron Elliott-Cisneros, Jennifer Engstrom & Guy Van Swearingen
January 6 - February 27, 2022

On the wind-blown desolate moors two sisters and their mastiff scheme to wrest their destinies from the systems and savage land around them. A governess is summoned and a moor-hen drops in, forcing all to ask what price they might pay for autonomy and for love. Inspired (perhaps) by certain 19th-century gothic romances, and the sisters who wrote them, this savage comedy disrupts the conventions of status and visibility.

The World Premiere of
Last Hermanos
By Exal Iraheta
April 21 - June 12, 2022

Reunited and on the run; Miguel and Julio are fleeing an America where being Latinx is a life sentence. Sequestered in a Texas state park, the arrival of a sympathetic deserter, Shepherd, brings the conflict between Julio's desire for revolution and Miguel's longing for normalcy into sharp focus. Recorded last season as an audio play and now in its theatrical world premiere, LAST HERMANOS is a story of tenacious brotherhood and love in a not-so-distant future that asks which path promises the better future?

Also this season: A Red Orchid's Incubator was imagined and has recommitted to providing space and time for artists to explore new work, collaborative relationships, and artistic forms. This fall, the incubator will host a workshop production of Tom and Eliza, by Celine Song directed by A Red Orchid's Casting & Communications Assistant, Kyle Stoffers. Tom and Eliza will have public performances October 24 - November 12, 2021 and tickets will go on sale October 4.

Director Kyle Stoffers shares: "As we emerge from the pandemic into a vaccinated world of in-person activities, the aggressively "always-on" digital work world has certainly not stopped and with this coexistence, I find myself asking where the day/week/month/year went. Tom & Eliza is a play performed in "one long breath" notes playwright Celine Song; "There are no moments of silence or breaks from the beginning till the end of the play." Exploring live performance again is thrilling, but most notably for this play, I am excited about the interrogation of time; what is found and lost in marching relentlessly from a first-ish date to the end of the world. And discovering this breath playing out in real time, in front of our faces, in person."