Seanachaí Announces 2011-2012 Season Starring Pickerign and Armacost

Seanachaí proudly announces the company's second season at its permanent home, the 3rd Floor Theatre at the Irish American Heritage Center. Sean O'Casey's political tragicomedy The Shadow of a Gunman unveils the theme of the 2011-2012 season, Classic Voices - The Revolutionaries. In spring 2012, veteran Chicago actors Brad Armacost and Steve Pickering star as Phil Hogan and James Tyrone, in iconoclast Eugene O'Neill's emotionally searing A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Long celebrated for producing contemporary Irish works, Seanachaí journeys back to explore these early 20th century revolutionary masters, the now classic voices of Irish/American theatre.

Steve Pickering recently appeared in the world premiere of Thomas Bradshaw's Mary, directed by May Adrales, and Robert Falls' production of Chekhov's The Seagull - adding to a total of over 30 productions for Chicago's Goodman Theatre since 1987.

Other Goodman credits for Falls include, in 2002, as Jamie Tyrone opposite Brian Dennehy, David Cromer, Pamela Peyton-Wright and Susan Bennett in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and, in 2006, as Kent opposite Stacy Keach in King Lear, remounted last year at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC.

In 2005, Steve completed over 700 performances of Falls' Tony Award-winning production of Death of a Salesman, also opposite Dennehy - at Goodman, on Broadway, for the National Tour, the Showtime network, and in London's West End.

In 2010, he appeared in Jason Loewith's War with the Newts at the Next, at Milwaukee Rep in George M. Cohan's Seven Keys To Slaughter Peak for Joe Hanreddy - his ninth show with the company - in Stuart Carden's production of Blackbird for Pittsburgh City Theatre, and as the title role in John Clancy's Fatboy, directed by Guy van Swearingen for Red Orchid.

Brad Armacost has a long association with Irish theatre in Chicago. Last fall he played the role of Jack in Seanachaí's critically acclaimed, Jeff Recommended production of The Weir by Conor McPherson, directed by Matt Miller.

Brad received the Joseph Jefferson Award for his work in Brian Friel's Faith Healer at the upstairs theatre at Steppenwolf, as well as appearing in Steppenwolf productions of The Seafarer, Playboy of the Western World and Maria Arndt. He appeared in O'Neill's A Touch of a Poet with Brian Dennehy at the Goodman Theatre as well as A Life at Northlight with John Mahoney. Other Goodman credits include A Christmas Carol, Zoo Story, Oedipus Complex, and The Trip To Bountiful.

Brad is an artistic associate with Provision Theatre where he has received Joseph Jefferson nominations for his work as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, and the one man show C S Lewis Onstage. He recently appeared for Provision as C S Lewis in Shadowlands. His television credits include Missing Persons, Angel Street, and recurring roles on The Untouchables and Early Edition. Film credits include Robert Altman's The Company, Alderman Brock in Barbershop 2, Repetition, Eight Men Out and Backwoods.

During the 1910s, Eugene O'Neill (1888 - 1953) began a playwriting career that would revolutionize the American Theatre. In 1936, he became the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize and went on to become a four-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. His most well known works include Beyond The Horizon, Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape, Desire Under the Elms, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten and A Touch of the Poet. Today, he is generally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists in the history of American Theatre.

Séan O'Casey (1880 - 1964), born to a poor Protestant family, embraced the Irish nationalist cause and became active in the labor movement and its paramilitary Irish Citizen Army. By 1915 he had turned from politics to writing realistic tragicomedies about Dublin slum dwellers in war and revolution, the first Irish writer of note to do so. The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, produced three of his earliest and best-known plays: The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), and The Plough and the Stars (1926), of which the latter inspired Irish patriots to riot.

Seanachaí Theatre Company 2011 - 2012 Season

The Shadow of a Gunman by Sean O'Casey
September 15th - October 23rd 2011

A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill
March 15th - April 22nd 2012

Performed in the 3rd Floor Theatre

The Irish American Heritage Center

4626 N. Knox, Chicago, IL 60630

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www.seanachai.org

Seanachaí is the Gaelic word for Storyteller.
The people's stories were at the very core of ancient Irish culture. It was the duty of the Seanachaí to keep these stories alive. The mission of Seanachaí Theatre Company is to return theatre to this origin - by creating compelling productions and programs that focus the energy of artists towards The Common goal of exceptional storytelling. To achieve this end, Seanachaí Theatre Company strives to provide an atmosphere where all theatre artists - actors, playwrights, directors and designers - have the support and assurance to collaborate openly. That is at the heart of all ensemble companies, and Seanachaí has proven itself a major player in Chicago's ensemble-driven theatrical community.

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