A Red Orchid Theatre Announces Second Performance of THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS

On February 25, 2012, A Red Orchid Theatre announced the one-night only Chicago premiere of Mike Daisey's monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (TAESJ) to be performed by AROT Ensemble Member Lance Baker on March 5, 2012. Inspired by the enthusiasm of that sold-out house, A Red Orchid Theatre will offer a second showing.  On Monday, March 12, 2012 at 8PM, Lance Baker will share this monologue with Chicago for a second time.

The monologue will again be performed on the set of Brett Neveu's Megacosm (now in an extended run), which takes place in what the Chicago Tribune has called "the post-industrial, corporate entertainment complex of a dystopian world."  In thematic conjunction,TAESJ takes place in our current dystopian world, where the narrator, a self-professed "worshipper in the cult of Mac," takes a trip to China to see for himself how the product is manufactured, and finds that our thirst for the newest gadgets has far-reaching implications that are not usually considered by those who line up to purchase the latest technological wonders at curiously inexpensive prices.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is currently running off-Broadway in a sold-out, extended run, and has garnered the best notices of Mr. Daisey's career.

Mike Daisey (Playwright) has created over fifteen monologues, including the critically-acclaimed The Last Cargo Cult, the controversial How Theater Failed America, the twenty-four-hour feat All the Hours in the Day, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, the four-part epic Great Men of Genius, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. He has performed in venues on five continents, ranging from Off-Broadway at The Public Theater to remote islands in the South Pacific, from the Sydney Opera House to an abandoned theater in post-Communist Tajikistan. He's been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as a commentator and contributor to the New York Times, This American Life, WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. His first film, Layover, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and a feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something is currently in post-production.  His second book, Rough Magic, a collection of his monologues, will be published in 2012. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, five Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation's Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in Brooklyn with his collaborator and partner Jean-Michele Gregory.

Lance Baker is a proud ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre, having appeared in Becky Shaw, The Mandrake, Hunger and Thirst, and The Grey Zone, as well as directing the world premiere of Brett Neveu's The Earl and co-directing the Chicago premiere ofA Very Merry Unauthorized Scientology Pageant. He has been a presence on Chicago stages since 1989, and has appeared at the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Court, Northlight, Chicago Shakespeare, and many others. He has been in numerous solo shows, including (all Chicago premieres) David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries, Adam Rapp's Nocturne, and Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing), for which he received the Jeff Award for Best Solo Performance. He is currently at work on a meta-monologue about death called Spalding Gray's Big Fish.