Lance Baker to Perform Mike Daisey's THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS, 3/5

On Monday, February 20, 2012, Mike Daisey announced that his smash hit monologue The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (TAESJ) would be made available to the public as an "open-source, royalty-free" work, downloadable from his website and available to be adapted and performed by "anyone, anytime, anywhere." Five days following the announcement, A Red Orchid Theatre is proud to announce the Chicago Premiere of Daisey's piece in a one-night-only benefit performance featuring AROT Ensemble Member Lance Baker on Monday, March 5th, 2012 at 8:00PM.

The monologue will be performed on the set of Brett Neveu's Megacosm (now in an extended run). 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.

"We're so pleased to present Daisey's brilliant monologue in our intimate space starring Ensemble Member Lance Baker," says AROT Artistic Director, Kirsten Fitzgerald. "This stunning piece is immediate to both our current production of Megacosm, and more importantly to our world at large."

TAESJ 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 Last Cargo Cult, How Theater Failed America, the twenty-four-hour feat All the Hours in the Day, All Stories Are Fiction, the four-part Great Men of Genius, and 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 of A 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.

About A Red Orchid

Since 1993 A Red Orchid Theatre has been an artistic mainstay of the Chicago theatre community; known and praised for its powerful ensemble, creative design and its gripping, intimate productions. The resident Ensemble maintains the conviction that passionately committed theatre will draw passionately committed audiences, and the 2009-2010 subscription season promises to bring Ensemble and audience even closer together.

A Red Orchid Theatre is: Lance Baker, Dado, Jennifer Engstrom, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Joseph Fosco, Steve Haggard, Mierka Girten, Larry Grimm, Karen Kawa, Karen Kessler, Danny McCarthy, Brett Neveu, Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen, Doug Vickers, Tiffany Wilson and Craig Wright.