Michael Shannon & More Set for A Red Orchid Theatre's 2015-16 Season

A Red Orchid Theatre announces additional Ensemble casting for its 2015-2016 season. Founding Ensemble Member and Oscar Nominee Michael Shannon joins Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald on stage in the World Premiere of Pilgrim's Progress by Ensemble Member Bret Neveu. Seven Ensemble Members will appear together in Tennessee Williams' The Mutilated, including Lance Baker, Jennifer Engstrom, Mierka Girten, Steve Haggard, Shade Murray, Doug Vickers and Natalie West. Murray makes his A Red Orchid stage debut with The Mutilated.

"With our eye on family and friendship, it is only fitting that so many Orchids will collaborate directly this season," notes Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald. "Michael and I have not shared the stage since we did Ionesco's The Killer back in 1998 and I am ecstatic to be going head to head this fall. As is evidenced by previous productions such as Abigail's Party, magic happens when we invest in our ensemble. With seven Orchids on stage in The Mutilated, I fully anticipate an incredible spectacle of humanity as can only be witnessed at A Red Orchid."

A Red Orchid Theatre's 2015-2016 Season includes:

World Premiere
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
by Ensemble Member Brett Neveu
Directed by Ensemble Member Shade Murray
Featuring Ensemble Members Kirsten Fitzgerald and Michael Shannon
October 15 - November 29, 2015
Previews October 15-18
Press Opening Monday October 19

It's Thanksgiving Day and the McKee family is up to its eyeballs in hilarious drama. Between stirring the cranberries and debating pumpkin pie, parents Jim and Melissa relive their glory days. Meanwhile, their earth-poet Son and pregnant-teen Daughter navigate family contracts, holiday power grabs, and decades of thinly veiled deceit. For a family with such a strong appetite for tales, are their stories more important than the truth? With homages to Albee, O'Neill, Williams and Shepard, the tension rides high and the carving knife does more than just cut the turkey.

THE MUTILATED
by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Ensemble Member Dado
Featuring Ensemble Members Lance Baker, Jennifer Engstrom, Mierka Girten, Steve Haggard, Shade Murray, Doug Vickers and Natalie West
January 14 - February 28, 2016
Previews January 14-17
Press Opening Monday January 18

It's Christmas Eve in New Orleans and Trinket Dugan is holed up at the Silver Dollar Hotel with a painful secret. Her only friend and confidant, Celeste, has just been released from jail and will stop at nothing to get back into her good graces, her pocket-book and her booze. Can their friendship survive the cruelty, the con men, hookers, cops, sailors and drunks? The Mutilated is one of Williams' funniest and most moving plays, and according to Williams himself is "an allegory on the tragicomic subject of human existence on this risky planet." -Esquire magazine 1965.

World Premiere
SENDER
by Ike Holter
Directed by Ensemble Member Shade Murray
Featuring Ensemble Member Steve Haggard
April 14 - May 29, 2016
Previews April 14-17
Press Opening Monday April 18

A World Premiere by one of Chicago's hottest emerging playwrights. It's summertime in Chicago. Over a year after his sensational death, a young man returns to his former apartment: alive, well, and with a new found ambition to fix what went wrong. A miracle reunion turns into a catastrophic disaster as the past catches up with the present and old debts return, expecting payment in full. What does growing-up mean and is it even desired in this day and age?

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