Photo Flash: First Look at A Red Orchid Theatre's STRANDLINE

A Red Orchid Theatre opens its 22nd Season with the US premiere of Strandline, written by Abbie Spallen and directed by JR Sullivan (The Faith Healer). The production runs October 23 - December 7, 2014 at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells. Press Opening is Monday, October 27, 2014 at 7 p.m.

A richly comic, searing drama by Abbie Spallen, one of Ireland's most exciting playwrights and winner of the Steward Parker Trust Award and the The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. In a small coastal village in Northern Ireland, three local women reluctantly join Mairin, an outsider and an artist, in mourning the death of her husband. Everyone is there for a reason, but each has a bloody good reason not to be there. With mythical echoes, Strandline turns a sharp eye on small-town social and economic realities.

Strandline premiered with Fishamble in Dublin in 2009.

Strandline features A Red Orchid Ensemble Members Dado, Kirsten Fitzgerald and Natalie West with Meg Warnerand John Babbo.

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 live theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit and that passionately committed theatre will draw passionately committed audiences.

Photos by Michael Brosilow