Red Tape Theatre to Present Midwest Premiere of A HEDDA GABLER

Red Tape Theatre will produce the Midwest premiere of A HEDDA GABLER, adapted and with translations by Chicago-based playwright Nigel O'Hearn and directed by Artistic Director Max Truax.

O'Hearn distills the action of Ibsen's text, placing greater focus on the inner conflict that drives Hedda to extremes. Newly married and returned from her honeymoon, Hedda finds herself ensnared by social circumstances and surrounded by reminders of her oppression. Her attempts to manipulate her oppressors and reclaim personal agency only serve to reveal the inescapability of her plight.

With inventive staging by Artistic Director Max Truax, Red Tape's production of A HEDDA GABLER will portray the world as Hedda sees it - starkly formal, suffocatingly rigid and entirely unjust.

Shows run November 18th - December 17th. Performances take place Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays at 8pm. A HEDDA GABLER will be performed in The Buena space in the Pride Arts Center at 4147 N Broadway. The Pride Arts Center is the new home of Pride Films and Plays.

Nigel O'Hearn is thrilled to present his new adaptation of A HEDDA GABLER to open the 2016/2017 season. Nigel is a graduate of St. Edward's University, where he was a Presidential Award recipient and Brown Scholar for his work in theatre and creative writing.

Nigel O'Hearn's first play premiered in the winter of 2006. Since, his plays have been produced in Edinburgh, New York, and Chicago as part of the International Fringe Festivals there, as well as at various theaters in Austin, Texas-his hometown-including: THE SUIROR -OR- THE MADNESS INSIDE ME GROWING; his adaptation of Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist; and the Equity premier of THE ATTIC SPACE. In 2009 Nigel co-founded Austin's Palindrome Theatre Company and served as its Artistic Director & Resident Playwright until 2012.

In early 2014 he produced the workshop premiere of his THEY: A LAMENTATION together with Triptych Theatre at the 2014 Chicago Fringe Festival. Soon after, Nigel began working with Chicago's public access theater, Oracle Productions, as their originating Director of Development. As a playwright with Oracle, Nigel co-adapted CIRCLE-MACHINE with Emma Stanton and Director Thom Pasculli from Chuck Mee's Full Circle for the 2015 season.

2015 also saw an early workshop presentation of his second Ibsen adaptation, THE ALLIANCE OF BRATS, from Ibsen's The League of Youth, which was presented in affiliation with Illinois State University at Heartland Theatre Company, in Normal, IL. Nigel recently completed an original musical, THE KINDLING, composed by Jeff Award-winning composer Nicholas Tonozzi.

Meet The Cast & Crew:

Aayisha Humphrey - Hedda Tessman (Gabler)
Johnard Washington * - George Tessman
Michael Kingston - Judge Brack
Austin Oi * - Eilert Lovborg
Joan McGrath - Berte
Sarah Grant * - Thea Elvsted
Joe Hudson - Understudy
Kelsey Shipley - Understudy

Directed by - Max Truax
Joanna Iwanicka - Set Design
Izumi Inaba * - Costume Design
Andrew Lehmkuhl - Light Design
Steve Labedz * - Sound Design
Abigail Cain - Props Design
Drew Durfee - Stage Manager
Kyle Land * - Producer

* - Red Tape Company Members