Sideshow Theatre Company Presents HEDDATRON, 2/11-4/24

Sideshow Theatre Company is proud to present the Chicago premiere of Elizabeth Meriwether's Heddatron as one of three storefront theaters selected for Steppenwolf's 2nd annual GARAGE REP. The play, directed by Sideshow artistic director Jonathan L. Green, is one of Sideshow's most ambitious projects to date, both for its artistic and technical challenges, and will conclude Sideshow's 2010-2011 season. Heddatron will run in repertory for 11 weeks starting February 11 through April 24, 2011, in Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted St.

"Heddatron requires its large cast of actors to share the stage and closely interact with an even larger cast of fully functioning robots," says Green. "We've been planning and engineering for months and after seeing what the robots can do and the looks on everyone's faces the first day we introduced them in rehearsal, we're excited and can't wait to share them with our audiences."

It all starts with a book falling from the sky. Suddenly Jane Gordon, a very depressed and very pregnant Michigan housewife, finds herself kidnapped by a clan of renegade sentient robots and whisked away to the jungles of South America where she is forced to perform the title role in a mechanical version of Hedda Gabler. As a documentarian searches for the truth about Jane's abduction and her family mounts a search party, Jane's 10-year-old daughter Nugget discovers a past where a tormented Henrik Ibsen squeezes out each tortured word of his greatest masterpiece. Dark and savagely funny, Heddatron "achieves true, and truly original, theatrical transcendence" (Ben Brantley, NY Times) in a bizarre and strangely familiar world of reality TV and rocket launchers where everyone, metal or otherwise, just wants to feel a little bit human. Sideshow Theatre Company is proud to partner with robotics experts from across Chicago to present a cast of both human actors and functioning robots in the Chicago premiere of Elizabeth Meriwether's frighteningly funny Heddatron.

The cast features Sideshow company members Matt Fletcher and Nate Whelden, with BrIan Grey, Robert Koon, Andy Luther, Jennifer Mathews, Nina O'Keefe, Jennifer Shine, and Catherine Stegemann. Robots will be controlled and operated by Catherine Connelly, Mike Fletcher, Heather Irwin, Lea Pascal, and Bruce Phillips.

As part of Steppenwolf's GARAGE REP, Heddatron will run in repertory for 11 weeks starting February 11 through April 24, 2011, in Steppenwolf's Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted St. The other two GARAGE REP productions include The Strange Tree Group's The Three Faces of Doctor Crippen by Emily Schwartz, and UrbanTheater Company's Sonnets for an Old Century by José Rivera. The GARAGE REP plays Wednesdays through Sundays at 8 pm; Saturdays and Sundays at 4 pm; with a three-show marathon on Saturday, February 26, Sunday, February 27 and Sunday, April 24 that include shows at 1 pm, 4 pm & 8 pm. The press performances for GARAGE REP will take place on Sunday, February 27 at 1 pm (Three Faces of Doctor Crippen), 4 pm (Sonnets for an Old Century) and 8 pm

Tickets for the GARAGE REP cost $20 per play and are available through Steppenwolf Audience, 1650 N. Halsted St., by calling (312) 335-1650 or online at www.steppenwolf.org. A three-play

Director Jonathan L. Green is Sideshow Theatre Company's Artistic Director. He has directed regionally with Sideshow, Chicago Dramatists, Live Arts and the Earl Hamner, Jr. Theatre. Recent directing projects include Theories of the Sun, Medea with Child, Everything Freezes: another winter's tale, Dante Dies!!, Mud, Waiting for the Parade (for which he received a nomination for the (and then things get weird) KCACTF SSDC Fellowship), A Number and Shakespeare's R&J. He graduated from the University of Virginia and currently works at Lookingglass Theatre Company.

Heddatron's production staff includes Navid Afshar (Stage Manager), Benjamin Dawson (Production Management), Angela M. Campos (Properties Designer), Mike Fernandez (Video Designer), Jeffrey(Dramaturgy), Kyle Gettelman (Technical Director), David Hyman (Costume, Puppet and Gardner Robot Designer), Jordan Kardasz (Lighting Designer), Christopher M. LaPorte (Sound Designer & Composer), Lisi Stoessel (Scenic and Robot Designer), and Bruce Phillips (Robot Designer). Sideshow is also partnering with robotic engineers from ChiBots including Salvador Garcia, Stuartand Eddy Wright to create the robotic actors.

For additional information on Sideshow, visit www.sideshowtheatre.org, www.facebook.com/SideshowTheatre, or http://twitter.com/SideshowTheatre. CLLAW, visit www.cllaw.org.