Artists Rep Presents RED HERRING, Beginning 2/12

If you pay attention, will the clues lead you in the right direction? Replete with farcical spy antics and ill-fitting shoes, something smells fishy in this comedic noir fable. A pulpy delight awaits with Commie spies afoot, the H-bomb looming and McCarthy's detective daughter hot on the trail of a fog-filled murder case. As the knots of three convoluted relationships tie and fray, the plot-crossed lovers in this 1950s espionage tale will bumble, subvert and strategize their way to finding each other... eventually unraveling their trysts into a riotous, inescapable tangle.

Red Herring, by Michael Hollinger, runs February 12 through March 3 on the Alder Stage with Oregon Shakespeare Festival pros Christopher Liam Moore and scenic designer Richard Hay making their Artists Rep debut with an all-star Portland cast.

"At the core of the story, it's a goofy noir, a spoof," said Moore at the production's first rehearsal. "But it is also very much about three couples with secrets at a moment of crisis trying to find the way to love each other on a thorny complicated path." It's the playwright's smart wit and the beautiful tests of the heart that happen in this play that drew him to it. "To give this script the respect it deserves," Moore said. "It requires nimbleness, deftness, lightness of touch and great, great heart ... and this cast has it."

Moore has spent four seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he directed A Streetcar Named Desire, A Midsummer Night's Dream, August: Osage County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Dead Man's Cell Phone, among others. Joining Moore from OSF is legendary scenic designer Richard Hay. Richard is senior designer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he has designed for 55 seasons. He created the designs for all four of the festival theatres and has designed 239 productions including the entire Shakespearean canon. He was Associate Artistic Director for Design at the Denver Center Theatre Company for seven seasons. Production designs for other theatres include: Portland Center Stage (as OSF Portland); Mark Taper Forum, American Conservatory Theatre, PCPA Theaterfest, The Old Globe Theatre, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theater and Kennedy Center.

Theatres he has designed include: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre and new Old Globe Theatre (both in San Diego), The Source and Space Theatres for Denver Center Theatre Company, among others. His scenic designs have been included in the Prague Scenography Exhibition in 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995 and 2003. He received a Fulbright Grant to England; an Oregon Governor's Award for the Arts, 1989; USITT Distinguished Achievement Award, 1999; USITT Fellow of the Institute, 2007.