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REDTWIST THEATRE ANNOUNCES CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM FOR
GARY: A SEQUEL TO TITUS ANDRONICUS
WRITTEN BY TAYLOR MAC AND DIRECTED BY STEVE SCOTT
APRIL 24 - JUNE 1
Award-Winning Artist, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and MacArthur “Genius” Taylor Mac Pens the Aftermath to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
Award-winning Redtwist Theatre, currently presenting, the recently extended through April 6, Titus Andronicus, one of the top rated plays in Chicago, according to TheaterInChicago.com, is proud to announce the cast and creative team for Taylor Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, April 24 - June 1, at Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave, directed by Steve Scott. Previews are Thursday, April 24 - Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.
I'll be out for the press opening April 27th, so check back soon after for my full review. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. The running time is currently 95 minutes with no intermission. Two understudy performances will occur on Thursday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 25 at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 for general admission, with pay-what-you-can pricing every Friday and are available now at RedtwistTheatre.org.
Taylor Mac’s singular world view intersects with Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus. Set just after the blood-soaked conclusion of that sensationally gruesome tale, the years of battles are over, the country has been stolen by madmen, and there are casualties everywhere. And two very lowly servants are charged with cleaning up the bodies. It’s the year 400—but it feels like the end of the world.
Top Row, L to R: William Delforge and Hannah Rhode
Bottom Row: Cameron Austin Brown
The Gary cast includes William Delforge (he/him, Gary); Hannah Rhode (she/her, Janice); Cameron Austin Brown (he/him, Carol); Hannah Rhode (she/her, Janice) with understudies TBA (U/S Gary); Madison Bacino (she/her, U/S Janice); and Hannah McCauley (she/her, U/S Carol).
The Gary creative team includes Steve Scott (he/him, director); Maria Reyes (she/her, stage manager); Ashley O’Neill (she/her, stage manager); Eric Luchen (he/him, set design); Korey Joseph (he/him, assistant director); kClare McKellaston (she/her, costume design); Robin Manganaro (she/her, props design); Jeff Brain (he/him, technical director); Seth Eggenschwiller (he/him, fight/violence director); Piper Kirchhofer (she/her, lighting design); Rain DeDominici (they/she, production manager); Eileen Dixon (she/her, casting director/co-artistic director) and Dusty Brown (they/them, co-artistic director).
Productions, participants and dates are subject to change.
ABOUT TAYLOR MAC, playwright
Taylor Mac (who uses “judy”, lowercase sic, not as a name but as a gender pronoun) is a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, performance artist, director and producer. “A critical darling of the New York scene” (New York Magazine), TimeOut NY has called Mac “One of the most exciting theater artists of our time” (naming judy a future theater legend). Judy’s work has been performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center, The Public Theatre and Playwrights Horizons, Los Angeles’s Royce Hall, Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, Boston’s American Repertory Theatre, Stockholm’s SodraTheatern, the Spoleto Festival, San Francisco’s Curran Theater and MOMA and literally hundreds of other theaters, museums, music halls, opera houses, cabarets and festivals around the globe. Judy is the author of 17 full-length plays and performance pieces including HIR (placed on the top ten theater of 2015 lists of The New York Times, New York Magazine and Time Out NY; published by North Western University Press and in American Theater Magazine), The Lily’s Revenge (Obie Award), The Walk Across America for Mother Earth (named “One of the Best Plays of 2011” by The New York Times), The Young Ladies Of (Chicago’s Jeff Award nomination for best solo), Red Tide Blooming (Ethyl Eichelberger Award), The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac (Edinburgh Festival’s Herald Angel Award) and in collaboration with Mandy Patinkin, Susan Stroman and Paul Ford, Mac created The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville. Mac is the recipient of multiple awards including the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim Award, the Herb Alpert Award in Theater, the Peter Zeisler Memorial Award, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and an Obie. An alumnus of New Dramatists, judy is currently a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect and the resident playwright at the Here Arts Center.
ABOUT STEVE SCOTT, director
Steve Scott has directed eleven previous productions for Redtwist Theatre, including King Lear, Death of a Salesman, Clybourne Park and A Delicate Balance. During his career he has directed more than 300 productions locally and nationally; recent credits include Royko: The Toughest Man in Town at the Chopin Theatre and Native Gardens at Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. He is a member of the Redtwist ensemble and is an artistic associate and board member at the Goodman Theatre, where he served as producer for more than 30 years. For three decades Scott was on the faculty of the Theatre Conservatory of the Chicago College of Fine Arts at Roosevelt University and is the recipient of six
Jeff nominations, an After Dark Award, a special Jeff Award for career achievement and the League of Chicago Theaters’ Lifetime Achievement Award. He is currently the artistic director of the Dunes Arts Foundation in Michigan City, Indiana.
Redtwist, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, is an award-winning theatre company that stages up close and personal contemporary dramas annually in its intimate black box theatre housed proudly within the heart of Edgewater’s Bryn Mawr Historic District.
Intimate performances at Redtwist are designed to place the theatre patron in the midst of the stories being told, making them accessible and riveting. Redtwist strives for excellence with every project and endeavors to take risks while offering opportunities for up-and-coming actors, designers and directors to work with established talent. Redtwist provides the very best Chicago storefront theatre experience from excellence on stage, to warm hospitality in a clean, friendly environment.