Sunday, February 13, 2011

Red Tape Valentine: Alex Kyger and Les Enfants Terribles

Alex is one of our newest ensemble members, and currently in the role of Director of Community Engagement. Alex comes to Red Tape by way of Les Enfants Terribles, a local buffoon troupe that first performed at Red Tape as part of CFANN 2010. After finding out how amazing Alex was, we couldn't help but scoop him up, and are eternally grateful that he can tear himself away from the buffoons every now and then.

Dear Mes Enfants,The more grotesque you are, the more I love. Love, Alex

Alex Kyger and Les Enfants Terribles- Celebrating our 3 year anniversary in March!

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Paige Sawin and Don Marcus

Paige has been an ensemble member since 2009, and is our resident casting director. She is also an actor and will be performing in our upcoming production of Tragedy: a tragedy. Paige and Don met when Paige smartly cast the dashing Don Marcus in 2009's Mouse in a Jar. After that we just couldn't bear to see him go and cast him in The Love of the Nightingale. Not only does Don love everything Red Tape, but is a fantastic assistant to Paige. Whether it's proctoring auditions or picking Paige up in his warm car after a late night at Red Tape, Don can always be counted on around here.

Donny, you will always hold the key to my heart. Thank you for your never-ending support. I love you. Xo, Paige

Paige Sawin and Don Marcus- Together 1 year and a half

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Mackenzie Brown May and Vic May

Vic first worked with Red Tape in 2008 as the lighting designer for Pugilist Specialist. We were relieved to learn he was married to Mackenzie, behind the scenes guru to the stars. Mackenzie originated the role of Red Tape's Production Manager with Dog in a Manger and has worn a variety of hats since. We have to admit, Vic is pretty cool too, and we were proud to bring him into the ensemble in 2009 after his performance in An Enemy of the People. Vic and Mackenzie are a true Red Tape power couple and can be counted on for everything from set construction, cleaning, front of house, even costume design!

Mackenzie most recently designed costumes for our current production of Church/Pullman, WA (with delivery services from Vic), and Vic will be performing in our upcoming production of Tragedy: a tragedy.

If not for theatre, I never would have met my husband. Thanks to the summer stock gods and love to my Victor. -Mackenzie

Vic and Mackenzie- Together 6 years, 8 months, married 3 years 4 months

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Robert L. Oakes and Marti Lyons

Robert is a founding member of Red Tape and also serves as the board president. Rob has been in numerous Red Tape productions, and adapted Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for Red Tape in 2009. He is currently performing in Church/ Pullman, WA. Marti is a talented director and the Literary Manager at Lookingglass Theatre Company. Rob and Marti met last season when Marti directed Rob in the Fresh Eyes Project. From there they spent a taxing, cold, strange night working the box office for CFANN 2010, and the rest is history. Marti will be directing our upcoming production of Tragedy: a tragedy this spring.

"To my Valentine, Marti Lyons, who inspires me to be the best artist I can be!"- Rob
"A poem: Happy Valentine's Day my dearest Reverend Jose"- Marti

Ensemble Member Robert L. Oakes and Marti Lyons- 12 months and counting

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Lona and Philip Livingston

Lona was first seen in Red Tape’s Enemy of the People in 2009. Since joining the ensemble she has performed in The Love of the Nightingale and Obscura: A Voyeuristic Love Story. Even with everything Lona does for Red Tape, we are equally happy to have Philip around! A talented and accomplished artist in his own right, Philip can always be counted on to help out with front of house, open his lovely home to Red Tape events from photo shoots to parties, and we couldn’t live without him and his skills during strike. We might still be looking at the Obscura set if it wasn’t for Philip!

“Lona and Philip having a November Valentine's Day in France.” –Lona

Lona and Philip Livingston, at 22 years- well, we were mere children

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Meghan Reardon and Spencer

Megan joined the ensemble after appearing in Red Tape’s The Love of the Nightingale in 2010. She is now our Director of Loyalty and Retention. Meghan performed in Obscura: A Voyeuristic Love Story and can be seen on stage now in Church/Pullman, WA. Spencer first appeared at Red Tape in cognito to surprise Meghan during Nightingale. We’re so glad he did not whisk her back to NYC with him!

“This is me with my best friend of ten-plus-years-and-counting, Spencer. He is my partner-in-crime and an honorary member of my family (he was even in our Christmas card one year). Our fake facebook marriage has lasted longer than many real marriages.

When I was in my first Red Tape show, he surprised me by flying in from New York to see the closing night performance. He even went as far as to wear sunglasses and a hat during the show so I wouldn't recognize him and get thrown off (for the record it didn't work--I'd know him anywhere).


Being so far away from him never gets any easier and all my theatre stuff cuts into precious phone time all too often. So this V-Day shout-out is for my dear, funny, finicky, favorite fella, my Spence!” –Meghan

Meghan and Spencer- going on 11 years

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentine: Carrie Drapac and Kira Elliott

Carrie has been an ensemble member since 2010. She appeared in The Love of the Nightingale, and can be seen on stage now in Church/Pullman, WA. Her Valentine is her amazing business partner and co-owner of Comfy Fitness. Not only is Kira particularly understanding when Carrie is rehearsing and in a show, but she’s also been known to make an appearance at a cast party herself.

“Not only is Kira a huge theatre fan, but she helps build our business in a way that gives me time to be an active Red Tape ensemble member. Without her I don't know how I'd manage both owning a small business and pursuing a fulfilling life as an actor. Happy Valentine's Day to the best business partner a girl could ask for!” –Carrie

Ensemble Member Carrie Drapac and business partner Kira Elliot, partners in fitness for 3 ½ years

Hang out with Red Tape on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Friday, February 11, 2011

Red Tape Valentines: Nick and Erica

Nicholas Combs and Erica Sartini

Nick has been an ensemble member with Red Tape since 2009. He has appeared in Enemy of the People, The Love of the Nightingale and most recently, Obscura: A Voyeuristic Love Story. Erica is a casting director and founder of Two Birds Casting. She's a Red Tape regular, never missing an opening night, and even volunteering to usher or take on other odd jobs. She collaborates regularly with our casting director, Paige Sawin, and will be heading up casting with Two Birds for our upcoming production of Tragedy: A Tragedy.


"We make it work because we both understand we have other loves, meaning Red Tape Theatre and Two Birds Casting, of course." - Erica

"To the Love of my life, who doesn't fuss when I say "I'm going to Red Tape honey, be back in like an hour" and then I come home 4 hours later.... I love you! -Nick


Nick and Erica, 3 years strong

Hang out with Nick and Erica on Industry Night
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
After party at Wilde
Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/ , code: mermaid

Red Tape Valentines Party


Industry Night at Red Tape Theatre
Church/Pullman, Wa
Monday, February 14 at 8:00
$10 Tickets
http://www.redtapetheatre.org/, code: mermaid


Red Tape is hosting an industry only performance of their critically acclaimed Church/Pullman, Wa- Two Plays by Young Jean Lee. Come to the show, then head to Wilde with the cast and Red Tape ensemble.

Theatre on Valentine’s Day?! Red Tape is the perfect place to bring a date or to meet someone new. Not to toot our own horn, but Red Tape’s got a pretty good record in the love department. From couples that met at Red Tape, to partners conceding that “if you can’t beat, ‘em, join’em,” our Red Tape family just keeps growing!

Check back all weekend for Valentine’s and stories of what it’s like to be stuck with a Red Taper, and how we all make it work.

Don’t miss Industry Night on 2/14…You could be next!

Tickets: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/
Code: mermaid (only available for 2/14)
After party at Wilde featuring $4 domestic bottles and some Valentines drinks like Cupid’s Cup and Burr Royale

Thursday, February 3, 2011

"Church / Pullman, WA" Artwork


Congratulations to the cast and crew of Church and Pullman, WA!


Running Jan 27 to Mar 5 at Red Tape Theatre!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Seeking Artists for CFANN 2011!

WHAT IS CFANN?

The Chicago Fringe Artist Networking Night (CFANN) hosted by Red Tape Theatre is a one night event that brings together artists and arts enthusiasts for an evening of performances, installations, and tasty treats from neighborhood eateries. Red Tape is known for its transformative space, and CFANN is no exception. Guests will find themselves in a cool, lounge style venue surrounded by provocative intersections of visual, interactive and performance art. Past events have featured visual artist Judith Joseph, buffoon troupe Les Enfants Terribles, and DJ Miles Polaski, with treats from Argo Tea, Zad Restaurant, and Pastoral.

CFANN 2011, on April 9, 2011, will be all this and more. This years’ performance showcase is driven by dance and movement, immersed in fun, diverse and arresting visual, video and audio art, guaranteed to create an exhilarating and inspiring experience.

Admission to the event is an all access pass and includes wine and snacks all night.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Work that push boundaries and provokes conversation will be featured at the core of the event. Artists are encouraged to dig into their wildest imaginations and submit pieces that are being shown for the first time, part of a larger project, or just need greater visibility. Artists of all genres and interdisciplinary are encouraged to apply.


DEADLINE: The deadline for submitting your work for the event is February 11, 2011. Selected participants will be notified of their participation no later than one week from the submission deadline.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Greetings from Meghan Reardon!

Greeting to all you friends of Red Tape out there in the blogosphere!

Meghan Reardon here, your friendly Director of Loyalty and Retention. If you were able to attend our fall production of Obscura you may have found yourself in for more than just a play. Whether you joined us for a beer at our Friday Night Bar Nights, stuck around after every show for Set Tours led by the actors or headed over to Cloud 9 with us after our Industry Night Performance, we hope that you had the chance to get to know Red Tape and for us to get to know you!

The upcoming production of Church and Pullman, WA will provide some similar and brand-new events and activities to help make your night at the theatre a more engrossing experience. Join cast, crew, company members and other members of our audience every Friday during the run for a drink or a bite to eat at the fantastic WILDE’S BAR & RESTAURANT, just around the corner on Broadway (3130 N. Broadway, to be exact). Also, after every production, you will have the opportunity to join the cast and crew for a special activity. Now, I can’t be too specific about the activity without spoiling the surprise of walking into the space and set of these experimental one-acts but here are some hints: It’s crafty and it will help create the mood and environment for the next weekend’s audiences. Sound exciting and mysterious enough for you?

Also, for you industry-types, mark your calendars for our Industry Night, Monday, February 14. Look for more information on that night-of-fun from yours truly or our dashing DOCE, Alex Kyger.

Thanks for reading, and see you around the theatre!

~Meghan Reardon


Church and Pullman, WA run Jan 27 -Mar 5 at Red Tape Theatre.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Meet the Playwright: Young Jean Lee

When starting a play, I ask myself, "What's the last play in the world I would ever want to write?" Then I force myself to write it. I do this because I've found that the best way to make theater that unsettles and challenges my audience is to do things that make me uncomfortable. I work with stories that I find trite and embarrassing, I keep the development of the text as open and unstable as possible throughout the rehearsal and performance process, and I emphasize rather than hide problems in the text and production. I'm constantly trying to find value in unexpected places. My work is about struggling to achieve something in the face of failure and incompetence and not-knowing. The discomfort and awkwardness involved in watching this struggle reflects the truth of my experience.

-Young Jean Lee (From Young Jean Lee's Theatre Company Website)

For More on Young Jean Lee and her company, visit http://www.youngjeanlee.org/

YOUNG JEAN LEE was named by American Theatre magazine as one of the 25 artist who will shape the American theater over the next 25 years. She was born in Korea in 1974 and moved to the United States when she was two years old. She grew up in Pullman, WA and attended college at UC Berkeley, where she majored in English. Immediately after college, she entered Berkeley’s English PhD program, where she studied Shakespeare for six years before moving to New York to become a playwright in 2002. Since then, she has directed her plays at Soho Rep (LEAR; THE APPEAL), The Kitchen (THE SHIPMENT), The Public Theater (CHURCH), P.S. 122 (CHURCH; PULLMAN, WA), HERE Arts Center (SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (GROUNDWORK OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS). She has worked with Radiohole and the National Theater of the United States of America. She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P, has done residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, and Hedgebrook, and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.

Her plays have been published in New Downtown Now (an anthology edited by Mac Wellman and herself), in Three Plays by Young Jean Lee (Samuel French), American Theatre magazine (September 2007), a collection of all of her plays entitled Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays (Theatre Communications Group), and THE SHIPMENT and LEAR (Theatre Communications Group, June 2010). She and her company have been the recipients of grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MAP / Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Creative Exploration Fund, Tobin Foundation for Theater Arts Grant, Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation, Arts Presenters/Ford Foundation Creative Capacity Grant, New York State Council on the Arts, the MAP Fund, the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Her work has been invited to tour to venues in London, Paris, Vienna, Hannover, Berlin, Zurich, Brussels, Budapest, Sydney, Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Rotterdam, Salamanca, Toulouse, Chicago, Chapel Hill, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Boston, Williamstown, and Minneapolis. Young Jean is currently under commission from Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is the artistic director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for THE SHIPMENT, a recipient of the 2009 Brooklyn College Young Alumni Award, the ZKB Patronage Prize 2007 of the Zurich Theater Spektakel, a 2007 Emerging Playwright OBIE Award, a 2010 fellowship in playwriting from NYFA, and a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Church and Pullman, Wa run Jan 27 -Mar 5 at Red Tape Theatre.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Chipotle Partners With Red Tape!

Hey Red Tape fans,

My name is Alex and I’m thrilled to be Red Tape’s first Director of Community Engagement! Serving in this position is a joy because I have the opportunity to tell Lakeview businesses about Red Tape, our brand of theatre, and most importantly; our audience. We’re constantly looking for new ways to engage local businesses in a way that has a positive impact on their business, Red Tape, and our dedicated fans.

Being in Lakeview, we’re extremely lucky to be surrounded by some great businesses and supportive business owners. Their willingness to keep their doors open late or offer discounts just for our audiences cannot go unnoticed. If you joined the cast of Obscura at the pub across the street, Brendan’s, or came to our Industry Night after party at Cloud 9, then you played a major role in thanking our surrounding businesses for all they do for us at Red Tape!

Most importantly, I hope you’ll take part in our latest partnership with our friends down the street at Chipotle. During the run of Church & Pullman, WA, you can use your program to receive two burritos or burrito bowls for the price of one! The offer is good from January 27th to March 5th at the Chipotle on Belmont and Broadway, a favorite spot for all of us at Red Tape!

I trust I’ll see you at Church & Pullman, WA and hopefully see you afterward at one of our many local partners. Enjoy the show!

Alex Kyger
Director of Community Engagement
Red Tape Theatre Company