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