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

Myths on Stage: Meet Panelist Marti Lyons

Myths on Stage
Sunday, May 16
following the 3:00pm matinee of The Love of the Nightingale.

Paul G. Miller hosts a panel of Chicago artists who discuss the process of adapting Greek myths to the modern stage.

Panelists include:

Jeremy Menekseoglu - Artistic Director, Dream Theatre Company.

Thomas Murray - Director, Strangeloop Theatre.

Sarah Sapperstein - Dramaturge.

Tim Speicher - Artistic Director, the State Theatre.

Cory Tamler - Playwright.

and:

Marti Lyons – Dramaturge, The Love of the Nightingale.

Marti is currently serving as Literary Apprentice at Steppenwolf Theatre and just finished directing Prayers as part of the Ripped festival for American Blues Theater and Piven Theatre. Recently, Marti assistant directed directed Underground for Rhino Fest at the Prop Thtr, assistant directed The Pillowman with Kimberly Senior, dramaturged City Lights Receding at Red Tape as part of the Fresh Eyes Project, directed a staged reading of Lima Beans for Teatro Luna and directed The Conduct of Life with Tooth and Nail Ensemble. This past year Marti assistant directed Oedipus with Sean Graney and also spent time assisting in the casting office at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Next, Marti will direct Laura Eason's contribution to The Silver Project at American Theatre Company, attend the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and direct a reading of A Lover's Dismantling for Urban Theater Company as part of the Latino Theater Festival at The Goodman. Marti is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University.

The Love of the Nightingale is Jeff Recommended!

We run May 3-29.

Get your tickets through our website.

Dramaturge's Corner: The Nightingale

Dramaturge Marti Lyons gives an inside look at The Love of the Nightingale.

The nightingale is an important symbol for poets from a variety of ages, and has taken on a number of symbolic connotations. Homer evokes the nightingale in the Odyssey, suggesting the myth of Philomela and Procne. This myth is the focus of Sophocles’ tragedy, Tereus, of which only fragments remain. Ovid, too, in his Metamorphoses, includes the most popular version of this myth, imitated and altered by later poets, including Chrétien de Troyes, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and George Gascoigne. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land also evokes the nightingale’s song (and the myth of Philomela and Procne). Because of the violence associated with the myth, the nightingale’s song was long interpreted as a lament.

The Love of the Nightingale runs May 3-29.
Tickets are available through our website.

Dramaturge's Corner: Hero and Hera

Dramaturge Marti Lyons gives an inside look at The Love of the Nightingale.

Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. In Roman mythology, Juno was the equivalent mythical character. The cow, and later, the peacock were sacred to her. Hera's mother was Rhea and her father, Cronus.

Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. A scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, "Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos."

Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature, most notably against Zeus's paramours and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris offended her by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, earning Hera's hatred.

The Love of the Nightingale runs May 3-29.

Tickets are available through our website.

Dramaturge's Corner: Helen, The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

Dramaturge Marti Lyons gives an inside look at The Love of the Nightingale.

In Greek mythology, Helen, known as Helen of Troy (and earlier Helen of Sparta), was the daughter of Zeus and Leda (or Nemesis), daughter of King Tyndareus and sister of Castor, Polydeuces and Clytemnestra. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War. Helen was described by Dr. Faustus in Christopher Marlowe's eponymous play as having "the face that launched a thousand ships."

The Love of the Nightingale runs May 3-29.
Get your tickets through our website.