Incubator Series

About the Incubator

Experiments with New Artists & New Ideas

The Incubator at A Red Orchid Theatre was created to get to know emerging talent, encourage dreaming, and foster exploration in Chicago’s theatre community. Leading with curiosity, it provides artists with the space, stage, and time to incubate new work, new artistic relationships, and new artistic forms. A Red Orchid’s ensemble maintains the conviction that live theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit, and that passionately committed artists will draw passionately committed audiences. The Incubator is an active manifestation of that conviction and of A Red Orchid’s mission to cultivate new audiences for the modern stage.

Season 2024-25 Incubator Projects

The 2024-25 Incubator Program is made possible by the generous support of

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

The Worm My Sister

presented by Ramona Rotten and The Meat Machine

The Meat Machine presents an A Red Orchid Incubator production of

The Worm My Sister

Conceived of and directed by Ramona Rotten

Devised and performed by The Meat Machine

December 5-15, 2024 at A Red Orchid Theatre

Featuring Lynda Cortez, Sam Hurwitz, Kelsey Rich, John Francis Klingle, Quinn Leary, Melissa Jane Carlson, Paul Brennan, Lou Smith & Emily Cobb

Enter the fractured world of The Worm My Sister, a haunting experiment from Ramona Rotten and the Meat Machine, running December 5th-15th. Born from a fevered process of communal creation, this piece unveils a fog-bound island where reality dissolves, and two figures—Miranda and her clone, Not-Miranda—drift between presence and performance under the looming eye of Father Daddy. Inspired by The Tempest, the lives of the Dionne quintuplets, and Guy Debord’s critique of spectacle, The Worm My Sister is a ritual of voyeurism, exploitation, and transformation. Texts unravel nightly, bleeding new meanings with each performance.

Previous Incubator Projects

Zac Efron

Token Theatre presents the World Premiere of

ZAC EFRON

By David Rhee & Wai Yim

Directed by Alan Muraoka

Featuring Hansel Tan, Wai Yim & Gordon Chow with special appearances by Cheryl Hamada & Wai Ching Ho

June 20 – July 21, 2024

Zac Efron glimpses into a world that is rarely seen on the American stage: two Asian Americans looking for love and the complexities that come with their adventures. It is a poignant opportunity for radical self-acceptance through YouTube, tarot readings, and of course, one of America’s favorite sweethearts, Zac Efron. Hold onto your harness and clutch your pearls, it’s gonna be a wild ride!

The Receptionist

Kalliope & Co. presents

THE RECEPTIONIST

By Adam Bock

Directed by Kyle Stoffers

Featuring AROT Ensemble Member dado with Jessica Ervin, Jacob Alexander & Dano Duran

May 15 – June 2, 2024

At the start of a typical day in the Northeast Office, Beverly deals effortlessly with ringing phones and her colleague’s romantic troubles. But the appearance of a charming rep from the Central Office disrupts the friendly routine. And as the true nature of the company’s business becomes apparent, The Receptionist raises disquieting, provocative questions about the consequences of complicity with evil.

Act Five & Reawakening Desire

ACT FIVE

Conceived & installed by Ensemble Member dado

Script by Katherine Swan | Musical curation by Sam Clapp

What if the orchard was not destroyed, and we return years later to find our musicians still playing out there? In this exploration of an imagined Act Five of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, we finally get to meet and experience the offstage musicians in person. Act Five will be shared with our patrons via five open rehearsals.

REAWAKENING DESIRE

Directed by Ensemble Member Shade Murray

Leaning into the sexy, the giddy, and the heartbreaking of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, this project aims to investigate a world where desire is ignited in the most wonderfully unexpected ways. This workshop will culminate in a free, salon-style reading.

Celebration

Purpose: CELEBRATION was developed to experiment with combining theatrical and musical forms and further exploring relationships between the artists.

Set on the eve of an anniversary party held in an elite London restaurant, Harold Pinter’s Celebration explores the bizarrely acute and darkly hilarious condition of human disconnection. This theatrical event imposes Pinter’s restaurant onto an experimental performance of Mauricio Kagel’s music, exacerbating the tensions in human relationships and the ensuing existential disposition.

Sick by Seven

Purpose: SICK BY SEVEN was developed to explore the combination of video multimedia with theatrical forms in new work while exploring relationships with new artists and raising funds for a charitable organization.

Anxiety, phobias, mental illness, mysterious diseases, and medication are among the issues explored by artists in SICK BY SEVEN. The seven interconnected works, part of A Red Orchid Theatre’s Incubator series, combine live theater and video to investigate physical, mental and societal health in the modern world.

Puget Sound

Purpose: PUGET SOUND was a play development workshop that explored new work and new artistic relationships, culminating in a staged reading that invited audience feedback.

Two beach combers’ lives are disrupted when a severed foot washes ashore. “Puget Sound” explores what happens when the mysteries of the ocean collide with the mysteries of life and death.

Put Your House In Order

Purpose: PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER explored new working relationships, creating a new company with a new play, and implemented experimental marketing and ticketing strategies

Just outside of Chicago. Fall. In only 24 hours, a first date turns into a life-shaking adventure against the clock as two people are thrust into circumstances outside of their control.