Incubator Series

Experiments with New Artists & New Ideas

Next Onstage: the 2023 Incubator

A Red Orchid presents two experimental projects helmed by our Ensemble Members:

ACT FIVE

Conceived & installed by Ensemble Member dado

Script by Katherine Swan | Musical curation by Sam Clapp

Featuring actors Audrey Billings, Paul Somers, Maya Hlava, Elliot Bibat & Sam Hurwitz, and musicians Ishmael Ali, Emily Beisel, Ben Baker Billington, Sam Clapp, Molly Jones, Lia Kohl & Luc Mosley

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. 

Feb. 15, Feb. 22, March 1, March 8, March 9

at Facility Theatre, 1138 N California Ave.

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Performances start at 7:30 p.m. 

Standard tickets: $10. Support the Experiment tickets: $25. To purchase, call our Box Office at 312-943-8722 or click below:

Buy Tickets

REAWAKENING DESIRE

Directed by Ensemble Member Shade Murray

Featuring Ensemble Members Karen Aldridge, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Natalie West, Sadieh Rifai & Larry Grimm with EM Davis, Jacob Alexander & Bruch Reed

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.

Sunday, March 5 at 3 PM

at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells St.

This event is free. Reservations are strongly encouraged. 

Reserve Seats

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR 2023 EXPERIMENTAL SERIES SPONSORS

BARBARA & RANDY THOMAS

WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM

ANONYMOUS

About the Incubator

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.

Have an idea and want to work with us? Email our Artistic Director, Kirsten Fitzgerald, for more information.

Past Incubators

Below are some of our past Incubators. Click on each title to find out more:

Previous Incubators

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.

Put Your House In Order

by Ike Holter
directed by Gus Menary
July 13 — July 29, 2017
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

by Brent Ervin-Eickhoff
directed by Kyle Stoffers
March 8, 2017
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.

Sick by Seven

organized by Brett Neveu and David E. Tolchinsky
June 17 — June 26, 2016
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.

Celebration

by Harold Pinter
directed by Dado
July 31 — August 15, 2015