The Mandrake: Follow the Cast

Here at A Red Orchid Theatre we want to include you - the audience and loyal supporters - in the process of the upcoming production of Machiavelli's "The Mandrake". Our fabulous and super cool interns created a short questionnaire to ask the cast about their experience in the rehearsal process. Keep track as we post more and more of these so you all can get to know the actors in a new light.


Steve Haggard as "Callimaco" in rehearsal.


Name: Steve Haggard (AROT Ensemble Member)
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Alma Matter: DePaul University
Last shows you were seen in: "Kimberly Akimbo" at AROT, "As You Like It" and "Romeo & Juliet" at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
Favorite AROT Production: "Abigal's Party" and "The New Electric Ballroom"

Character: Callimaco
Describe your character in 3 words: Amazing. Passionate. Needy.
Favorite part of the process so far: Laughing at my funny funny cast mates.
Favorite line in the show: "Oh, the anguish!"
Favorite Italian dish: Bruschetta

Has your view on Machiavelli changed since you began working on this show?
He is much funnier than I thought he was.

Why should people come see this show? It's surprising and uncomfortably funny. There will not be another production of this play done in such an intimate way in which you as an audience member can be such a part of the intrigue and scheming.


KEEP AN EYE ON OUR BLOG, FACEBOOK, AND TWITTER BECAUSE WE WILL BE ANNOUNCING A HOW YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A FEW OPPORTUNITES TO WIN TICKETS TO THE SHOW!

THE MANDRAKE

We are incredibly excited to announce the cast and crew of our final show of the 2010-2011 season:

Machiavelli’s The Mandrake

With the brilliant director STEVE SCOTT, (associate producer of Goodman Theatre, member of the Goodman’s Artistic Collective) behind the wheel, The Mandrake is sure to be a success.

Featuring the talents of Steve Haggard, Lance Baker,

Doug Vickers, David Chrzanowski, Brian Kavanaugh,

Cheyenne Pinson,and Lucinda Johnston

AND a fabulous behind the scenes team of Josh Sobel, Grant Sabin, Jeremy W Floyd, Michael Stanfill, Joe Fosco, Doug Kupferman, Stephanie Heller, Donnie Sheldon, Meg Lindsey, Kelli Marino, and Cris Kayser 

Previews: April 8 & 9 at 8:00PM & April 10 at 3:00PM

Opening night: Monday April 11, 2011 at 7:00PM

The Mandrake is scheduled to run at A Red Orchid on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00PM and on Sundays at 3:00PM

Closing Performance: Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 3:00PM 

KEEP AN EYE ON OUR BLOG, FACEBOOK, AND TWITTER BECAUSE WE WILL BE ANNOUNCING A HOW YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A FEW OPPORTUNITES TO WIN TICKETS TO THE SHOW!!

Written while Machiavelli was in exile for allegedly plotting against the Medici clan, "The Mandrake" or "Mandragola" details the corruption of Italian society in a series of increasingly comical scenes that culminate in the cuckolding of a powerful Florentine aristocrat. The author depicts human nature just as he has come to know it, and the sinister fruits of his studies have delighted audiences to this day, for we recognize our own failures in Machiavelli's creations--characters too quick to compromise personal ethics in order to accommodate a corrupt and demeaning world, too easily persuaded to lie, cheat, swindle, and deceive, or close their eyes to deception, in order to ensure some small improvement in their miserable lives, always espousing the mantra that "the end justifies the means." "The Mandrake" is a powerful comic treatise on immorality, a diagnosis of cultural disease, and perhaps the finest surviving example of the Italian Renaissance comedy of intrigue. 

But when evening falls I go home and enter my writing room. On the threshold I put off my country habits filthy with mud and mire and array myself in royal courtly garments. Thus worthily attired I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old where they receive me with love and where I feed upon that food which only is my own and for which I was born.

-Niccolo Machiavelli