Walkabout Theater and Moon Fool Present STORM

Chicago’s Walkabout Theater Company joins forces with the international ensemble of Moon Fool to present the Chicago premiere of STORM, a fierce re-imagining of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, created and directed by Anna-Helena McLean and featuring actors from three continents. STORM will play June 18 – 28, 2015 at Links Hall, 3111 N. Western Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are currently available at www.linkshall.org.

Charged with lightning and magic, a cast of international and Chicago performers weave together original live music, singing, theatre, acrobatics and movement to capture the wild battle between humanity and nature. Travel into the not-so-distant future, where audiences are immersed in a world of fantasy, spectacle and haunting beauty – balancing the ageless work of Shakespeare with the climatic dilemmas that face our global family today. In a remote island bunker sheltered from the chaos of the outside world, exiled geo-engineer Prospero furiously works to control the elements and pave the way for a new world of calm and sustainable prosperity. Poised on the brink of her own coming-of-age, his daughter Miranda uncovers an earthshaking truth: the Storm lives within us all. STORM is driven and generated by Anna-Helena McLean’s Actor-Chorus-Text (ACT) Ensemble Practice, which unites with Walkabouts signature physicality and polyphony in a dynamic examination of power, illusion and the mystery of control.

Members of the Moon Fool ensemble from the United Kingdom and India team-up with Walkabout Theater and a select chorus of Chicago performers in this new model of international collaboration. STORM will feature Walkabout Co­Artistic Director Thom Pasculli (Prospero) with Walkabout ensemble members Dana Murphy (Miranda) and McCambridge Dowd­-Whipple (Caliban) alongside Moon Fool lead actor Anirudh Nair (Ariel). The chorus will include Moon Fool lead actors George Bellamy and Anna-Helena McLean, and Walkabout ensemble members Nigel Brown, Cooper Forsman, Katie Mazzini and Paul Scudder with Leah Casey, Bridgette Hammond, Sam Krey, Alex Rodriguez and Delaney Spangler.

STORM was created with support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs In the Works Residency, Links Hall, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund. The International Connections Fund will be supporting the second phase of this international partnership when the Walkabout ensemble will travel to the United Kingdom to continue working with Moon Fool in 2016.

The STORM production team includes: Michael Christman (scenic design), Rachel Levy (lighting design), Andrew Rovner (sound and projection design), Michelle Post (costume design) Emma Stanton (dramaturg) Kendra Miller (producer), Brianna Parry (production manager), Dina Klahn (production stage manager), Benjamin Ponce (associate scenic design), Austin Dambacher (assistant lighting design), Tierra Taylor (assistant stage manager) and Lee Stark (assistant director).

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Title: STORM

Adapted from: The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Director: Anna-Helena McLean

New writing: Rosanna Lowe

Cast: McCambridge Dowd­-Whipple (Caliban), Dana Murphy (Miranda), Anirudh Nair (Ariel) and Thom Pasculli (Prospero). The chorus includes George Bellamy, Nigel Brown, Leah Casey, Cooper Forman, Bridgette Hammond, Sam Krey, Katie Mazzini, Anna-Helena McLean, Alex Rodriguez, Paul Scudder, and Delaney Spangler.

Location: Links Hall, 3111 N. Western Ave. in Chicago

Press Performance: Thursday, June 18 at 7 pm
Regular Run: Friday, June 19 – Sunday, June 28, 2015

Curtain Times: Thursday, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 7 pm.

Please note: There will be an industry performance on Monday, June 22 at 7 pm.

Tickets: $20. Tickets are currently available at www.linkshall.org.

About Walkabout Theater Company

Since 1999, Walkabout Theater Company (Kendra Miller, Thom Pasculli, Co-­Artistic Director; Emma Stanton, Associate Artistic Director) has performed and produced arresting theatrical events and new site­specific and experimental work in Chicago, challenging traditional theatrical models of production, performance, narrative and story. Through active exploration of the theatrical form and the architecture in which theater is created, Walkabout seeks to deepen the connection between the artist and the Chicago community. The ensemble is comprised of ten multi­disciplinary artists that live and work in Chicago. Highlights from the past year include The Wild, a provocative deconstruction of Dionysian rituals with text from playwright Charles L. Mee, performed at the Steppenwolf Garage Rep 2014; and Beach Party at the End of the World, a guerrilla dance spectacle that appeared on eight different Chicago beaches.

About Moon Fool

Moon Fool is an umbrella name for international theatre and music exchange since 2004. Founded by Anna-Helena McLean, former principal of the Polish physical theatre company, Gardzienice, Moon Fool operates in partnership with Anirudh Nair (Delhi) to combine Eastern and Western theatre practices in devising original music, movement, and text-based performance and practice. The company has formed Actor-Chorus-Text (ACT) ensemble training, ACT Youth, a Day & Night world music collective, as well as the critically acclaimed productions ill met by moonlight (Christopher Sivertsen, Peter Swaffer-Reynolds, Ian Morgan) and Titania - a solo cabaret. The company has seven full performances in repertoire, each with its own unique training and scale (King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) - branching adult, youth, able, and disabled works, national and international tours - and an ensemble training approach (ACT) forming modules at leading educational institutes around the world (DePaul School of Drama in Chicago, Winchester University, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

About Links Hall

Links Hall encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development and presentation of new work in the performing arts.

Links Hall is located at Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave. in Chicago – convenient to the Belmont/Clybourn and Western CTA bus stop in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood. The former viaduct lot at Western and Belmont is available to Constellation/Links Hall audiences. For more information call (773) 281-0824 or visit www.linkshall.org.

About the MacArthur Foundation

The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. More information is at www.macfound.org.