Redmoon Theater Performs Spectacle '06: Twilight Orchard at Columbus Park

Continuing Redmoon’s tradition of introducing city-wide audiences to underappreciated Chicago locations via site-specific spectacles, SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD will invite viewers to linger in the transformed landscape of Columbus Park through an evening of large scale pageantry and interactive performances. Audience members are welcome to explore the park at their leisure between the hours of 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. each night during the SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD run.

Created by Redmoon Artistic Director Jim Lasko, SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD explores converging environments and images in an interactive performance and ritual site. SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD will present a number of interactive site-specific installations designed by local artists, fourteen-foot-tall moveable walls which will continually transform into different rooms with various characters inside, and "sound pods" traveling throughout the park. The continually-changing environment will be enhanced by costumed characters and pageantry-style processions.

SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD is the third spectacle hosted by the Chicago Park District within the past three years. The first spectacle took place in Ping Tom Memorial Park in 2004 and the second took place in Jackson Park in 2005. "Columbus Park, which is considered a masterpiece of landscape architect Jens Jensen, was originally designed with a space for outdoor theatrical performances," said Timothy J. Mitchell, the general superintendent and the chief executive officer of the Chicago Park District. "The park district is excited that Redmoon is helping to realize Jensen’s dream by presenting a unique theatrical event in the Austin Community."

"I am very pleased to work with the Chicago Park District for the third year in a row," says Lasko. "This partnership enables us to continue our celebration of some of Chicago’s most beautiful and intriguing locations. Redmoon is thrilled to present a lyrical and peaceful evening of ceremony for all to enjoy."

Featuring original music by Mark Messing, co-directed and art directed by Frank Maugeri, and co-directed by Vanessa Stalling, SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD will include a cast of approximately sixty performers. Maugeri and technical director Andrei Onegin led key artists Dave Beaupre, Odile Compagnon, and Casey Gunschel, in the creation of twenty-one mobile walls and other objects. Period costumes are designed by Alison Heryer. The local visual artists who designed the interactive site-specific installations include: Maura Ahern, Janet Ecklebarger, Marisa Heilman, Carole McCurdy, Ann Meilahn, Danielle Paz, Warren Stiles, Valerie Taglieri and Steven Teichelman.

Redmoon has invited residents of Austin, Oak Park and surrounding neighborhoods to participate in SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD. Local community groups, schools, arts and civic organizations will collaborate with professional artists and volunteers from Redmoon Theater in transforming Columbus Park. These community groups will collaborate to create hundreds of hand-made birds nests created from natural materials and found objects that will be used to adorn the park.

The Lead Sponsor for SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD is The Boeing Company, with Cooperating Sponsors LaSalle Bank, National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet the Composer. SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD is presented in partnership with the Chicago Park District. Redmoon also thanks The Searle Funds of the Chicago Community Trust for support of its audience development initiatives.

SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD was commissioned as part of a national series of works from Meet The Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous support from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefellers Brothers Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Francis Goelet Trust, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, Target, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Redmoon Theater was founded in 1989 in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. Redmoon has won national acclaim as the country’s leading creator of spectacle theater -- a highly visual and inventive theater style that embraces the act of transformation through pageantry, puppetry, contraption-type mechanical objects, robust physical movement, and surprising use of scale and special effects. Using this unique visual language, Redmoon transforms streets and stages into places of public celebration, capable of speaking across cultural, ethnic, and generational boundaries.

Just the facts:

WHAT: Redmoon Theater’s SPECTACLE ’06: TWILIGHT ORCHARD

WHERE: Columbus Park, 5701 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago

Cars: 2 ½ blocks north of the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290); Exit 23A to Austin Blvd., turn right onto Austin, right on Jackson Blvd.

Trains: 15-minute walk from Central Station or Austin Station on Harlem/Lake Green Line or from Austin Station on Forest Park Blue Line

Buses: from the east the #126 Jackson bus, from the north the #85 Central bus, from the west the #320 Madison bus, from the south #315 Austin bus

Audiences are welcome to explore the performance and ritual site at their leisure; visitors should plan to spend approximately one hour at the site. The performance and ritual site will be open for discovery between 6:30 and 9:30 p.m., rain or shine.

ADMISSION: Tickets are $10; children 12 and under are free; residents of nearby neighborhoods, including Austin, Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Oak Park, will be admitted free of charge as well.