Auditions Sunday at 7 for IRON at Heartland Theatre

Heartland Theatre and director Christopher Connelly will be holding auditions on Sunday, February 9 from 7 to 9:30 pm for the upcoming production of Rona Munro's Iron. Munro is a Scottish playwright whose works have dealt with astronauts, kings, witches, class, culture, murder, violence, and a wide array of women.

Iron involves a woman named Fay, who has spent the last 15 years of her life in prison for murdering her husband. Although it's clear she did kill him, she chose to keep silent at her trial, not even trying to defend herself, and she has never revealed why she did it or what exactly happened. Her daughter Josie went to live with her dad's mom right after the crime, and she hasn't visited or communicated with her mother in the ensuing years. But now her grandmother has passed away and Josie is interested in reaching out, in finding out who her mother is and what happened all those years ago. She has almost no recollection of her father or what it was like when they were a family. When Josie enters the world of the prison to see her mother, she learns more about her mother, and she also begins to remind Fay of what it was like to live outside. Their visits are closely watched by prison guards George and Sheila, decent people trying to do their best to keep the peace and follow the rules. Fay certainly doesn't appreciate their presence, however. There are no easy answers in Munro’s wrenching look at the justice and injustice in crime and punishment.

Connelly has cast Lori Adams in the role of Fay, and he will be looking for two women and one man to fill the other roles. Here's how those roles are described:

JOSIE, 25. A smart and somewhat serious woman who has been successful professionally, but she doesn’t have much of a personal life. She was ten when her father was killed and was raised by her fraternal grandmother since the murder. She has very little memory of her father or his murder.

GUARD 1, 53. (George) Married to a “lovely, gentle” woman, with three daughters. He is taking online classes in Moral Philosophy and Theology in his spare time. He has been a prison guard for a long time and understands the world of the prison very well.

GUARD 2, 24. (Sheila) A single mother. She is not without sympathy for the prisoners she guards, but is also a realist about them. She is definitely unsentimental when it comes to Fay.

Only one night of auditions is scheduled; Connelly has indicated that he will hold callbacks at another time if necessary.

No monologues or specific material is required. Auditioners will be asked to read from the script.

Performances of Iron will begin April 17 and run through May 4, 2014. For more information, click here to see Heartland's Auditions page or here for the scoop on the entire season.

RED = Heartbeat, Passion and Blood at Heartland Theatre

Red, John Logan's award-winning play about painter Mark Rothko, covers a lot of ground. With just two characters on stage -- Rothko himself and an assistant named Ken -- Red manages to work in issues of life, death, artistic integrity, artistic value, creativity, pride, vanity, mortality, legacy, control, class, power and fulfilling a purpose in life. There's a lot there for a mere 90 minutes of theatre.

Heartland Theatre's Red is simply staged and clearly directed and acted, with a strong dramatic punch as we get to know these two men over the course of those 90 minutes. We see the artist and his studio up-close and personal, getting a glimpse into the jagged, difficult mind of someone in the midst of creation. Dean Brown's sharp, uncompromising portrayal of Rothko shows us a smart, verbal, challenging man, someone who understands his own process but has no patience for anyone else's. Why should he? He's Rothko.

As the play unfolds, we understand that Rothko has been paid a hefty sum of money to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's fancy Seagram Building. But he decries commercialism and the kind of art patron who just wants something to hang over a mantle. True art should be reserved for the worthy, the discerning, the wise few who evidence the right depth of understanding. When his assistant points out that making these murals for the Four Seasons is the height of hypocrisy, that Rothko is really "just decorating another dining room for the super-rich," creating "the world's most expensive over-mantles," Rothko retorts that he hopes that his dark, disturbing paintings will "ruin the appetite of every rich son-of-a-bitch who eats there."

Is he telling the truth? Or deluding himself that his motives are purer than money and fame? It's hard to know, even when the play is over. But it's that conflict, the reds and blacks swirling around in Logan's script, that makes the performance fly by so quickly, and makes it work so well as a piece of drama.

Christopher Connelly directs his actors -- Brown as Rothko and a fresh-faced Rian Wilson as the assistant -- with an eye on clarity and conflict, creating scenes that pull you in and hold you. Brown is terrific as Rothko, turning from overbearing to small and petty, from frustrated to terrifying, and making it all believable under the skin of one complicated man. And Wilson is a proper foil as the untested young man who just tries to keep up with the master until he's taken as much as he can take.

In the end, this Red is about the art of theatre as much as it's about the art of painting, about the need to create, to communicate, to find an audience who will understand and make the struggle to create worthwhile. For me, the efforts of Connelly and Brown and Wilson -- and scenic designer Kenneth P. Johnson, costume designer Gail Dobbins and lighting designer Anita McDaniel -- were definitely worthwhile to bring Red to life.

RED
By John Logan

Heartland Theatre Company

Director: Christopher Connelly
Scenic Designer and Technical Director: Kenneth P. Johnson
Stage Manager and Board Operator: Rachel Krein
Assistant Director: Noga Ashkenazi
Lighting Designer: Anita McDaniel
Costume Designer: Gail Dobbins
Properties: Melissa Mullen
Sound Designer: Christopher Connelly
Sound Engineer: Isaac Mandel

Running time: 90 minutes, performed without intermission

Remaining performances: November 8-10 and 15-17 at 7:30 pm and November 11 and 18 at 2 pm.

For reservation information, click here.

Ready for RED at Heartland?

John Logan's play Red revolves around painter Mark Rothko, someone who'd found huge financial and critical success as an artist. As the play begins, Rothko has been commissioned to paint a series of murals for New York's posh Four Seasons restaurant.

But as successful as he is, Rothko still has fears. He worries that newcomers will overtake and eclipse him, and that his commercial success has made him a sell-out. But his big fear is that "one day the black will swallow the red." No matter the fame, no matter how many high-end diners eat their swell food under Rothko's murals, he wonders whether he will be remembered, and whether he will still be alive.

It's the fears and insecurities that make the Rothko of Logan's script so compelling. And the way the script unfolds, as we get to see Rothko through the lens of his assistant, a painter named Ken, there's plenty of tension, plenty of crackle, plenty of arguments about what it means to create. Red won the Tony Award for Best Play of 2010 as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

As a two-man show, Red is a perfect choice for Heartland Theatre's intimate space. Director Christopher Connelly proved he knows his way around a visually stunning show with The Diviners in 2011, and he has a fine cast to work with this time, with Dean Brown, who was so good as the mathematician dad in Proof, as Rothko, and Rian Wilson, who broke hearts with his sensitive portrayal of the hydrophobic boy at the center of The Diviners, as assistant Ken.

Dean Brown and Rian Wilson appear in Heartland's Red

Heartland's production of Red begins with a pay-what-you-can preview performance at 7:30 pm on November 1. That will be followed by performances November 2-3, 8-10 and 15-17 at 7:30 pm and matinees on three Sundays, November 4, 11 and 18 at 2 pm.

The November 11 matinee will feature a special discussion afterwards with artists Harold Gregor and Ken Holder.

For more information, click here for show times and here for reservation information.