Profiles Theatre Announces Schedule Changes for Behanding in Spokane

Profiles Theatre announces new dates for the run of A Behanding in Spokane by Martin McDonagh, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder. Please note changes in the previously announced dates: Previews are October 16-20, 2011 with the press opening on Friday, October 21 at 8pm. The production runs though December 4, 2011 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway in Chicago.

A Behanding in Spokane, McDonagh's first play set in America, received its world premiere on Broadway in 2010 starring Christopher Walken as Carmichael. For the Broadway version, the age of the character was changed to match the age of the actor, now in his middle 60s. Profiles' production returns the character to McDonagh's originally intended age, featuring Profiles ensemble member Darrell W. Cox in the role.

Profiles Theatre rescheduled A Behanding in Spokane as Darrell W. Cox recovers from two emergency surgeries for a detached retina.

Profiles will open its second show of the 2011-2012 season, the World premiere of Assisted Living by Deirdre O'Connor, at the company's alternative venue The Second Stage, 3408 N. Sheffield. Previews for Assisted Living are November 4 - November 9 with the press opening on November 10, 2011. The production runs through December 18, 2011. Directed by Profiles Artistic Director Joe Jahraus, the production features guest artists Sean Bradley, Shannon Hollander and Stacy Stoltz.

About Behanding in Spokane
In this darkly comical new work from the acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Martin McDonagh, the mysterious gun-toting Carmichael has been searching for his missing left hand for decades. Enter two bickering lovebirds with a hand to sell, and a hotel clerk with an aversion to gunfire, and soon life and death are up for grabs. A Behanding in Spokane turns over American daily existence, exposing the obsessions, prejudices, madness, horrors, and above all, the absurdities that crawl beneath it.

McDonagh also wrote the award-winning plays The Pillowman (Tony nominee, Best Play 2005 and Olivier Award Winner 2004), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Olivier Award Winner 2003), The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Tony nominee, Best Play 1998) and The Lonesome West (Tony nominee, Best Play 1999). His 2006 film Six Shooter won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short and the full-length feature In Bruges received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

"For me, McDonagh plays are often about thinking the unthinkable, saying the unsayable, and presenting the impossible," says director Rick Snyder. "In our politically correct society, there is a strange relief in being able to do this. This play is totally outrageous and hysterically funny."

Rick Snyder returns to Profiles following his long running hits, reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute and Killer Joe by Tracy Letts. The cast of A Behanding in Spokane features Profiles ensemble members Eric Burgher (Jailbait, Kid Sister) and Darrell W. Cox (Fifty Words, reasons to be pretty) along with guest artists Sara Greenfield (The Good and Faithful Servant with AstonRep Theatre) and Levenix Riddle (Girl With Sun in Her Eyes with Pine Box Theater).

The designers are Thad Hallstein (set), David Ferguson (lights), Jeffrey Levin (sound and original music), Joelle Beranek (costumes) and the stage manager is Jordan Muller.

A Behanding in Spokane is the first production of Profiles Theatre's 23rd season. The season also includes the World premiere of Assisted Living by Deirdre O'Connor and the Midwest premieres of Bachelorette by Leslye Headland and The Break of Noon by Neil LaBute.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Martin McDonagh (Playwright) has no formal training, but a sheaf of plays he wrote during one long stretch back in 1994 turned him into one of the most celebrated new English-language dramatists of his generation. Nearly all of McDonagh's plays are set in Ireland, and draw heavily from Irish idiom and culture in their skewering of once-sacrosanct literary and political ideals. He was awarded the Critics Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright in 1996. Separated into two trilogies, McDonagh's first six plays are located in and around County Galway where he spent his holidays as a child. The first is set in Leenane, a small village on the west coast of Ireland, and consists of The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), A Skull in Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997). His second trilogy, scattered across a trio of islands just off the coast of County Galway, consists of The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) and The Banshees of Inisheer (which was never published, as McDonagh insisted it "isn't any good"). His first non-Irish play, The Pillowman, set in a fictitious totalitarian state, premiered at The National Theatre in 2003, having been presented in a rehearsed reading in Galway in 1997. He has also penned two prize-winning radio plays, including The Tale of the Wolf and the Woodcutter. Recently, McDonagh has focused on film, his first passion. Following the success of Six Shooter in 2006, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, McDonagh wrote and directed his first full-length feature, In Bruges (2008), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Original Screenplay and a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination. A Behanding in Spokane premiered in New York in 2010, where lead actor Christopher Walken was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance. McDonagh is currently working on a new stage musical with composer Tom Waits and director Robert Wilson.