Heretic Productions
Heretic Productions is a newly formed performance collective that confounds received wisdom by telling classic stories in reimagined ways to foster a dialogue about the socially marginalized. We uncover the bones of a story and collaboratively layer back in a modern perspective through innovative design elements, fresh language and rigorous physical performance. It is our goal to defy the status quo, the familiar and the expected, and to provoke ourselves and our audience to ask challenging questions of the world in which we live.
Lyndsay Kane - Writer/Performer
Lyndsay Rose Kane been performing on stage since she was 12. She graduated from Macalester College with a BA, where she created her own Major in Dance Theater in 1999. In 2002 she earned her MFA in Acting from CalArts. She has extensive training in voice, Ballet, Modern Dance, Mask Improvisation, Bhuto, Aerial Arts, Suzuki, and is a 200 hr Moksha Certified Yoga Instructor where she developed an Archetypal Based Yoga Sequencing Method for Actors.
As an actress Lyndsay has performed as the Duchess in Duchess of Malfi (Jeff Recommended*), Harriet Panini in Cookie Play*, Girl in Blood on The Cat's Neck*(Trap Door) Narrator in Stadium Devildare (Red Tape) Canary Mary in Fucking A*(Urban Theatre Co.) Estrella in Life as a Dream* (Vitalist) Gertrude inHamletmacine (Trap Door) Sirah in Zero and The Woman Scotland Road (Oracle Theater) and the One-Woman production of Le Liste for Premiere Theatre's International Voices and the Alta conference. She has performed in New York City, LA, and London in multiple shows from American Magic directed by Matthew Wilder, to King Lear directed by Travis Preston, and The Tempest directed by Edward Taylor. Lyndsay has also worked as a movement director/ choreographer on the critically acclaimed productions of No Beast So Fierce, The Mother,* Woyzeck,* and Blood Wedding (Oracle), Dance Party at the End of the World(Walkabout Theater) Three Graces (Pivot Arts Festival), and Hamletmachine, No Darkness Round My Stone, The Unconquored, Me Too I'm Catherine Deuvre, and Anger/Fly (Trap Door). Kane has also directed Box and Cox for the Bucktown Arts Festival, and Philip Marlow and Hairpin Turn, and Gunsmoke for Oracle Outreach and annual Radio Goggles performance. A founding company member of Filament Theater Co. in LA, she is currently the Casting Director and Associate Company Member at Oracle Theatre, and a proud company member of Trap Door Theater.
Kate Hendrickson - Director
Kate Hendrickson is a resident director at Trap Door Theatre, Chicago's foremost avant garde theatre, where she specializes in directing new work. For Trap Door Kate, has directed numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning world premieres. A graduate of Bennington College in Vermont, Kate has worked as an actor and director in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and abroad. She performed internationally at the Komedia Theatre in Brighton, England; the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland; and with the Dutch performance collective Lupus Ludens. While in Los Angeles, Kate did script analysis and casting work for films and television, and played small roles in several films (credits: imdb.com/name/nm0376789/). Kate is also the founder and director of Summerdale Workshop. Located in Andersonville, Summerdale Workshop provides children with high-quality acting instruction in a playful yet focused setting.
Leon Rothenberg - Sound Designer
Leon is a Tony award-winning Sound Designer based in New York City who has designed for a number of environments including theater, film, dance, installation and the circus. Recent credits include musicals and plays across the country at venues such as the Old Globe, Arena Stage, Seattle Repertory Theater, New York Stage and Film, La Jolla Playhouse, New York City Center, The Theater at Madison Square Garden and on Broadway. He designed sound for Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza, currently touring the world, and Wintuk, Cirque’s winter holiday show in New York City.
Recent designs on Broadway include Violet, The Realistic Joneses and The Nance, for which he won the Tony for Best Sound Design of a play. Other recent work includes The Last Five Years at Long Wharf, The Happiest Song Plays Last at Second Stage, the critically acclaimed February House at The Public Theater, August Wilson’s Jitney at Two Rivers and Some Lovers written by Stephen Sater and Burt Bacharach at The Old Globe.
In addition to theater, other work includes sound score for the innovative multimedia dance duo Bridgeman|Packer, feature film and documentary sound, and several short films both live action and animation.
Leon served on the Theater faculty at CalArts, and has taught at Bennington College in Vermont. He holds a B.M. in Composition from Oberlin Conservatory, a B.A. from Oberlin College in Computer Science and an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts.
Irina Kruzhilina - Costume Designer
Irina Kruzhilina is a New York-based costume designer for the performing arts. Her work has been shown all over the world, from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the National Theatre in Prague, and from Avery Fisher Hall to the Barbican Center in London. Ms. Kruzhilina designed costumes for dozens of theatre, dance, opera, and puppetry performances, including with Doug Fitch, Lars Jan, Mabou Mines, David Chambers, Ruth Margraff, Else-Marie Lauvik, DNA works, and SCRAP performance group. Her work has appeared at the Philadelphia Live Arts, Spoleto Fringe and Toronto Nuit Blanche festivals. Recent productions include the underwater performance Holoscenes for Early Morning Opera at Art Basel, Miami, ‘A Dancer’s Dream‘ with Giants Are Small for the New York Philharmonic, and a new nighttime spectacular at the Disney Animal Kingdom. A native of Moscow, Russia, Ms. Kruzhilina is dedicated to connecting Western and Eastern European theatre through international collaborations. As an educator, Ms. Kruzhilina developed the "inside-out" design method that she teaches at institutions throughout the world. She is a member of the International Theatre Institute and a Chashama resident.
Phillip Livingston - Set Designer
Philip Livingston is a sculptor/designer with ties to theatre and architecture. His work explores themes of memory, the tension between reality and illusion, the relationship of physical to spiritual, gravity and lightness, and other perplexing contrasts. But never all at once! Different themes emerge in different materials in pieces created in series that have taken periods of one to five or so years.
Livingston has a B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. His sculpture is in the collections of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Knoxville Museum of Art; the Knoxville Convention Center; the Tennessee Valley Authority (on three sites); Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, IL; and many private collections. He has been represented by Adele Rosenberg Gallery, Chicago; Ward-Nasse Gallery, New York; Sonia Zaks Gallery, Chicago; James Tigerman Gallery, and Perimeter Gallery, Chicago.
Paul Deziel - Projections Designer
Paul Deziel designs theatrical projections and video in and around Chicago. He graduated from Columbia College Chicago in May of 2014 with a degree in Technical Theatre. While his focus in theatre may be niche, his interest is voluminous, working as an actor, stage manager, run crew, carpenter, electrician, props designer, and video technician. He has worked with a variety of companies, including: Steppenwolf, The Neo-Futurists, Strawdog, Congo Square, The Mercury Theater, Red Tape Theatre, Cold Basement Dramatics, Route 66, Adventure Stage Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Collaboraction, and has even had his work seen internationally. He is an Artistic Affiliate with American Blues Theater and SoloChicago. Paul is also a member of the MegaGame Society of Chicago. Outside of theatre, Paul enjoys playing table-top games, watching silent films, and thinking of finishing those plays he has started to write.
Beth Miller - Draper
Beth Laske-Miller is a Chicago-based costume designer. Midsommer Flight designs include Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo & Juliet. Other design credits include Coraline for Black Button Eyes Productions, Lay Me Down Softly, The Seafarer, In Pigeon House, A Moon for the Misbegottenand That was Then atSeanachai Theatre Company,Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, A Study in Scarlet and The Caucasian Chalk Circle at Promethean Theatre Ensemble, L’Imitation of Life at Hell in a Handbag, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning and Take Her to See the Maco Lights at Prologue Theatre Co. Beth was recently nominated for a 2013 Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Award in Costume Design for A Study in Scarlet with Promethean Theatre Ensemble. She holds a BA in Costume/Fashion Design from Indiana University – Bloomington, and an MFA in Costume Design from CalArts.
Michael Banks - Lighting Designer
Deirdre Connelly - Producer
Deirdre Connelly is a Chicago-based stage manager and producer and a company member at Oracle. Stage management credits at Oracle include The President, Romulus, Circle-Machine, The Jungle (2015 remount), The America Play, and No Beast So Fierce. She has also stage managed for Apollinaire Theater Company and Science Fiction Theater Company, both in the Boston area. Deirdre holds a BA in Art History and Technical Theater from Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.