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The Havoc Theatre

The Havoc Theatre is a group of actors and designers based in Chicago. Founded in 2000, this ensemble works to create interesting and vibrant plays focusing on the world at large and Chicago issues of the day.

Mission:

We aim to change the world by challenging audiences through intimate, in-your-face theatrical interpretations of classic texts and original works. We don’t create art. We create HAVOC!

History:

Havoc Ensemble Team (Later changed to Havoc Theatre in 2003) was founded in 2000 by recent Columbia College graduates and best friends Gus Lobrano and Teddy McArdle in the hopes of making an artistic home for “experimental, gritty productions that touch the soul of Chicago theatre goers and wrap them in a blanket of delight, leaving them asking hard-hitting questions about energy and truth”. After their inaugural production of Len Dillard’s “Nothing Happened” the company was an immediate success. After 2 seasons of relatively positive reviews and growing ticket sales, the young Havoc Ensemble Team were Joseph Jefferson Award recommended for a “caustic and uproarious” production of Darren Waltdorn’s “Tomorrow is Tomorrow but Today was Yesterday”. This play marked the end of Lobrano’s tenure as Artistic Director when McArdle was found in a romantic relationship with then stage manager Dana Proudfit. Lobrano was a stiff proponent of keeping romance out of the ensemble as to not create an atmosphere that may hinder or derail the gritty and abominable truth he had been seeking on the stage. Soon after Lobrano’s exit in 2003, McArdle found himself as Artistic Director and lone ensemble member of this now successful theatre company. Needing more hands to produce on the scale he was accustomed, he enlisted the help of 5 new ensemble members including the aforementioned Dana Proudfit, lighting designer Donald Hooper, and actors Tina Crowley, Robert Franz, and the young Jonathan Duva.

In an effort to distance himself from Lobrano, McArdle changed the name of the company to The Havoc Theatre and began to explore classics and much loved American “chestnuts” in a ploy to recruit new and better talent and to gain favor with Chicago critics.

Jonathan Duva, after several starring roles, most namely the Count in “The Count of Monte Cristo” decided to make a move to Los Angeles to explore work in film and television. His first film, “They Came From Columbus”, an indie film (nominated for two Spirit Awards) about the lives of four homeless twenty somethings from Columbus looking for something better, catapulted Duva into fame.

McArdle started the 04-05 season with “The Scarlet Pimpernel” which was a success with audiences grossing the most money of a Havoc show to date. Unfortunately, the show was a critical disaster, receiving one review from the then important Chicago Reader that contained the line; “I thought I was going to die in that theater from the suffocating lack of talent”. Shortly after the 04-5 season ended with “Brain Game: The Most Dangerous Computer”, Teddy McArdle married his girlfriend of 3 months and moved to Kankakee. The Artistic Director position now belonged to Dana Proudfit. Proudfit began her time in 2006 by directing and set designing her own original work entitled “A Sack Full of Shoes” which was poorly received and attended. In 2009, in an effort to strike a nerve with the public, Proudfit directed the little produced piece “Our American Cousin” famous for the sole fact that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated during a performance by the legendary stage actor John Wilkes Boothe. Proudfit was hoping that reviving a play that was originally performed with the Chicago stage great Joseph Jefferson would add an allure to the show and attract potential Board Members, but Proudfit decided to set “Our American Cousin” in Space as an “homage to Astronauts who are our true American cousins”. Not only was this play reviled by critics, but the choice to take a piece of history and change it for virtually no reason caused discourse in the company and created a mass exodus of ensemble members. Proudfit stood by her work, and invited a new group of ensemble members to join the company that are still with the Havoc to this day.

The Havoc Theater was located in Chicago at 4000 N. Monticello Avenue in the heart of the Old Irving Park neighborhood.

Production History:

2011-2012
 * Desire Under the Elms
 * Dusty

2010-2011
 * American Buffalo
 * American Ass
 * Our American Cousin...in Space

2009-2010
 * Punk Rock
 * Our House- Musical
 * Stones in his Pockets

2008-2009
 * The Prejudice of Horses
 * Sexual Perversity in Chicago
 * Proof

2007-2008
 * Splash: The Musical
 * Vagina Monologues
 * The Last Nickel

2006-2007
 * Mother Courage and Her Children
 * The Good Person of Szechwan
 * Hangmen Also Die

2005-2006
 * The Count of Monte Cristo
 * The Lonely Swashbuckler
 * Sack Full of Shoes

2004-2005
 * The Scarlet Pimpernel
 * Brain Game: The Most Dangerous Computer
 * Old Money

2003-2004
 * Lives of the Saints
 * Ten Little N-Words
 * Lady Parts

2002-2003
 * Tomorrow is Tomorrow but Today was Yesterday
 * What a To-Do to Die Today
 * Yesterday: The Theatrical Exploration of one good Beatles Song

2001-2002
 * Fail Safe
 * As You Like It
 * Fertility is Futile

2000-2001
 * Nothing Happened
 * God’s Favorite
 * Edmond