Cast: Venice Averyheart, Dennis Bisto, Marzena Bukowska, David Lovejoy, Michael Mejia, Robin Minkens, Emily Nichelson and Keith Surney

Playwright

Karel Čapek was a Czech journalist, novelist, science fiction and travel writer, essayist and playwright, born in 1890 in Bohemia, near the German border, what then was Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a prolific author, producing about fifty books across genres, and in all of them, his goal was the political, moral and cultural enhancement of his native land. His older brother Josef became a painter but also co-authored with Čapek several books of short stories and two plays, The Life of the Insects (1921) and Adam, the Creator (1927). At the time, they were known as The Brothers Čapek, and the two of them are credited as introducing the neologism “robot” to the world as the word appeared for the first time ever in the title of Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Čapek’s style is sometimes off-hand and exclamatory, sometimes scattered and intensely expressionistic, but always insistently enlightening, as he is considered, along with Bertolt Brecht, to have been the most didactic writer of the first half of the 20th century. In 1936, Čapek published his most famous novel, War with the Newts, his satire on Nazi Germany and totalitarianism that attacked his cultural and political foes. Čapek died on Christmas day of 1938 of an inflammation of the lungs. His brother Josef was arrested instead and spent World War 2 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; he got liberated at the end of the war but died a few days later.

Set Design: J. Michael Griggs/ Original Music and Sound Design: Danny Rockett / Costume Design: Rachel Sypniewski/ Lighting Design: Richard Norwood / Makeup Design: Zsofia Otvos / Graphic Design: Michal Janicki/ Dramaturge: Milan Pribisic / Choreography: Miguel Long / Stage Manager: Anna Klos

Director

Nicole Wiesner (she/her) joined the Trap ensemble in 1999 and currently serves as the Managing Director. Her directing credits for the company include Minna,The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, Phèdre, Monsieur D’Eon is a Woman, The Old Woman Broods, and The White Plague. Some of her favorite Trap acting credits include First Ladies (dir. Zeljko Djukic, Joseph Jefferson Citation: “Outstanding Actress”); OVERWEIGHT, unimportant: MISSHAPE (dir. Yasen Peyankov); and the title roles in The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant; Nana (dir. Beata Pilch) and Alice in Bed. (dir. Dado). Regionally, she has appeared at the Goodman Theatre in 2666, directed by Robert Falls and Seth Bockley; Shining City directed by Robert Falls; and Passion Play, directed by Mark Wing- Davy (After Dark Award, “Outstanding Performance”), at Steppenwolf Theatre in The Book Thief (dir. Hallie Gordon), South of Settling (dir. Adam Goldstein) and Dublin Carol (Dir. Amy Morton); as well as Lookingglass Theatre, Court Theatre, Next Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Epic