Ongoing Collaborators
In addition to the Artistic Collective, other outstanding local and national artists whose ongoing relationships with Goodman Theatre have added incomparable richness and vitality to the theater's body of work. These directors, playwrights designers and theater companies have become important members of Goodman's extended family of artists; like the members of the Artistic Collective, each of these frequent collaborators brings a strong personal vision and a dedication to artistic excellence which enhance Goodman's reputation as a world-class cultural center.
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AUGUST WILSON
With the death of August Wilson on October 2, 2005, the Goodman, and American theater in general, lost one of its most important, ambitious and prolific playwrights.
August Wilson's relationship with the Goodman began with his play Fences, which opened in January 1986. Directed by Lloyd Richards, it starred James Earl Jones as the ex-ballplayer turned garbage man Troy Maxson. As Wilson continued to add plays to his epic project, a theatrical telling of the story of African Americans decade by decade across the 20 th century, the Goodman produced each one, and in doing so, became one of a select few American theaters that have produced all the plays in Wilson's entire cannon. For some of these, the Goodman joined the consortium of theaters that served as pre-Broadway testing grounds. Others, such as Chuck Smith's production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Jonathan Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, were productions for Chicago only. And for two of Wilson's plays, Seven Guitars and Gem of the Ocean, the Goodman served as host for the premiere production, a distinct honor.
Wilson 's arrival unlocked a gate and, since Fences, the Goodman has presented more than 20 plays by other African American writers. Perhaps more remarkably, August Wilson holds the distinction of being the Goodman's single most produced playwright in the last 20 years. These changes have brought about a new diversity to the Goodman's audience.
August Wilson will be regarded as one of the great original voices of the American theater. He created a theatrical diction all his own, infused with the rhythms and repetitions of the blues which he developed into great arias for his characters. His men and women, sometimes lost in their fight to get a little ahead of the game, sometimes uplifted in their search for their truest selves-their "song"-scrap and talk, mourn and sing their nearly 400-year history in America.
Only one other great American playwright has attempted a project as ambitious as Wilson's 20 th century cycle of plays; but Eugene O'Neill could not complete the cycle he envisioned and burned his notes before he died. Wilson completed his cycle in 2005. He left behind a generous legacy of his truly extraordinary body of work.
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DAVID CALE
David Cale is the author and performer of seven solo shows, five of which have been presented at the Goodman Studio Theatre, including the world premieres of Lillian (Obie Award); Somebody Else's House and Deep in a Dream of You (Bessie Award), both commissioned by the Goodman; Smooch Music and The Redthroats (Bessie Award). Other shows include A Likely Story and Betwixt. His monologues have been featured on NPR's This American Life, The Next Big Thing and the HBO special, Bette Midler's Mondo Beyondo. He has written lyrics for songs performed and recorded by Deborah Harry, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Scott, Richard Butler and the Jazz Passengers. He has appeared in plays on and off-Broadway, and in many films including Pollock, A Prince in the Projects and The Slaughter Rule.
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REBECCA GILMAN
Rebecca Gilman's most recent production at the Goodman was the world premiere production of Dollhouse. Other Goodman productions include the world premieres of Spinning Into Butter, Boy Gets Girl and Blue Surge . Other plays include The Sweetest Swing in Baseball and The Glory of Living. Her plays have been produced at Lincoln Center Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, the Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, as well as other theaters around the country and abroad. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright and the George Devine Award. Ms. Gilman was named a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for her play, The Glory of Living. Her adaptation of Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter recently premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, in conjunction with The Acting Company of New York.
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KATE WHORISKEY
Kate Whoriskey most recently returned to the Goodman directing Heartbreak House. Prior to that, she directed The Rose Tattoo and the world premiere of Drowning Crow. She has served as an artistic associate at La Jolla Playhouse and is currently artistic associate at Intiman Theatre through a TCG New Generations Grant. She most recently directed Antigone at South Coast Repertory, where she also directed the world premiere of Intimate Apparel last season. Other regional credits include The Master Builder at American Repertory Theatre; Lady from the Sea and The Chairs at Intiman Theatre and Desire Under the Elms at Perseverance Theatre. She has worked with writers Regina Taylor, Lynn Nottage and Michael Ondaatje. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Lynn Nottage's Fabulation at Playwrights Horizons. Ms. Whoriskey is a graduate of NYU-Tisch School of the Arts and ART's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. A recipient of an NEA/TCG Director's Fellowship, she has also acted as a visiting professor at UC Davis.
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BRAIN DENNEHY
Brian Dennehy most recently returned to the Goodman Theatre, his theatrical home away from home, in October 2004 in the role of Hughie, which he performed in spring of 2004 in Providence at the Trinity Repertory Theatre. Mr. Dennehy has won two Tony Awards as Best Actor in a Play, in 2003 for Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and in 1999 for the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman both directed by Robert Falls. Mr. Dennehy also received a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy nomination as best actor for Showtime's television adaptation of the latter. He also starred on Broadway in Brian Friel's Translations. At the Goodman, he appeared in the leading roles in Robert Falls' productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night in 2002, Death of a Salesman in 1998, A Touch of the Poet in 1996, The Iceman Cometh in 1992 and Galileo in 1986. He and Falls collaborated again in 1992 for a remounting of The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Additional theater credits include Peter Brook's 1988 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theater; Wisdom Bridge Theatre's production of Rat in the Skull; and Says I, Says He at the Mark Taper Forum and the Phoenix Theatre in New York. Mr. Dennehy has also starred in numerous television movies and miniseries and was nominated for an Emmy on four other occasions- for his work in Burden of Proof, To Catch a Killer (The John Wayne Gacy Story), Murder in the Heartland and A Killing in a Small Town. Mr. Dennehy is perhaps best known for his work in feature films, which include Semi-Tough, 10, Rambo: First Blood, Gorky Park, Never Cry Wolf, Twice in a Lifetime, Cocoon, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, and Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect, for which he received the Chicago Film Festival Award as best actor. He recently finished shooting the Focus Feature Assault on Precinct 13 with Ethan Hawke and Lawrence Fishburn. Mr. Dennehy stars in the November aired four hour CBS mini-series Overload, and films the independent feature 10 th & Wolf alongside Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper and James Marsden this fall.