Goodman Theatre

For Immediate Release

(January 28, 2008 - Chicago, IL) Artistic Director Robert Falls announces a dynamic addition to Goodman Theatre's upcoming 2008/2009 season: the world premiere of the Goodman commission Ghostwritten by Naomi Iizuka, directed by Lisa Portes. Ghostwritten was the result of a 2004 Joyce Award, which supports Midwest cultural institutions to commission works by artists of color. The Joyce Foundation encourages cultural organizations to serve and represent Chicago's diverse populations and fosters the development of new works in dance, music, theater and visual arts by artists of color. Premiering in 2009 (dates to be announced), Ghostwritten, a reimagining of the fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin," explores the relationship between America and Southeast Asia, unearthing the wounds of the Vietnam War and uncovering what it means to face ghosts of the past. Ghostwritten joins Goodman Theatre's 2008/2009 season with previously announced plays Turn of the Century by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, directed by Tommy Tune; Ruined by Lynn Nottage, directed by Kate Whoriskey; Yohen by Philip Kan Gotanda, directed by Steve Scott; and Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill, directed by Robert Falls as part of a Eugene O'Neill celebration.

Naomi Iizuka was born in Tokyo and raised in Japan, Indonesia, Holland and Washington, D.C. Her work has been produced and developed at theaters across the country. Her latest play, Strike-Slip, premiered at the 2007 Humana Festival of New Plays. Other plays include 36 Views, Anon(ymous), Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, At the Vanishing Point, Polaroid Stories and War of the Worlds (written in collaboration with Anne Bogart and SITI Company). Iizuka's works have been seen at the Children's Theater Company, the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Huntington Theater, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave Festival", among others. She is a member of New Dramatists and, in addition to the Joyce Award, has received the Alpert Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant, and an NEA/TCG Artist in Residence grant.

Lisa Portes directed the 2007 reading of Ghostwritten in Goodman Theatre's New Stages Series, and will direct the world premiere of Iizuka's After 100 Years at the Guthrie Theater in June 2008. Portes returns to the Goodman, where she directed El Grito Del Bronx by Migdalia Cruz as part of the 2006 Latino Theatre Festival. Recent Chicago credits include Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue by Quiara Alegria Hudes at Steppenwolf in association with Teatro Vista; Spare Change by Mia McCullough at Steppenwolf's First Look Series; Permanent Collection by Thomas Gibbons at Northlight; and Far Away by Caryl Churchill and In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks at Next Theatre Company. New York credits include the world premiere of Wilder: An Erotic Chamber Musical by Erin Cressida Wilson, Jack Herrick and Mike Craver at Playwrights Horizons. She chairs the MFA directing program at The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Additional information about the 2008/2009 season will be announced in the coming months.

Turn of the Century
By Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Directed by Tommy Tune
In 2008 - dates TBA

Nine-time Tony Award winner and National Medal of the Arts recipient Tommy Tune directs the world premiere of the musical Turn of the Century, a romantic comedy and trip through time and the American songbook from the writers of the Tony Award-winning Jersey Boys-Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Dixie Wilson's a singer who can't catch a break-with a gig or a guy. Billy Clark's a piano player who knows the songs and loves the ladies. The friction between them is immediate; so is the chemistry. At the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve 1999, the impossible happens-and together, Billy and Dixie steal the songs that make the whole world sing, becoming the superstars they've always dreamed of being, at the Turn of the Century.

Ruined
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Kate Whoriskey
In 2008 - dates TBA

MacArthur Foundation Fellowship winner Lynn Nottage returns to Chicago with her Goodman commission, Ruined, which the theater workshopped and produced as part of the 2007 New Stages Series. Set in the present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ruined centers around Mama Nadi, a savvy businesswoman who, in the midst of a complex civil war, protects and profits from the women whose bodies have become a battleground. Nottage's work was last seen at the Goodman in 2006-Crumbs from the Table of Joy directed by Chuck Smith.

Yohen
By Philip Kan Gotanda
Directed by Steve Scott
Produced in association with Silk Road Theatre Project
September 18 - November 2, 2008
Performed at Silk Road Theatre, 77 W. Washington St., Chicago, IL

A divorced Japanese woman and an African American GI meet in post-World War II Japan, fall in love, and marry. After nearly four decades of defending their relationship against prevailing prejudices, they now live in a quiet, accepting Los Angeles suburb. Their seemingly durable marriage, however, is in danger and the things that originally brought them together now threaten to tear them apart. More than a study of clashing cultures, Yohen is a poetically resonant story of two partners who discover that as environments change, so do intimate relationships-and love, however time-tested, is never a constant.

Desire Under the Elms and a showcase of Eugene O'Neill in the 21st century
Directed by Robert Falls
Featuring Brian Dennehy
In 2009 - dates TBA

Artistic Director Robert Falls' history with Eugene O'Neill has spanned four landmark productions: The Iceman Cometh (1990), A Touch of the Poet (1996), Long Day's Journey Into Night (2002) and Hughie (2004). His 2009 production of Desire Under the Elms starring Brian Dennehy will be the centerpiece of a showcase of O'Neill's work as it is being interpreted today.

Sparked by the dark hollows and brilliant imaginings of his subconscious, master playwright Eugene O'Neill conceived Desire Under the Elms as he slept one night, resulting in a work with the powerful emotional pitch of a fever dream. Elder Ephraim Cabot returns to his remote New England farm with his third wife-the young, alluring, headstrong Abbie-setting his three disapproving grown sons on an emotional rollercoaster and bitter fight for their inheritance. When Ephraim's youngest son Eben sets his sights on Abbie, the resulting tempest brings tragic consequences. First produced in 1924, Desire Under the Elms hauntingly mingles love and loathing, and has been praised for its "poetry and terrible beauty"(The New York Times).

Ghostwritten
By Naomi Iizuka
In 2009 - dates TBD

An American woman goes to Southeast Asia and strikes a bargain with a mysterious stranger. Twenty years later, she's become an acclaimed chef specializing in Asian cuisine with an adopted Vietnamese-born daughter and a life that is successful beyond her wildest dreams-until the stranger from her past reappears to collect on an old debt. Into her life the stranger from her past reappears to collect on an old debt. A striking reimagining of the tale of Rumplestiltskin, Ghostwritten explores the relationship between America and Southeast Asia, unearthing the wounds of the Vietnam War, and uncovering what it means to come face to face with the ghosts of your past.

About Goodman Theatre

Named the country's Best Regional Theatre by Time magazine (2003), Goodman Theatre is a leader in the American theater, internationally recognized for its artists, productions and educational programs since its founding in 1925. Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer's forward-thinking leadership has earned the Goodman unparalleled artistic distinction, garnered hundreds of awards-including the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre (1992)-and moved dozens of plays from Chicago to stages in New York and abroad. Central to its commitment to the reinvestigation of classics and development of new plays and artists is the Goodman's Artistic Collective, including Frank Galati, Henry Godinez, Steve Scott, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor and Mary Zimmerman. The largest not-for-profit theater in Chicago, the Goodman moved in 2000 into a brand new state-of-the-art complex which houses two principal theaters: the 856-seat Albert Ivar Goodman Theatre and the 400-seat flexible Owen Bruner Goodman Theatre. Board Chairman is Shawn M. Donnelley and Alice Young Sabl is chair of the Women's Board. American Airlines is the Exclusive Airline of Goodman Theatre. Kraft Foods is the Principal Sponsor of the Goodman's free Student Subscription Series.

Still to come in the 2007/2008 season: The Horton Foote Festival (including The Trip to Bountiful, Talking Pictures, Blind Date and The Actor - January 26 - April 6, 2008); Ain't Misbehavin': The Fats Waller Musical Show based on an idea by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr., music by Fats Waller, directed by Chuck Smith (April 5 - May 4, 2008); The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza, directed by Oz Scott (April 26 - June 1, 2008); The Boys are Coming Home, music and lyrics by Leslie Arden, book by Rebecca Gilman, directed by Robert Falls (June 21 - July 27, 2008).

For more information call Goodman Theatre's Publicity Office: 312.443.5151.

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