Goodman Theatre

For Immediate Release

(Chicago, IL) Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls proudly announces the line-up for 2007/2008, a season of plays from the foremost writers working in theater today. Launching the season in the Albert Theatre is Sarah Ruhl's most recent work, Passion Play: a cycle, an expansively theatrical rumination on politics, religion and loyalty, directed by Mark Wing-Davey. Chicago audiences will then be treated to Falls' production of Conor McPherson's Shining City. Next, Harris Yulin-who appeared in Finishing the Picture and Frank's Home-returns to the Goodman to direct Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful. In conjunction with this production, the Goodman will present a Horton Foote Festival, including events that highlight this playwright's celebrated career and artistry. Acclaimed director Kate Whoriskey returns in the spring to direct the world premiere of Chicago playwright Ifa Bayeza's The Ballad of Emmett Till-part documentary, part poetic elegy, based on interviews with the survivors of Till's murder. Concluding the Albert season on a high note is the new musical, The Boys Are Coming Home, music and lyrics by Leslie Arden, featuring a new book by Rebecca Gilman. Former Artistic Collective member David Petrarca returns to the Goodman to direct this witty, romantic new work first seen in a workshop at Northwestern University's American Musical Theatre Project. Opening the season in the Owen Theatre is Eduardo Machado's timely, bittersweet family drama The Cook, directed by Resident Artistic Associate Henry Godinez. William Brown returns to direct the 30th anniversary production of the perennial holiday favorite, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and the Latino Theatre Festival, curated by Godinez, returns for its fourth summer in August 2008.

"We have assembled an exciting, diverse and ambitious season with an extraordinary range of writers-young and old, new and established-who represent some of theater's most compelling and eloquent voices," said Falls. "From the richly enjoyable, thought-provoking Passion Play: a cycle, to the haunting Shining City and the delicate poetry of Horton Foote; from the powerful impact of The Ballad of Emmett Tillto a wonderfully vibrant new musical by Leslie Arden in collaboration with Rebecca Gilman, these productions are sure to be among the most talked-about theatrical events of the season."

Further information on Goodman Theatre's 2007/2008 season follows; plays, dates and artists are subject to change. Still to be announced are two plays in the Owen Theatre.

In The Albert Theatre

Passion Play: a cycle
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Mark Wing-Davey
Performances begin in September 2007

Set against the traditional dramatic restaging of the Passion of Christ in three different eras (Elizabethan England, Nazi Germany, and post-Vietnam South Dakota), Sarah Ruhl creates a startlingly original, irresistibly theatrical exploration of the often thorny relationship between politics and religion, ideology and fact. Epic in scope yet wondrously human, Passion Play: a cycle pits the complex questions of religious dogma, personal faith, and the politics of art against the simple ideals of love, beauty and truth-all with Ruhl's characteristic wit, humor and devastating insight.

A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens
Adapted by Goodman Dramaturg Tom Creamer
Directed by William Brown
Performances begin in November 2007

The 30th anniversary production of this timeless holiday tradition at the Goodman, A Christmas Carol celebrates the yuletide season by infusing Charles Dickens' classic tale with a little bit of magic, as only the Goodman can. From flying ghosts to a quiet little boy and his crutch, A Christmas Carol is filled with enough singing, dancing and enchantment to rejuvenate even the most disheartened of spirits. The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed through the course of one very memorable Christmas Eve night.

Shining City
By Conor McPherson
Directed by Robert Falls
Performances begin in January 2008

In a Dublin psychiatrist's office, a distraught man reveals a fantastical happening: the recent sighting of the ghost of his newly deceased wife. Thus begins Conor McPherson's quietly haunting, finely wrought tale of urban isolation and connection, called by the New York Times "as close to perfection as contemporary playwriting gets." Artistic Director Robert Falls brings his heralded Broadway staging to the Goodman.

The Trip to Bountiful
By Horton Foote
Directed by Harris Yulin
Performances begin in March 2008

Proclaimed "an American classic" by The Wall Street Journal, Foote's tender, heartfelt study focuses on Carrie Watts, an elderly woman now confined to a tiny Houston apartment with her soft-spoken son and officious daughter-in-law. Carrie dreams of returning to her childhood home in the small town of Bountiful, Texas, which she left three decades ago-and one day, she sets out to fulfill her dream, with results that are both heartbreaking and life-affirming.

Detailed information about the Horton Foote Festival will be provided at a later date.

The Ballad of Emmett Till
By Ifa Bayeza
Directed by Kate Whoriskey
Performances begin in April 2008

The 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till served as a shocking catalyst for the infant civil rights movement, and remains one of the most horrifying incidents in a tumultuous era. In this world premiere, a highlight of last season's New Stages series, Chicago author Ifa Bayeza explores the powerful truths at the heart of the story, creating a work of vibrant theatricality and music, pierced with the poignancy of real life and the grandeur of contemporary myth.

The Boys Are Coming Home
Music and lyrics by Leslie Arden
Book by Rebecca Gilman
Directed by David Petrarca
Performances begin in June 2008

Swing meets bebop in this gloriously captivating musical resetting of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing in the tumultuous, anything-can-happen post-World War II era. When the troops, led by the gregarious lady's man Captain Ben Taylor, return to the small town of Heartsworth, Connecticut, they encounter a world whose rules (and women) are now very different-as Taylor discovers when he collides with former flame and rival Bea Wallace, now a foreman in her uncle's steel factory. Romantic and poetic, hilarious and earthy, The Boys Are Coming Home is a tuneful celebration of a society on the eve of an exciting new era, where nothing is what it was and everything is possible.

In The Owen Theatre

The Cook
By Eduardo Machado
Directed by Henry Godinez
Performances begin in October 2007

It is 1958 in Havana, on the night of Castro's revolution. The aristocratic owners of an estate flee the country, entrusting it to their young cook, Gladys, who vows to safeguard it until their return. Through the years, she holds firm to her promise, as the dream of a new society crumbles under the weight of corrupted ideals. Forty years later, the daughter of the mistress of the house returns, in a confrontation that reveals the very human conflicts that still exist between those who left their homeland and those who stayed behind. Praised by the Miami Herald as "political and unflinching, rich in its character portraits," The Cook is a timely, vibrant portrait of a political movement and its most human effects.

In The Albert and Owen Theatre

Latino Theatre Festival August 2008

Curated by Resident Artistic Associate Henry Godinez, the fourth biennial Latino Theatre Festival builds on the success of the previous celebrations and will include performances by some of the best international, national and local Latino theater companies. Schedule and dates to be announced.

Subscriptions to Goodman Theatre's 2007/2008 season are now on sale and are priced from $100 to $320. Subscriptions to the Owen are priced from $45 to $90. The Platinum Subscription-for all of the plays in the Goodman's new season-begins at $145. Subscriptions may be purchased at the Goodman Box Office, 170 North Dearborn, by calling 312.443.3800 or online at GoodmanTheatre.org. For further subscription information, call 312.443.3800.

Goodman Theatre, recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, has been a leader in the American theater and internationally recognized for its artists, productions and education programs. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the Goodman is committed to producing classic and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. Central to that mission is the Goodman's Artistic Collective, including Frank Galati, Mary Zimmerman, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor and Henry Godinez. In 2000, the Goodman moved to the heart of Chicago's revitalized downtown North Loop Theater District, into a 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 Lester N. Coney 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.

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March 15, 2007