Goodman Theatre

For Immediate Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Chicago, IL) Goodman Theatre launches its 2007/2008 season with Passion Play: a cycle in three parts, a "startlingly original" (The Washington Post) theatrical event by Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl. British director, actor and teacher Mark Wing-Davey helms this triptych which addresses the thorny relationship between politics and religion, lust and dogma-and perception and reality-over 425 years and three controversial, politically-charged eras. Passion Play runs September 15 - October 21, 2007; a detailed schedule of performance dates, times and prices appears at the end of this release. The Boeing Company is the Exclusive Corporate Sponsor.

"With Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play, we proudly begin our season with an eloquent, entertaining and very affecting piece of work from an important new voice in American theater," said Artistic Director Robert Falls. "Director Mark Wing-Davey, who shares a long relationship with Sarah and this project, brings an expansive vision to this stunning, imaginative play, full of big ideas and questions pertinent to our time."

Playwright Sarah Ruhl began what would become a three-act play after re-reading a childhood book accounting the Oberammergau Passion play (Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace), and the blurring of the line between performance and reality that actors experienced when portraying Jesus or Mary. Using the medieval tradition of the Passion play as a framing device, a cast of 12 characters explore very personal and contemporary questions (sexuality, identity, responsibility and faith) and larger community issues (power, citizenship and war) during three times of war in history. Part One takes place in England, 1575; a small town is staging the Passion play just as the Protestant Queen Elizabeth is banishing Catholic rites and rituals, forcing the play to cease production. In Part Two, the play travels to Germany in 1934, where the man playing Christ in the famous Oberammergau Passion play is slowly drawn to the Nazi party. Hitler, who has endorsed the dramatization of the death of Christ as a way to promote his anti-Semitic agenda, attends the play. Part Three moves forward in time to Spearfish, South Dakota, the home of the Black Hills Passion play. The man playing Pontius Pilate has returned from the Vietnam War and discovers his part in the play has been given to a professional actor. Ronald Reagan visits the town while campaigning for the 1984 election.

"I'm thrilled that Passion Play will be produced by the Goodman. I'm from Chicago, and grew up going to theater at the Goodman, so working here feels like coming home to me," said Sarah Ruhl. "It's rare to find a theater that is unafraid of scale and epic-and that also embraces second productions, which is often where the playwright manages to do another crucial push in the writing process. I'm so happy that Mark Wing-Davey is returning to Passion Play-he did an incredible workshop production of the play in London, and he deeply understands what the play is trying to do."

Wing-Davey was an early, avid supporter of Passion Play, having first encountered Ruhl and the project in a reading at Sundance in 2000. Two years later, Wing-Davey directed a small-scale workshop/production of Parts One and Two at the Actors Centre in London. The Goodman production reconnects the playwright with a director known for shaping major works by some of today's leading writers: Caryl Churchill, Anna Deavere Smith, Craig Lucas, Naomi Iizuka, Tony Kushner and José Rivera.

"With Sarah's work, you think you know where she might be heading, but there are so many delightful twists and turns, you're constantly surprised. I am fascinated by her mix of sexuality combined with a sort of soft, whimsical imagination-all put in balance by a unique intellectual rigor that is fast becoming her signature." said Wing-Davey. "It's a joy to return to Passion Play, a 'theater's theater' type of play that peeks backstage and makes a much larger statement about human beings and our relationship to our own kind of performances."

A native of the Chicago area and recent winner of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, playwright Sarah Ruhl is "among the most acclaimed and accomplished young playwrights on the contemporary scene" (The New York Times). A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Clean House (seen at the Goodman in the 2005/2006 season), which also won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Ruhl's other plays include Eurydice, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Melancholy Play, Late: a cowboy song, Orlando, Demeter in the City (NAACP image award nomination). Her plays have been performed at Lincoln Center Theater, Second Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Wilma, Cornerstone Theater, Madison Repertory Theater, Clubbed Thumb, and the Piven Theatre Workshop, among other theaters across the country. Her plays have been produced internationally in London, Canada, Germany, Latvia and Poland. She is the recipient of the Helen Merrill Award, the Whiting Writers' Award and is a proud member of New Dramatists and 13P.

Mark Wing-Davey first came to prominence in the United States with his Obie Award-winning production of Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest at New York Theatre Workshop in 1992, which transferred to Manhattan Theatre Club where it enjoyed an extended run. In 1996, Wing-Davey directed the U.S. premiere of Churchill's The Skriker at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, which was nominated for six 1997 Drama Desk Awards including Best Director. Other U.S. and U.K. credits include Owners by Churchill (New York Theatre Workshop); The Lights by Howard Korder (Lincoln Center Theatre) which received seven Drama Desk nominations including Best Director; Angels In America by Tony Kushner (American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco), winner of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award as Best Director; Oleanna by David Mamet (Seattle Repertory Theatre); King Lear (NYU); The Castle by Howard Barker (NYU); The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Milwaukee Repertory Theatre); Mongrel's Heart by Mikhail Bulgakov (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); Star-Gazey Pie and Sauerkraut by James Stock (Royal Court Theatre, London); Silence, Cunning, Exile by Stuart Greenman (New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater); The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar (Berkeley Repertory Theatre) for which he received a Bay Area Critics Circle nomination for Best Director; Troilus & Cressida (New York Shakespeare Festival, Delacorte Theatre in Central Park); the world premiere of Greensboro by Emily Mann (McCarter Theatre Company) and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Nottingham Playhouse.

About the Cast

In the course of one performance, twelve actors play over 30 roles in over a hundred costumes and three distinct time periods. Joaquín Torres (John the Fisherman/Eric) returns to the Goodman, having most recently appeared as Edgar in Robert Falls' production of King Lear. New York theater credits include King Lear (Public Theater); Beauty of the Father (Manhattan Theatre Club); and Twilight, Los Angeles: 1992 (Lincoln Center Institute). Brian Sgambati (Pontius) most recently appeared in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia trilogy at Lincoln Center, where he was also a member of the company of King Lear starring Christopher Plummer. Off-Broadway credits include Landscape of the Body with the Signature Theatre Company and The World Over at Playwright's Horizons. Kristen Bush (Mary 1) makes her Goodman and Chicago area debut. She debuted on Broadway in Roundabout Theatre Company's production of A Touch of the Poet. Most recently, she played Cordelia to Kevin Kline's Lear in The Public Theater's production of King Lear. Nicole Wiesner (Mary 2) makes her Goodman debut. An Artistic Associate with Chicago's Trap Door Theatre, her local credits include Great Men of Science: Nos. 21 and 22, directed by Tracy Letts (Lookingglass Theatre) and Phedre, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis (Court Theatre). T. Ryder Smith (Queen Elizabeth/Adolph Hitler/Ronald Reagan) makes his Goodman and Chicago debut. Recent work in New York includes the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Marat/Sade (Marquis de Sade); Will Eno's Thom Pain (Daryl Roth Theatre); Glen Berger's The Wooden Breeks (Manhattan Class Company); Anne Washburn's Apparition (the Connolly); Richard Foreman's The Gods are Pounding my Head (the Ontological); and Israel Horowitz' three-actor, 50-role Lebensraum (2007 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble Cast). Polly Noonan (Village Idiot/Violet) has previously worked on Ruhl's plays include the world premieres of Dead Man's Cell Phone at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Passion Play: a cycle in three parts at Arena Stage (Helen Hayes nomination); Eurydice at Madison Repertory; and Melancholy Play and Orlando at the Piven Theatre Workshop, where she was a member of the Young People's Company. Her film work includes Novocaine, High Fidelity, Arizona Dream and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Noonan appeared as the "gummi bear girl").

Other cast members include British actor Alan Cox (Friar/Visiting Englishman/Young Director) in his Goodman debut. He made his Broadway debut as Owen in Translations for the Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore, which originated at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. His work in the U.K. includes seasons at the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Chichester Festival Theatre. He made his West End debut in Strange Interlude and recent appearances include The Creeper and The Importance of Being Earnest. Brendan Averett (Carpenter 1) makes his Goodman debut. Other Chicago credits include Blithe Spirit at The Gift Theater; Twelfth Night at Noble Fool; Henry V with The Hypocrites; Hapgood, Man and Superman, Holiday and Money with Remy Bumppo; and Hamlet and The Chairs at Court Theatre. Keith Kupferer (Carpenter 2) returns to the Goodman having previously appeared in The Old Neighborhood. Other credits include Men of Tortuga; Things Being What They Are; Jesus Hopped The A Train, Tavern Story and the upcoming world premiere of Carter's Way at Steppenwolf; Cat Feet and The Old Neighborhood at Northlight; Desire Under The Elms at Court Theatre; and the long running hit, Shear Madness. He is a founding member of Rivendell Theatre Ensemble. John Hoogenakker (Machinist/German Officer) makes his Goodman debut. Chicago credits include 100 Saints You Should Know (Steppenwolf); The Retreat from Moscow (Northlight Theatre); Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); and Killer Joe (The Theatre at 2851 Halsted). Craig Spidle (Director) returns to the Goodman where his previous credits include Oedipus Complex, Pericles, The Beard of Avon, The Black Star Line, Black Snow and As You Like It. Northlight Theatre credits include The Immigrant, Over the Tavern and Experiment with an Air Pump. Court Theatre credits include Life's a Dream, Little Foxes, Nora, Desire under the Elms and The Cherry Orchard. Rounding out the cast are ensemble and understudies Tiffany Bedwell, Kyle Lemieux, Ron Rains and Jayce Ryan.

The design team for Passion Play: a cycle in three parts includes Gabriel Berry (Costumes), Allen Moyer (Set), James F. Ingalls (Lighting) and Cecil Averett (Sound/Composer).

Tickets to Passion Play: a cycle in three parts are $20 to $70 and may be purchased online at GoodmanTheatre.org, at the Goodman Theatre Box Office, 170 North Dearborn Street, or charged by phoning 312.443.3800. See calendar below for specific dates, times and prices. MezzTix are half-price mezzanine tickets available at 6pm for evening shows and 12 noon for matinees at the box office, and at 10am online at GoodmanTheatre.org on the day of performance, subject to availability. Groups of 10 or more, call 312.443.3820.

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, Henry Godinez, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor and Mary Zimmerman. 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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August 20, 2007