Though -- unusually for recent seasons -- Arthur Miller has been getting more attention than Tennessee Williams, the latter playwright hasn't been completely shunted aside. Night of the Iguana recently finished a run at CA's TheatreWorks, and Hollywood's Fountain Theatre spent six months last year devoted to a "Williamsfest."
Now A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, a rarely produced "twilight work" by Williams, finishes its scheduled run at IL's Northlight Theatre this weekend, March 8, after beginning previews Feb. 4 and opening Feb. 11.
The play, which marked a return for the playwright to his roots in Depression-era St. Louis, is an exploration of a single morning in the lives of four "quintessentially Williams" women: a hopeless romantic, a meddling matchmaker, a maternal protector and a dogged outsider.
Cecilie D. Keenan, praised for her revivals of Toys in the Attic and The Rose Tattoo, resurrects the 1979 work, never before produced in Chicago.
Chicago veterans Kate Buddeke, Renee Matthews, Carmen Roman and Karen Vacarro star, under Cecilie D. Keenan's direction. Designing the show are Rick Paul (set), Mary McDonald Badger (lighting), Caryn Weglarz (costumes) and Joe Cerqua (sound). Also on tap for the Northlight season:
THE LAST SURVIVOR. Eleanor Reissa memoir to her father, which spans the years 1938-95, from Germany to the U.S. Reissa directed the Broadway musical Those Were The Days and Off-Broadway's Cowgirls. (Prev: March 18; opens: March 25; Runs to April 19).
THE WOUND AND THE BOW. Russell Vandenbroucke adapts and directs Sophocles' Philoctetes, about a man, exiled due to a festering wound on his foot, suddenly wanted again by the Greek army that cast him out. (Prev: May 6; opens May 13; Runs to June 7).
*
One of the nation's largest not-for-profit theatres, Northlight boasts 6,600 subscribers -- a 75 percent increase of 1996-97! Part of the boon is due to its new location, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts on Skokie Boulevard in Skokie.
For tickets and information on shows at Northlight Theatre, 9401 North Skokie Blvd., call (847) 673-6300.
-- By David Lefkowitz and Lawrence Bommer
Chicago Correspondent
