Regina Taylor's Carolina-flavored adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, titled Drowning Crow, will get underway at the Goodman Theatre's Albert space Jan. 6. The run opens Jan. 14 and last through Feb. 10.
Richard Brooks leads the all African-American cast. Brooks, best known for his stint on "Law and Order," was seen at the Goodman last year in King Hedley II. He was one of the several actors who played the title role in August Wilson's drama before it reached Broadway.
Taylor has relocated the Russian drama to the historic Gullah culture of the Sea Islands off the coast of modern-day South Carolina. The family is now African-American and Konstantin is a performance artist who calls himself Constantine Trip, or C-Trip.
Kate Whoriskey helms the show, making her Goodman directing debut. Also in the cast are Lou Ferguson, seen in the Broadway version of Two Trains Running; Suzzanne Douglas, who played Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill at George Street Playhouse; Ebony Jo Ann, seen in Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom on Broadway; and Jason Cornwell, Chester Gregory, Nambi Kelly, Ernest Perry, Jr., Paul Oakley Stovall, Raphael Nash Thompson, Celeste Williams and Shane Williams. Jason Delane plays C-Trip.
* Following Drowning will be a much-anticipated revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night staged by Robert Falls and starring Death of a Salesman Tony winner, Brian Dennehy. Performances begin Feb. 22 for an opening March 4 and a run through April 6, 2002. Eugene O'Neill's classic drama tells of a miserly actor, his drug addled wife, drunken older son and tubercular younger one. Stewing in their misery, they occupy a fogbound summer house in New England. The roles of Mary Tyrone and the two Tyrone sons have not yet been filled.
Carol Burnett and Carrie Hamiltone Hollywood Arms will run April 19-May 25, moved up from the originally announced fall 2000. Hollywood Arms replaces the previously announced Amy Freed play The Beard of Avon; the latter will be rescheduled for the 2002-03 season. (The addition of the Burnett-Hamilton play means the Goodman will present three productions in 2001-02 which will more than likely reach New York City soon after: The Visit from earlier this fall; the upcoming revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night starring Brian Dennehy; and, now, Hollywood Arms.)
Closing the mainstage season will be a new look at the life of scientist Galileo, courtesy of composer Philip Glass, director Mary Zimmerman and librettist Arnold Weinstein. Galileo, Galilei, running June 14-July 28, 2002 (opening June 24, 2002) is billed as "an Opera in Twelve Scenes" and promises to be a more physical and more performance-art-like work than Brecht's well-known play on the same subject. Zimmerman recently finished staging the NYSF's lighthearted Measure for Measure in Central Park, and currently has a hit at Second Stage with Metamorpheses. Glass' latest collaboration, with JoAnne Akalaitis on In the Penal Colony, played at Off-Broadway's CSC last spring.
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As previously reported, Lydia R. Diamond's Gift Horse is the final addition to the Goodman Theatre 2001-02 season. The play will run at the company's smaller Owen Theatre Feb. 1-March 3, 2000. Opening is Feb. 11. Chuck Smith directs.
Chicago dramatist Diamond won the Theodore Ward Playwright Award for Gift Horse. The story concerns Ruth, an African-American woman, who takes the audience from her college days "when her direction in life was set," to the present day. The work is said to be about "finding your right place in life, and the right person — or persons — to live there with you."
No cast has been set. Smith is a Goodman resident director.
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