Chicago's Court Plans Richard Nelson's Wild Duck, Radio Macbeth and Caroline, or Change
By Kenneth Jones
19 May 2008
Court Theatre in Chicago will open its 2008-09 season with the Midwest premiere of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, or Change, starring Chicago's E. Faye Butler and directed by artistic director Charles Newell.
The season will also feature SITI Company's Radio Macbeth directed by Anne Bogart and Darron L. West, and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson, directed by resident artist Ron OJ Parson, along with Frederick Knott's thriller Wait Until Dark directed by Parson.
A world-premiere translation of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck by Richard Nelson will play The Museum of Contemporary Art as the inaugural production of Court's Barbara E. Franke Commissioning Program for New Classics.
Caroline, or Change, with book and lyrics by Kushner and music by Tesori, will play Sept. 11-Oct. 19. Blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies in a breathtaking score, this deeply personal 1963-set story is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning Tony Kushner's childhood.
Radio Macbeth (Nov. 6-Dec. 7) is set "late at night in the guts of an abandoned theatre" where "a company of actors gathers to rehearse Shakespeare's Macbeth. They soon realize that they're not alone. As they are drawn deeper into the Bard's most magnetic play, the ghosts that have haunted the story since its inception hover and encroach. History, ambition, fortune, fate, free will, hubris, pride, indecision, the eternal male-female conflict, and madness permeate SITI Company's production…"
In The Wild Duck (Jan. 15-Feb. 15, 2009, in partnership with The Museum of Contemporary Art) "the peaceful lives of the Ekdal family are turned upside down by an idealistic young family friend. Can the truth liberate the lives of two families bound together by a web of secrets? Or will it destroy their delicate hold on happiness? One of the giants of modern theatre, Ibsen created a masterpiece that pairs profound tragedy with irresistible comedy."
Wait Until Dark (March 5-April 5, 2009) features a "cool-as-ice psychopath" who smooth talks his way into the home of an unsuspecting blind woman.
In The Piano Lesson (May 7-June 7, 2009) "two siblings struggle to come to terms with their inheritance and the ghosts of the dead."
The Barbara E. Franke Commissioning Program for New Classics was established in 2006 to allow Court Theatre to create new translations and adaptations of classic texts for the stage. Among the projects currently in development is a stage adaptation of Marysé Conde's novel, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by the playwright OyamO.
For more information, visit www.CourtTheatre.org.
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Court Theatre, the professional theatre in residence at the University of Chicago, is located at 5535 S. Ellis Ave. in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
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