The newly announced productions join the Goodman Theatre production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, starring Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy (Feb. 5-March 15, 2015). Robert Falls will direct.
Additional theatrical offerings follow:
The Tallest Tree in the Forest
Tectonic Theater Project
Written and performed by Daniel Beaty
Directed by Moisés Kaufman
March 22-29
"Daniel Beaty gives a tour-de-force performance, playing up to 40 characters, in this one-man music theater piece about the life of Paul Robeson, one of the most dynamic figures in American history. Born to a former slave, Robeson rose to become a scholar, an athlete, an activist, a vocalist, an attorney, a celebrated stage and screen actor, and an icon of the Civil Rights movement. He then saw it all crumble when McCarthy-era questions of his communist associations arose. Employing multi-character transformation, monologues, narrative scenes, heightened poetry, and video footage of the era, this theatrical work explores the evolution of Paul Robeson, his humanity, his courage, his contradictions, and why he is called 'the tallest tree in the forest.'"
Ghosts
Almeida Theatre and Sonia Friedman Productions
By Henrik Ibsen
Adapted and directed by Richard Eyre
April 5-May 3
"Featuring an Olivier Award-winning performance by Lesley Manville and illuminated with fresh poetry and dark humor by acclaimed director Richard Eyre, this critically acclaimed production of Ibsen’s Ghosts (2014 Olivier Award for Best Revival), centers on Helene Alving (Manville), a woman who has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband. Although Captain Alving is long dead, Helene is still haunted by the moral deceptions that propped up their marriage and is determined to escape the past by telling her son Oswald the truth about his father. But on his return from his life as a painter in France, Oswald reveals how he has already inherited the legacy of Alving’s dissolute life to devastating effect."
A Human Being Died That Night
The Fugard Theatre and Eric Abraham
By Nicholas Wright, based on the book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Directed by Jonathan Munby
May 29—June 21
"In this taut theatrical adaptation of Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s book, the apartheid regime’s most notorious assassin and head of its death squad, Eugene de Kock (played by Matthew Marsh), sits opposite psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (played Noma Dumezweni) in Pretoria Central Prison in 1997. A member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Gobodo-Madikizela questions de Kock, who is serving a 212-year sentence for crimes against humanity, murder, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, and fraud." An Evening with Matt Groening & Lynda Barry
Love, Hate & Comics—The Friendship That Would Not Die
Feb. 12 at the Gilman Opera House
"Legendary cartoonists and former college classmates Mat Groening and Lynda Barry talk about 40 years of love, hate, and comics and the perpetual joy of driving each other crazy."
For tickets, visit BAM.org.
