The Goodman Theatre has chosen six of the eight plays to be presented on its mainstage and in Studio for the 1997-98 season, including new works by Eric Bogosian and David Cale and an encore run of Mary Zimmerman's The Notebooks Of Leonardo da Vinci.
Expected this season but postponed until next is a new show by Anna Deavere Smith called The Press & The Presidency. It's the third solo work for Deavere Smith, who burst onto the theatre scene with Fires In The Mirror and followed her success with Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. The Goodman has yet to announce a show in Press' stead. Also mentioned for this season but now postponed is Bill Gunn's The Forbidden City.
The company will, however, offer its own mounting of the recent Broadway musical, Play On!, as well as Noel Coward's Design For Living.
Here's the Goodman mainstage line-up so far:
As You Like It (Sept. 19-Oct. 25, opens Sept. 29)
Goodman associate artistic director Michael Maggio will focus on Rosalind, "one of Shakespeare's most fascinating women. She has wisdom and a great deal of common sense, but that can't keep her from falling rapturously in love," says Maggio, who previously directed A Midsummer Night's Dream and a modernized adaptation of Romeo & Juliet at the Goodman.
Griller (Jan. 9-Feb. 14, 1998, opens Jan. 19, 1998)
Hot off the success of the adaptation of his ensemble play, subUrbia, into a feature film, Eric Bogosian will bring his latest non-solo drama to the Goodman. Robert Falls, who staged subUrbia Off-Broadway, will direct Griller, which shows the dark side of a four-generation family barbecue. Bogosian is best known for his character-filled monologue evenings, such as Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and Wake Up And Smell The Coffee.
Design For Living (May 1-June 6, 1998; opens May 11). Noel Coward's 1933 comedy, directed David Petrarca. Written for Lunt & Fontanne, Design looks at decadent artists in search of true love.
Play On!, (June 19-July 25, 1998; opening June 29). Conceived & directed by Sheldon Epps with a book by Cheryl L. West and songs by Duke Ellington. The show, very loosely based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, is not a tour of the NY mounting, which closed May 11, after 61 performances and 19 previews. But producer Mitchell Maxwell announced that Play On! will open at the Savoy Theatre in the West End Oct. 1.
Artistic director Robert Falls says of the show, "By setting the action in the heyday of 1940s Harlem, Sheldon Epps has captured the energy, style and creativity of a unique moment in American musical history." Songs in the show include "Mood Indigo" and "Rocks In MY Bed."
The Studio Season will offer three shows, the first of which will be The Notebooks Of Leonardo da Vinci, adapted and directed by Lookingglass Theatre notable Mary Zimmerman. The show premiered in 1993 at the Goodman Studio and has since played Off-Broadway. Zimmerman based her adaptation on 5,000 pages of Leonardo da Vinci's observations and drawings. Notebooks runs Dec. 12-Jan. 11 with an official opening Dec. 15. Zimmerman recently directed Henry VIII for NYSF's Shakespeare In The Park.
Lillian written & performed by David Cale. (Oct. 17-Nov.1 6, 1997; opening Oct. 27). A solo for Cale, currently Off-Broadway in My Night With Reg. Cale's other shows at the Goodman have been The Redthroats and Smooch Music. The Lillian character was developed in the 1993 solo, Somebody Else's House.
In other Goodman Theatre news, as reported in the New York Times, the Goodman will be building a new home to be ready by the year 2,000. Said space, on Dearborn in Chicago's North Loop, will house an 800-seat mainstage and a 400-seat studio and use the existing facades of the Harris and Selwyn Theatres. According to the Times, the city of Chicago will donate $18.8 million to the $53 million projected construction costs.
Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects are building the side with DLK, making room for expanded lobby facilities and a restaurant/retail complex on the corner.
Said Mayor Richard M. Daley at the July 8 announcement, "The Goodman Theatre is one of Chicago's most respected and well-loved cultural institutions. It provides world-class theatre along with educational programs."
For tickets and information on the Goodman Theatre 1997-98 season, call (312) 443-3800.
