TV's Burrows To Have Dinner At IL's Steppenwolf | Playbill

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News TV's Burrows To Have Dinner At IL's Steppenwolf David Hare, Tina Landau, Frank Galati, Frank Mahoney and TV producer/director James Burrows are among the noted theatre artists who will participate in Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 1997-98 Mainstage season. Says artistic director Martha Lavey, "Steppenwolf is proud to be a home to so many talented artists, and we look forward to a season of their inspired work."

David Hare, Tina Landau, Frank Galati, Frank Mahoney and TV producer/director James Burrows are among the noted theatre artists who will participate in Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 1997-98 Mainstage season. Says artistic director Martha Lavey, "Steppenwolf is proud to be a home to so many talented artists, and we look forward to a season of their inspired work."

Burrows will direct The Man Who Came To Dinner, George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart's 1939 classic about a dinner guest who just won't leave. (Frank Galati had been previously announced as director.) Long time Steppenwolf member and current "Frasier" star John Mahoney will star as Sheridan Whiteside in this comedy about a sardonic, wheelchair bound radio star who wreaks havoc in a suburban household. The show runs Apr. 17-June 14, 1998 with an opening set for April 26, 1998.

Another highlight of the season is the world premiere of Space, written and directed by New York-based Tina Landau (Floyd Collins), who directed Charles Mee's Time To Burn last season at Steppenwolf. In Space, an intellectual and successful psychiatrist must confront his entire inner structure and belief system, when many patients come to him with similar and inexplicable symptoms, claiming to be victims of alien abductions. Space, runs Nov. 28-Jan. 24, 1998, with an opening Dec. 7.

David Hare's Skylight kicks off Steppenwolf's 22nd season, Sept. 12. The Chicago premiere of this 1997 Tony-nominated play will feature Steppenwolf company member Sally Murphy (Carousel) in the role of Kyra, an inner city school teacher, who spends one night fighting for the truth of her relationship with ex-lover Tom (Francis Guinan). Martin McClendon also stars in Skylight, which runs through Nov. 2 and opens Sept. 21.

Recently announced is the third play of the Steppenwolf season, The Memory Of Water, the American premiere of Shelagh Stephenson's London hit. Three sisters meet at their mother's funeral and cement bonds that were weakened over the years. Artistic director Martha Lavey directs, Feb. 6-March 29, 1998, with an opening Feb. 15, 1998. The Steppenwolf season will close July 3-Aug. 23, 1998 with J.M. Synge's The Playboy Of the Western World starring Jim True. In a small Irish village, a young man on his way to love and manhood bashes his bully of a father, earning the hearts of the young ladies and the awe of the villagers. Douglas Hughes, artistic director of CT's Long Wharf Theatre, will stage the comedy.

Steppenwolf's studio season has also been announced and features such notables as director Mary Zimmerman and "Roseanne" actress Laurie Metcalf.

A revival of 1991's The Arabian Nights begins the season, Dec. 2 Jan. 4, 1998. Adapted and directed by Mary Zimmerman for her Lookingglass Theatre Company, the acrobatic, musical piece collects Indian, Persian and Arabic stories told by the bride Scheherezade as a means of saving her own life.

Goodbye Stranger, a new comedy/drama by Carrie Luft, developed in the New Plays Lab, runs Jan. 21-Feb. 15, 1998. The show tells of a broke but happy young man who wanders in and out of people's lives. Polly Noonan directs.

Up next will be a co-production with City Lit Theatre of The Horn, adapted by Mark Richards from the John Clellon Holmes novel about saxophonist Edgar Pool changing the face of American music. (April 1-May 3, 1998)

Finishing the studio season (June 24-July 26, 1998) will be a new, as yet-untitled comedy by Jules Tanner, to star Laurie Metcalf, Tom Irwin and Zoe Perry. Irwin and Metcalf co-starred in My Thing Of Love, both at Steppenwolf and on Broadway.

Also on the Steppenwolf bill this season will be the TeenStreet Theatre piece, Body House - a jazz tricycle, performed by an ensemble of Chicago teen actors and directed by Free Street Programs' artistic director, Ron Bieganski. The troupe's last work was 1996's Mad Joy.

For tickets or more information, call (773) 335-1650, or refer to the Steppenwolf Theatre regional listings on Playbill On-Line.

--By Blair Glaser and David Lefkowitz

 
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