Northlight Theatre in Skokie announced the lineup for its 41st season this afternoon, to include yet another new work by playwright Bruce Graham, the Chicago-area premiere of Terrence McNally's latest and a revival of a classic Kaufman and Hart comedy.
The season opens with Funnyman (September 11–October 18), Graham's new play about a fading vaudeville comic reuniting with his estranged daughter in 1959, helmed by artistic director BJ Jones. This marks the fourth new work by the Philadelphia playwright to premiere at Northlight since 2011.
Devon de Mayo, who directed Northlight's unexpectedly terrific production of Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers last year, will return to stage George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 1936 Pulitzer Prize winner You Can't Take It With You (November 6–December 13). The comic portrait of the lovably eccentric Sycamore family had a well-received revival on Broadway this season.
Steve Scott will direct McNally's Mothers and Sons (January 22–February 28), in which a woman pays an unannounced visit to her late son's former partner. That's followed by Butler (March 11–April 17), a Civil War comedy by Richard Strand, to be directed by Stuart Carden.
Another comedy, The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (May 6–June 12), by Real Time with Bill Maher writer-producer Scott Carter, will close out the season, with direction by Kimberly Senior.