Court Theatre, on the University of Chicago campus, today announced five titles for its 2016–17 season, including plays by Pearl Cleage, Tom Stoppard, Mary Chase, Michael Cristofer and the conclusion of Nicholas Rudall's Greek Cycle.
The season opens with Man in the Ring, a world premiere by Cristofer, whose play The Shadow Box won the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize in 1977. The subject is the boxer Emile Griffith, who beat opponent Benny Paret to death in a 1962 match after Paret taunted him with a gay slur; Griffith came out as bisexual decades later, and died in 2013. A film about Griffith's life is also in the works, to be helmed by Room director Lenny Abrahamson. Court Theatre artistic director Charles Newell will stage Cristofer's play, with Kamal Angelo Bolden as Griffith (September 15–October 16).
Electra concludes Court artistic director emeritus Rudall's three-year trilogy of Greek translations, following Iphigenia in Aulis and Agamemnon. Seret Scott directs a cast to include the returning Sandra Marquez as Clytemnestra and Michael Pogue as Aegisthus, with Kate Fry in the title role (November 10–December 11).
Ron OJ Parson will stage Cleage's 1995 drama Blues for an Alabama Sky, set in the slide from the Harlem Renaissance into the Great Depression, which Court says will be the centerpiece of a larger celebration of the Harlem Renaissance (January 12–February 12).
Newell will direct the Chicago premiere of The Hard Problem, Stoppard's 2015 work (his first since 2006's Rock & Roll) about a young psychologist, to be played by Chaon Cross, struggling to discover the line between biology and consciousness, body and mind. Newell directs (March 9–April 9).
The season ends with a revival of Chase's comedy Harvey, the winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. Timothy Edward Kane will play Elwood P. Dowd, a mild-mannered man with an invisible, six-foot-tall rabbit for a best friend; he'll be directed by Devon de Mayo (May 11–June 11).