Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s stripped-down revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge will open the Goodman Theatre’s fall season, announced today. It's the leadoff of a season that also includes new works by Suzan-Lori Parks, Rogelio Martinez, Sarah DeLappe and Ellen Fairey, as well as a Robert Falls–helmed revival of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and a new production of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.
Van Hove’s Bridge originated at London’s Young Vic in 2014 and transferred to the West End, then to Broadway, racking up Olivier and Tony Awards along the way (not to mention five-star reviews from my counterparts at Time Out London and Time Out New York). It’s since been seen at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre and the Kennedy Center in Washington; it comes to the Goodman’s Albert Theatre September 9 to October 15.
Later in the Albert, Goodman artistic director Falls will stage the world premiere of Martinez’s Blind Date (January 20–February 25), about the 1985 Geneva Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and the concurrent and equally tense meeting of Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev. That’s immediately followed by Falls’s new production of An Enemy of the People (March 10–April 15).
Chuck Smith will helm Having Our Say (May 5–June 10), the play adapted by Emily Mann from the oral history of the centenarian Delany sisters. And Kimberly Senior will stage the world premiere of Fairey’s Support Group for Men (June 23–July 29), a contemporary, Chicago-set comedy that was developed through the Goodman’s New Stages festival.
The Owen Theatre slate opens with a transfer of Rohina Malik’s refugee story Yasmina’s Necklace (October 20–November 19), which also appeared in the New Stages festival several years before its well-received premiere at 16th Street Theater in Berwyn; 16th Street artistic director Ann Filmer remounts her work.
Vanessa Stalling will helm the Chicago premiere of The Wolves (February 9–March 11), first-time playwright DeLappe’s portrait of a girls’s soccer team, which Time Out New York called an “extremely skilled debut.” That’s followed by the Chicago premiere of Parks’s Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) (May 25–June 24), a Civil War tale told in Greek style about a slave fighting for the Confederacy; Niegel Smith directs.
Outside of the subscription slate, the Owen will host a limited run of Until the Flood (April 27–May 13), Dael Orlandersmith’s new piece about Ferguson, Missouri, directed by Neel Keller. Also, the 2017 New Stages festival takes place September 20 to October 8, and Larry Yando returns for his 10th outing as Scrooge in the 40th annual production of A Christmas Carol (November 18–December 31).
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