Brian Dennehy Joins Goodman's Artistic Collective

Robert Falls proudly names his longtime artistic collaborator Brian Dennehy-two-time Tony and Golden Globe Award winner and six-time Emmy Award nominee-the newest member of Goodman Theatre's Artistic Collective, a diverse group of outstanding American theater artists who make the Goodman their artistic home.

Dennehy, who heads to Broadway next month in Falls' Desire Under the Elms (concluded its Goodman run March 1), joins current Collective members: Director/Actor Frank Galati; Director/Actor Henry Godinez; Director Steve Scott; Director Chuck Smith; Playwright/Director/Actor ReGina Taylor; and Director Mary Zimmerman.

"My collaboration with Brian has been one of the most fulfilling, wonderful journeys of my life, one that feels familiar, but it is always new," said Artistic Director Robert Falls. "Over twenty years and seven individual productions, he has been my friend and compatriot, always at the center of my artistic dialogue. I am thrilled to welcome him to our Artistic Collective."

Falls formed the Artistic Collective in 1986, as he was "attracted to the great European theaters where there's a collaborative vision aimed at one goal, but with each director achieving that goal in his/her own way." A similar structure allowed Falls to incorporate Frank Galati and Michael Maggio, two directors with whom he had developed mutual respect and friendship, into the overall artistic vision of the Goodman. Over two decades, the Collective expanded to include a group of artists whose individual passions and standards of excellence are among the most accomplished of its kind in the American theater.

Collective members and current projects include Frank Galati, a member of Steppenwolf Theatre where he will perform in The Tempest. Henry Godinez will direct José Rivera's Boleros for the Disenchanted at Goodman Theatre beginning June 20. He is currently co-authoring a book with the Working Title Festival Latino. ReGina Taylor‘s newest play, Magnolia, begins performances March 14. She continues to appear in David Mamet's television series The Unit. Steve Scott‘s upcoming productions include Ah, Wilderness! at Theatre Conservatory of Roosevelt University, Buried Child at Shattered Globe, and Six Degrees of Separation at Eclipse Theatre. Chuck Smith's production of Death and the King's Horseman appears at Oregon Shakespeare Festival through July 5. Mary Zimmerman directs La Sonnambula featuring Natalie Dessay at the Metropolitan Opera through April 3.

A longtime actor of the stage and screen, Brian Dennehy has been particularly lauded for understanding and interpreting Eugene O'Neill in "a way that few others can match" (Chicago Tribune). Over the years his stage work has been nationally hailed "majestic" (The New York Times), "mesmerizing" (Variety), a "tour de force" (Wall Street Journal) and "a revelation." (Newsweek).

Desire Under the Elms marked actor Dennehy and director Falls' fifth collaboration on an O'Neill work, and their seventh landmark production together over two decades. The first collaboration was The Iceman Cometh (1990), the epic portrait of hope and disillusionment with Dennehy starring as hardware salesman and pipedream-buster Theodore "Hickey" Hickman-and a cast that included Hope Davis, Denis O'Hare, Ernest Perry, Jr. and James Cromwell. The production was named by Time and USA Today one of the 10 best American theater productions of the 1991/1992 season and was subsequently hailed as the highpoint of the 33rd annual Dublin Theatre Festival. In 1996, Falls and Dennehy returned to O'Neill-this time with the 1936 tale of tragic self-delusion, A Touch of the Poet, featuring Dennehy as the tyrannical Con Melody, Pamela Payton-Wright as his long-suffering wife, and Jenny Bacon as his rebellious daughter. Six years later O'Neill's masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night, arrived on the Goodman stage with Dennehy as the vain, selfish patriarch James Tyrone. The Broadway remount of the production two years later-featuring Dennehy, Vanessa Redgrave, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard-won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, with Dennehy and Redgrave each earning the prizes for Best Actor and Actress, respectively. Finally, in 2004, Falls staged the posthumously published one-act, Hughie, with Dennehy as the big-time talker and small-time gambler Erie Smith.

 

Dennehy's Broadway credits include Inherit the Wind (2007), Long Day's Journey Into Night (Tony Award for Best Actor 2003), Death of a Salesman (Tony Award for Best Actor 1999) and Translations (1995). Off-Broadway, he has been seen in Richard Nelson's Conversations in Tusculum at The Public Theatre (2008), Trumbo at Westside Theatre (2004), The Cherry Orchard at Brooklyn Academy of Music (1988) and Says I, Says He at the Phoenix Theater Company (1979). Regional theater credits include All's Well That Ends Well, Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape at The Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario (2008); The Exonerated (which toured New York/Chicago/Boston/Washington DC); Says I, Says He at Mark Taper Forum; and Rat in the Skull at Wisdom Bridge Theatre. His credits in London's West End include Death of a Salesman, for which he received the Olivier Best Actor Statue in 2005.

 

Feature films include Every Day, Miss January, Righteous Kill, War Eagle, Welcome to Paradise, Ratatouille, The Ultimate Gift, Everyone's Hero, 10th & Wolf, Assault on Precinct 13, Stolen Summer, Summer Catch, The Warden, Virtuoso, Tommy Boy, Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet, Presumed Innocent, F/X 2, Seven Minutes, Gladiator, Best Seller, The Last of the Finest, The Belly of an Architect (Best Actor Chicago Film Festival), F/X, Cocoon, Silverado, Twice in a Lifetime, Gorky Park, Legal Eagles, Deep River, 10, Butch and Sundance: The Early Years, Little Miss Marker, Finders, Keepers, Foul Play, F.I.S.T. and Semi-Tough.

Dennehy's television films include Our Fathers (Showtime, Emmy Award nomination Best Supporting Actor), The Exonerated (Court TV), Behind the Camera: Three's Company (NBC), The Crooked E (ABC), A Season on the Brink (ESPN), Three Blind Mice (CBS), Death of a Salesman (Showtime, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Thanks to a Grateful Nation (Showtime), The Warden (Showtime), Sirens (Showtime), The Doris Duke Story (CBS), Like Father Like Son (CBS), Jack Reed: Death and Vengeance (NBC), Undue Influence (CBS), A Season in Purgatory (NBC), Dead

Man's Walk (ABC), Jack Reed: A Killer Amongst Us (NBC), Burden of Proof (ABC, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), In Broad Daylight (CBS), Shadow of a Doubt (NBC), Jack Reed: A Search For Justice (NBC), The Terrorist (ABC), Jack Reed: An Honest Cop (NBC), To Catch a Killer (The John Wayne Gacy Story) (Tribune, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Murder in the Heartland (ABC, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Nostromo (BBC), Foreign Affairs (TNT, Cable Ace Award for Best Actor), Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (HBO), The Last Place on Earth (BBC), A Killing in a Small Town (CBS, Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor), Day One (ABC), Rising Son (TNT), Perfect Witness (HBO, Cable Ace Award nomination for Best Actor), Prophet of Evil (CBS), A Rumor of War (ABC), Shattered Vows (NBC), Final Appeal (NBC), Acceptable Risks (CBS) and Jericho Mile (ABC).

Photos by Andrew Marks/Retna Ltd.