Pinter's BETRAYAL, NOT ABOUT NIGHTINGALES & More Set for Raven Theatre's 2016-17 Season

For its 2016-17 season, the 33-year-old Raven Theatre Company will again bring new plays and playwrights to Chicago audiences along with revivals of classic and lesser-known works by masters of modern drama. Michael Menendian, producing artistic director, today announced a lineup that includes the early Tennessee Williams play Not About Nightingales and Pinter'sBetrayal as well as the Midwest premieres of Richard Greenberg's recent Broadway hit The Assembled Parties and Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti, one of the U.K.'s most acclaimed new playwrights, and the world premiere of Sycamore - a drama of contemporary family life set in the Midwest by New York-based playwright Sarah Sander.

In announcing the season, Menendian said "We're very excited to be presenting such a range of work. Not About Nightingales, like our previous selections of Williams' Vieux Carré and William Inge's A Loss of Roses, is another fine but little-known play by an American master. Pinter'sBetrayal is a modern classic we've been wanting to do for years. We're also thrilled to be the first to bring Richard Greenberg's Tony-Award nominated The Assembled Parties to Chicago, just as we did last year with Dividing the Estate. Red Velvet - which was a huge hit in London and very well received in New York - will be an entertaining and moving story of backstage life and racial intolerance in the London theatre world of the early 19th Century. We're also proud to continue to support new work, and we know Sycamore, with its very contemporary view of modern family life, will be a joy for our audiences to discover."

The season will be preceded by a special return engagement of Direct from Death Row The Scottsboro Boys, the play with music by Mark Stein and Harley White Jr. that earned raves and wowed sold out houses when it opened Raven's 2015-16 season last September. The entire cast of last fall's production will return for this remounting of Direct from Death Row The Scottsboro Boys, which will play on Raven's East Stage from July 21 to August 21, 2016. It is not included in the 2016-17 subscription season. Single tickets for this show are currently on sale.

Plays in the 2016-17 Season

Red Velvet

By Lolita Chakrabarti

MIDWEST PREMIERE

Directed by Michael Menendian.

East Stage

Previews: September 21 through September 26, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, September 25, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. and Monday, September 26, 2016 at 7:30 pm.

Opening Night: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

Performances continue through Sunday, November 27, 2016

Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. beginning Friday, September 30 (no show Thursday, September 29 or Thursday, November 24, 2016)

The 2015-16 season will open in September with the Midwest premiere of Red Velvet by British playwright Lolita Chakrabarti. The play, which premiered in London in 2012 to critical acclaim, tells the backstage story of African-American actor Ira Aldridge and how in 1833 he became the first black actor to perform on a London stage. The action is set at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden after Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage while playing Othello. Aldridge has been asked to take over the role, but as the public riots in the streets over the abolition of slavery, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?

The London production of Red Velvet transferred to New York in April 2014, where The New York Times's Ben Brantley said of it, "you can experience firsthand what it must have felt like to be part of one seriously rattled London theater audience in 1833." Michael Menendian, Producing Artistic Director of the company, will direct.

Betrayal

By Harold Pinter

Directed by Lauren Shouse

West Stage

Previews October 26-29, 2016 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 3:30 pm

Opening Nights: Monday, October 31 and Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 7:30 pm

Performances continue through December 17, 2016

Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. beginning Friday, November 4, 2016 (no show Thursday, November 3)

Opening on Raven's intimate West Stage in October will be another British play, the modern classic Betrayal, by Harold Pinter. The drama concerns the nine-year affair between a London writer and the wife of his publisher and best friend. A thoughtful, rich play about a common theme of human existence - the difficulty in maintaining honest relationships with those close to us - Betrayal is known for its unique structure, it tells the story backwards in time, with the play beginning at the end of the affair and ending as the affair is about to begin. Betrayal has been produced three times on Broadway. Its most recent revival was in 2013-14 and was the last Broadway play directed by Mike Nichols. A 1983 film version starred Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge.

Lauren Shouse will direct, making her Raven Theatre debut.

The Assembled Parties

By Richard Greenberg

MIDWEST PREMIERE

Directed by Cody Estle

East Stage

Previews: January 25 through 28, 2017 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, January 29, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. and Monday, January 30, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

Opening Night: Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Performances continue through March 25, 2017

Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. beginning Friday, February 3, 2017 (no show Thursday, February 2, 2016)

The Assembled Parties, which was produced on Broadway in 2013 by the Manhattan Theatre Club and earned a Tony® Award nomination for Best Play as well as winning the Tony for leading actress Judith Light, welcomes us to the world of a New York Upper West Side Jewish family in 1980. In a sprawling Central Park West apartment, former movie star Julie Bascov and her sister-in-law Faye bring their families together for their traditional holiday dinner. But tonight, things are not usual. A houseguest has joined the festivities for the first time and he unwittingly-or perhaps by design-insinuates himself into the family drama. Twenty years later, as 2001 approaches, the Bascovs' seemingly picture-perfect life may be about to crumble. A stunning play infused with humor, The Assembled Parties is an incisive portrait of a family grasping for stability at the dawn of a new millennium.

Raven Associate Artistic Director Cody Estle will direct.

Sycamore

By Sarah Sander

WORLD PREMIERE

Directed by Devon de Mayo

West Stage

Previews: March 8 - 11, 2017 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 3:30 p.m.

Opening Nights: Monday, March 13 and Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 7:30 pm

Performances continue through April 29, 2017

Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. beginning Friday, March 17 (no show Thursday, March 16, 2017)

Devon de Mayo will make her Raven Theatre debut as director of Sycamore.

Not About Nightingales

By Tennessee Williams

Directed by Michael Menendian

East Stage

Previews: April 19-22, 2017 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, April 23 at 3:00 p.m., and Monday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Opening Night: Tuesday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Performances continue through June 17, 2017

Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. beginning Friday, April 28, 2017 (no show Thursday, April 27)

Inspired by real events at a Philadelphia prison in 1937, convicts protesting the physically abusive and even murderous tactics of a martinet warden wage a hunger strike. This 1938 play, written six years before Williams's success with The Glass Menagerie, was for decades lost until the actress Vanessa Redgrave learned of it and was able to locate a manuscript. She brought it to Trevor Nunn, then Artistic Director of Britain's Royal National Theatre. Nunn and the RNT later staged the play's World Premiere as a three-way co-production with Redgrave's Moving Theatre and Houston's Alley Theatre. Their production transferred to Broadway in January 1999 and was nominated for six Tony awards.

The New York Times called Not About Nightingales "Enthralling...A feverish, full strength compassion for people in cages makes Nightingales fly toward a realm of pain and beauty that is the province of greatness...The emotions, both savage and painfully delicate, that saturate this work are arguably more rich and varied in tone than those of any American dramatist...The voices of Williams's entrapped nightingales...refuse to fade when the play is plunged into its concluding darkness." The New York Daily News said it was "The best American play so far this season...It adds to the reputation of one of America's greatest playwrights."

Raven Producing Artistic Director Michael Menendian will helm the company's production of this little-known classic by Williams.

Casting for the productions has not yet been set.

Subscriptions for the full five-play season or the subscriber's choice of any four of the five plays are now on sale. Four-show "Preview Plus" subscriptions good for previews and the first weekend of regular performances are $72.00 and "Anytime" packages good at any performance are $112.00. Subscriptions to all five plays are $85.00 for "Preview Plus" packages and $125.00 for "Anytime" packages. Current subscribers receive a 10% discount for renewals purchased by May 31, 2016. Subscriptions may be purchased online at www.raventheatre.com or by telephone at 773-338-2177.

Single tickets for the season productions will go on sale at a later date.

NOT INCLUDED IN SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS - SINGLE TICKETS NOW ON SALE

Direct from Death Row The Scottsboro Boys

(An Evening of Vaudeville and Sorrow)

By Mark Stein, Music and Lyrics by Harley White Jr.

Directed by Michael Menendian

Music Direction by Frederick Harris, Choreography by Kathleen Dennis

Previews Wednesday, July 21 and Thursday, July 22 at 7:30 pm.

Opening night Friday, July 23 at 7:30 pm.

Regular run Friday, July 23 - Sunday, August 21, 2016.

Fridays - Saturdays at 7:30 pm. Sundays at 3 pm.

General admission $42.00, seniors $37.00 ($3.00 discount if ordered online in advance), students, teachers and military $18.00 ($1.00 discount if ordered online in advance)

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