ROOSTER ROOM, FEATHERS & TEETH and ANOTHER WORD FOR BEAUTY Join Goodman's 2013 New Stages Festival Lineup

Goodman Theatre announces the complete line-up for its 2013 New Stages festival, this year celebrating Latino playwrights. Three staged readings-The Rooster Room by Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegria Hudes, Feathers and Teeth by Charise Castro Smith and Another Word for Beauty by Jose Rivera-complement the previously-announced two fully-staged workshop productions, The Upstairs Concierge by Pulitzer Prize finalist Kristoffer Diaz and The Solid Sand Below by former Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit member Martin Zimmerman.

The free annual series also includes a "Professionals Weekend" (Dec 13 - 15) during which theatergoers can experience all five plays over three days; in addition, industry professionals can join a Friday night reception, a Saturday lunchtime roundtable discussion with the artists, special "Lounge Nights" on Friday and Saturday, as well as discounted rates at the Goodman's Preferred Hotel Partner, Kimpton. Industry professionals can RSVP at GoodmanTheatre.org/Professionals. New Stages runs December 7 - 22, 2013; "Professionals Weekend" is December 13-15; tickets are free, but reservations are required: 312.443.3800, GoodmanTheatre.org/NewStages or visit the box office (170 N. Dearborn).

"We're thrilled to be able to support this remarkable group of playwrights. More than half of the plays featured in this year's festival are Goodman commissions, and we're proud that our ongoing support of Latino voices has resulted in such an exciting and varied festival of new work," said Director of New Play Development Tanya Palmer. "With 'Professionals Weekend,' we aim to make the Goodman a destination for theater professionals and to share these important new plays with our colleagues around the country."

Approximately one third of the plays developed in the New Stages festival have gone on to receive full productions at the Goodman or other leading U.S. theaters. All three plays featured in the 2013/2014 Owen season (Smokefall by Noah Haidle, Buzzer by Tracey Scott Wilson and Ask Aunt Susan by Seth Bockley) were developed in past New Stages festivals, and plays like The Convert by Danai Gurira and Ruined by Lynn Nottage began as readings in New Stages and went on to receive full productions at the Goodman and at theaters around the country including Manhattan Theatre Club, Center Theatre Group, McCarter Theater Center, Woolly Mammoth Theater Company and many more. Playwrights featured in the festival have included Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage, Quiara Alegria Hudes and Nilo Cruz, as well as rising stars Christopher Shinn, Tanya Saracho and Thomas Bradshaw.

With the expansion of the festival in 2011 to include fully-staged workshop productions-an investment in new plays that provides writers with three weeks of rehearsal, design elements and nine public performances-New Stages offers the Goodman the opportunity to collaborate with a new generation of designers, including sound designer and composer Mikhail Fiksel and lighting designer Jesse Klug. Director and former Maggio Fellow Joanie Schultz, who makes her Goodman mainstage debut this season with Venus in Fur, first directed for the Goodman during New Stages.

Goodman Theater Announces Complete Line-up of New Stages 2013:

The Upstairs Concierge

By Kristoffer Diaz |Directed by Eric Ting
A Goodman Theatre Co-Commission with Teatro Vista

Fresh out of graduate school, Ella (Tawny Newsome) takes on a new job as the upstairs concierge at a hotel that caters to celebrities-and finds that it's hard to keep track of who's in what room, who's famous for doing what and who has a tendency to strip naked. The play examines how new media can make a celebrity out of anyone-and the resulting frenzy, combined with the all-too-human desire to make a quick buck, can result in "farcical" behavior. The cast also includes Chari?n Alvarez (Shivery), Lawrence Grimm (Mark), Ricardo Gutierrez (Jeffrey), Sandra Marquez (Dia), Christina Nieves (Rebecca), Gabe Ruiz (Harvey), John Stokvis (Kaz), Travis Turner (Royals Guy) and Juan Villa (BB). Kristoffer Diaz's works include The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (2011 New York Times Outstanding Playwright recipient, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Lucille Lortel Award, Obie Award, Drama Desk nominee and Jeff Award winner for Best Production and Best New Work), Welcome to Arroyo's and #therevolution. He is a playwright-in- residence at Teatro Vista; a recipient of the Jerome Fellowship, the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant and the Van Lier Fellowship (New Dramatists); and a former member of the Ars Nova Play Group.

The Solid Sand Below

By Martin Zimmerman | Directed by Jonathan Berry A Goodman Theatre Commission

The Solid Sand Below tracks the radical transformation of Private Julian Flores (Adam Poss) from decidedly reluctant recruit to enthusiastic and disciplined soldier. Inspired by the true story of a soldier who continued to reenlist because his tour of duty in Iraq had given him a sense of purpose he'd never experienced before, the play investigates why certain people find meaning in chaos and violence. Beginning with Flores' arrival in Diyala province in 2007 at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq, the play offers a fascinating window into the experience of combat, capturing the boredom, anxiety and camaraderie that comes from waiting for inevitable danger. The cast also includes Carlo Lorenzo Garcia (Perrera), Nick Horst (Evans), Sean Parris (Jackson) and Steve Wojtas (Sarge). In addition to its development at the Goodman, The Solid Sand Below had a reading at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, and was included in the National Playwrights Conference at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut this past summer. Marti?n Zimmerman's play White Tie Ball recently made its world premiere at Teatro Vista, where Zimmerman is a newly-named resident playwright. Other plays include The Making of Modern Folk Hero and Seven Spots on the Sun, which premieres at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (through October 27). His work has been produced or developed at The Kennedy Center, The Playwrights' Center, Victory Gardens Theater, ACT (Seattle), Chicago Dramatists, American Theater Company, PlayPenn, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, the ALLIANCE THEATRE, Primary Stages, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Theatre Row, Borderlands Theater, the Source Festival, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, The Gift Theatre, Red Tape Theatre, The University of Texas at Austin and Duke University. He is a recipient of the Sky Cooper New American Play Prize, the Jerome Fellowship, the Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellowship, the National New Play Network's Smith Prize and a Core Apprenticeship at The Playwrights' Center.

The Rooster Room

Written and directed by Quiara Alegria Hudes

Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegri?a Hudes returns to Goodman Theatre following the world premiere of The Happiest Song Plays Last this past spring. The Rooster Room is a bar in North Philadelphia where a vibrant crew of family, friends, local artists and laborers gather-and which also serves as an unexpected safe haven for 11-year-old Ruby after she's removed from her abusive parents' home. The Rooster Room explores politics, the communal nature of

Goodman Theater Announces Complete Line-up of New Stages 2013 Celebrating Latino Playwrights
Festival Includes Newest Works from Kristoffer Diaz, Marti?n Zimmerman, Quiara Alegri?a Hudes,
Charise Castro Smith and Jose Rivera storytelling and what it means to be part of a family-all set to the live piano serenades of the jazz musician who lives above the bar. Quiara Alegri?a Hudes, "a writer of enormous empathic gifts" (Time Out New York), is the author of a trilogy of plays including Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue (a 2007 Pulitzer finalist); Water by the Spoonful (winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama); and The Happiest Song Plays Last (commissioned and premiered by Goodman Theatre).

Hudes' honors include a United States Artists Fellowship, the Aetna New Voices Fellowship at Hartford Stage Company, a Joyce Foundation Award, a residency at New Dramatists and a resolution from the City of Philadelphia. Hudes sits on the Dramatists Guild Council and serves on the board of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, which produced her first play in the tenth grade.

Feathers and Teeth

By Charise Castro Smith | Director TBD

One part Greek tragedy and one part Gremlins, Feathers and Teeth serves as a reminder of the consequences of the secrets we keep, and the things that lurk in the dark. There's something growling and scratching inside Carol's cast iron pot...and it's starving. Carol's fiance?e Arthur accidentally ran over a creature with feathers and teeth, and hopes to nurse it back to health. But is this creature innocent or evil? And why is Arthur's teenage daughter determined to destroy his relationship with Carol? Charise Castro Smith is a playwright and actress from Miami. Playwriting credits include: Estrella Cruz [The Junkyard Queen] (Ars Nova ANT Fest and Yale Cabaret), Wolves (Jimmy's No. 43), Boomcracklefly (Miracle Theater Group) and The Hunchback of Seville (Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre and Washington Ensemble Theater). Acting credits include Antony and Cleopatra (Royal Shakespeare Company and The Public Theater), Tartuffe (Westport Country Playhouse), An Enemy of the People (Center Stage), The Art of Preservation (The Flea Theater), The Good Wife and Unforgettable (CBS). She has contributed to The Brooklyn Rail, and is a member of New Georges' The JAM and Ars Nova's Playgroup. She is a 2012/2013 Van Lier Fellow at New Dramatists.

Another Word for Beauty

By Jose Rivera | Directed by Steve Cosson A Goodman Theatre Commission

Inspired by an annual beauty pageant at the Buen Pastor women's prison in Bogota, Columbia, Another Word for Beauty is a haunting and lyrical look at the lives of the incarcerated women, and the events and circumstances which led to their imprisonment. Commissioned by the Goodman and developed in collaboration with the acclaimed New York ensemble, The Civilians, this new play by legendary playwright and screenwriter Jose? Rivera also features original music by Colombian musician He?ctor Buitrago of the Grammy Award-winning band, Aterciopelados. Jose? Rivera is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright. His most recent film credit is the adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road directed by Walter Salles. He was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a WGA Award for his first produced screenplay, The Motorcycle Diaries, also directed by Walter Salles. Rivera has received two OBIE Awards for Playwriting, a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant and a Kennedy Center Grant. His plays-The House of Ramon Iglesia, The Promise, Each Day Dies with Sleep, Cloud Tectonics, Suen?o, Marisol, References to Salvador Dali? Make me Hot, Sonnets for an Old Century, Brainpeople, School of the Americas and Massacre (Sing to Your Children)-have premiered off-Broadway and have been seen at major theaters across the country as well as in France, England, Romania, Peru, Mexico, Greece, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Scotland and Canada. Boleros for the Disenchanted premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre, and played at The American Conservatory Theater and Goodman Theatre. He is at work on his first novel, Love Makes the City Crumble. She wrote the book for Broadway's In the Heights (2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, Tony Nomination for Best Book of a Musical, 2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical).

The Goodman's 2013/2014 Season features 9 productions on its two stages-six in the 856-seat Albert Theatre and three in the 400-seat flexible Owen Theatre, plus the annual New Stages series that includes two additional workshop productions. Productions include Smokefall by Noah Haidle, directed by Anne Kauffman, a world-premiere co-production with South Coast Repertory (October 5 - November 3, in the Owen); the 36th annual production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, directed by Henry Wishcamper (November 16 - December 29, in the Albert); the annual New Stages series (December 7 - 22, in the Owen); the world premiere of Luna Gale by Rebecca Gilman, directed by Robert Falls (January 18 - February 23, 2014 in the Albert); Buzzer by Tracey Scott Wilson, directed by Jessica Thebus (February 8 - March 9, 2014 in the Owen); the Chicago premiere of Venus in Fur by David Ives, directed by Joanie Schultz (March 8 - April 13, 2014 in the Albert); the Chicago premiere of The White Snake written and directed by Mary Zimmerman (May 3 - June 8, 2014 in the Albert); the world-premiere Goodman commission of Ask Aunt Susan by Seth Bockley, directed by Henry Wishcamper (May 24 - June 22, 2014 in the Owen); and a major revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Brigadoon, directed by Rachel Rockwell (June 27 - August 3, 2014 in the Albert).

Goodman Theatre is world renowned for the quality and scope of its artistic programming and its commitment to improving life in the community. Artistic Director Robert Falls' and Executive Director Roche Schulfer's leadership has earned unparalleled artistic distinction and experienced unprecedented success, staging more than 80 world premieres, earning numerous awards for its productions-including the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre (1992) and the Pulitzer Prize for Ruined (2009)-and producing more than 25 new-work commissions. Founded in 1925 and housed in a state-of-the-art two-theater complex in the downtown Chicago Theatre District, the Goodman is Chicago's oldest and largest not-for-profit producing theater. Ruth Ann M. Gillis is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Sherry John is President of the Women's Board and Lauren Blair is President of the Scenemakers Board, the Goodman's young professionals auxiliary group. American Airlines is the Exclusive Airline of Goodman Theatre.