Casting for Announced for LONDON ASSURANCE

City Lit Theatre Artistic Director Terry McCabe has announced the cast for the company's season finale, the British comedy London Assurance. First produced in London in 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and shortly thereafter in New York City, London Assurance is considered a transitional play between the 18th century comedies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith and the late 19th Century plays of Oscar Wilde. It has been one of Great Britain's most popular comedies of the standard classical repertoire and in recent decades has been performed by some of Britain's leading actors.

Dame Judi Dench starred in a 1970 production of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a production that was later remounted in London's West End and transferred to Broadway, where it starred the late Roger Rees. That was one of six Broadway productions of the play over a century and a half. The most recent Broadway production was in 1997, when it starred BrIan Bedford and a young Rainn Wilson (who would later become famous for TV's The Office). A 2010 production directed by Nicholas Hytner for The National Theatre of Great Britain starred Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw, and was broadcast live around the world as part of the NT Live program. Inexplicably, given London Assurance's enduring popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, it has not been produced in Chicago for 120 years.

The play concerns the 18-year-old Grace Harkaway, who considers herself immune to love and is planning to marry the 63-year-old Sir Harcourt Courtly for his money. Then she meets his son, Charles, who, unaware of his father's engagement to Grace, begins to woo her. Things become even more complicated when Sir Harcourt meets and becomes taken with the domineering and horse-riding Lady Gay Spanker.

Appearing as Sir Harcourt Courtly will be longtime City Lit favorite Kingsley Day, recently seen on the City Lit stage in Shirley Jackson's The Sundial. Lady Gay Spanker will be played by Cameron Feagin, whose recent credits include Gross Indecency for Promethean Ensemble Theatre and who earned a Jeff nomination for her work in Private Lives at City Lit. Left: Kingsley Day, Right: Cameron Feagin Grace Harkaway will be played by Kat Evans, of City Lit's Hauptmann. Charles Courtly will be played by Kraig Kelsey, who appeared in Promethean's Gross Indecency along with Evans. Left: Kat Evans, Right: Kraig Kelsey

In the role of Charles' friend Dazzle will be Richard Eisloeffel, who had the title role in City Lit's fall 2016 production of P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith, Journalist. The cast also includes Edward Kuffert (Cool), Cooper Wise (Martin), James Sparling (Squire Max Harkaway), Jean Waller (Pert), T.C. Fair (James), Joe Feliciano (Meddle), David Fink (Adolphus Spanker), and Zach Bloomfield (Solomon Isaacs).

The opening will be Sunday, June 18 at 3 pm, following previews from June 9 - June 17, 2017. The regular run will continue through July 23, 2017 at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. More information and ticketing is available at www.citylit.org or by phone at 773-293-3682.

Dion Boucicault, (1820- 1890, born Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot) was an Irish actor who by the later part of the 19th century, had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. The New York Times heralded him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century."
Charles Spencer, chief drama critic for The Daily Telegraph described Boucicault as "a young blade in a hurry and on the make in London in 1841. (London Assurance) launched a spectacular and rackety career, during which Boucicault made and lost several fortunes, married bigamously, and became one of the commanding figures of 19th Century Theatre in both Britain and America. Queen Victoria was a particularly devoted admirer of his work." Boucicault worked continuously as actor-manager and playwright up until 1885. He died in 1890 in New York City.

Terry McCabe (Artistic Director, Director) Terry McCabe has been City Lit's artistic director since February 2005. He has directed plays professionally in Chicago since 1981. He was artistic director of Stormfield Theatre for four years, resident director at Wisdom Bridge Theatre for five years, and worked at Body Politic Theatre Three separate times in three different capacities over a span of 14 years. His City Lit adaptations of Holmes and Watson, Gidget (co-adapted with Marissa McKown), The Hound of the Baskervilles, Scoundrel Time, and Opus 1861(co-adapted with Elizabeth Margolius) were Jeff-nominated. He won two Jeff Citations for directing at Stormfield and has been thrice nominated for the Jeff Award for Best Director, for shows at Court Theatre, Wisdom Bridge, and Victory Gardens. He has directed at many Chicago theatres either long-gone or still with us, as well as off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre and at Vienna's English Theatre. His book Mis-Directing the Play has been denounced at length in American Theatre magazine and from the podium at the national convention of The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, but is used in directing courses on three continents and is now available in paperback and Kindle e-book.

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