Alan Bennett's PEOPLE Screens at Music Box, 4/23 & 28

The Music Box Theatre continues its partnership with the UK's National Theatre Live to exhibit live stage performances beamed to Chicago from the prestigious National Theatre in London. (U.S. showings are time-delayed because of time zone difference). The duo behind the Tony Award-winning The History Boys - writer Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner - reteams for People, starring Olivier Award-winning actress Frances de la Tour as the once-wealthy owner of a crumbling country estate facing an uncertain future. The Chicago screenings take place Tuesday, April 23, 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 28, 2 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 North Southport Avenue. Tickets to National Theatre Live events are $15 in advance at the Music Box Theatre box office and online at www.musicboxtheatre.com/events/people-2013-04-23-730-pm; $18 at the door.

In the bitingly funny People, Dorothy Stacpoole (Frances de la Tour) and her companion Iris (Linda Bassett) live in a crumbling South Yorkshire country estate. Dorothy's archdeacon sister June (Selena Cadell) wants to hand the estate over to the care of the National Trust and open it to public view. But people spoil things; there are so many of them and the last thing one wants is them traipsing through one's house. With the park a jungle and a bath on the billiard table, what is one to do? Dorothy favors a more creative solution.

Alan Bennett is one of Britain's most celebrated playwrights, and the much-anticipated People is the sixth of his plays to have its premiere at The National Theatre. Following its original run at The National Theatre, The History Boys transferred to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 2006, and toured internationally before being turned into a film, again directed by Nicholas Hytner and with a cast including Frances de la Tour. Bennett and Hytner also collaborated on the award-winning play and film The Madness of King George, and their last stage production, The Habit of Art, was broadcast as part of National Theatre Live in 2010.