Nine Actors Create Nearly 50 Characters In THE ANTIQUITIES By Jordan Harrison

Next up at Goodman Theatre is Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime, Maple and Vine)'s newest work, A Tour of the Permanent Collection in the Museum of Late Human Antiquities or, just The Antiquities—a startling and transcendent portrait of the present as seen from the future—is on stage now in preview performances.

A world-premiere co-production between the Goodman, Playwrights Horizons and Vineyard Theatre, The Antiquities arrives in Chicago on the heels of its extended critically acclaimed Off-Broadway bow—where it earned “Best New Play/Production” nominations by the Lucille Lortel, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Co-directors David Cromer (Broadway's Good Night, and Good Luck with George Clooney and Dead Outlaw, 2025 Tony Award Nomination for Best Director of a Musical) and Caitlin Sullivan (Off-Broadway's Find Me Here and The Keep Going Songs) also earned a Drama Desk Award nod for “Outstanding Direction of a Play.”

The cast of nine portraying 47 characters across the eras, features Marchánt Davis, Layan Elwazani, Andrew Garman, Helen Joo Lee, Thomas Murphy Molony, Aria Shahghasemi, Kristen Sieh, Ryan Spahn and Amelia Workman. A full cast list appears below, along with the special events around the production. Currently in preview performances, The Antiquities opens May 12 and appears through June 1 in the Goodman's 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre.

“In a season filled with unprecedented, big-idea-filled works that don't compare with anything else, it felt essential to produce the newest work by the incomparable Jordan Harrison—one of the most fearless contemporary playwrights and one known for taking on the big stuff,” said Goodman Artistic Director Susan V. Booth. “The Antiquities is nothing less than a treatise on what it means to be human. And, true to form, Jordan is asking giant questions with a kind of bravery and confidence that makes you feel that he's the right person to join hands with and wade into the really deep waters—together with the estimable directorial duo of Caitlin Sullivan and Chicago's own David Cromer. We're proud to collaborate with Playwrights Horizons and Vineyard Theatre to bring this fantastic new play to Chicago.”

At the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, the curators are fiercely committed to bringing a lost civilization to life again: What were humans really like? What did they wear, what did they eat, how did they die out? Casting the audience into the far future, Harrison's new play provides an uncanny view of the present moment, which straddles the analog world that was and the post-human world to come.

The nine-member cast assumes multiple characters across the eras—from 19th century writers imagining the unimaginable, to 2010s Silicon Valley innovators, and hard-bitten survivors in the far future—including Marchánt Davis (Broadway: Good Night, Oscar, Ain't No Mo', The Great Society) as Man 2; Layan Elwazani (Broadway: The Band's Visit; Regional: Noura, We Live in Cairo) as Woman 4; Andrew Garman (Playwrights: The Christians; Off-Broadway: Greater Clements, Admissions) as Man 3; Helen Joo Lee (Goodman: The Penelopiad) as Woman 3; Thomas Murphy Molony (Goodman: Inherit the Wind, Highway Patrol) as Boy; Aria Shahghasemi (Broadway: Prayer for the French Republic; TV: “The Penguin,” “Legacies”) as Man 1, Kristen Sieh (Playwrights: Men on Boats; Vineyard: Scene Partners; Broadway: The Band's Visit) as Woman 1, Ryan Spahn (Vineyard: Gloria; Off Broadway: Jordans, Merry Me) as Man 4; and Amelia Workman (Broadway: American Son; Off Broadway: Fefu and Her Friends, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World) as Woman 2.

“This is a 15-year obsession on my part with technology and the way it's changing, and not changing, what it means to be human. For me, it's always important to challenge my tendency to think, ‘digital = bad,' and with The Antiquities, that's meant finding a playfulness and a humanness in the way computers would try to understand us after we're extinct,” said playwright Jordan Harrison, whose Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Marjorie Prime also probes the limits of memory, identity and progress.

Envisioning, in the Goodman's 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre, a museum's attempt “to smoosh our entire civilization into a vitrine,” Harrison describes, the creative team includes Paul Steinberg (Scenic Designer), Brenda Abbandandolo (Costume Designer), Tyler Micoleau (Lighting Designer), Christopher Darbassie (Sound Designer), Leah Loukas (Wig and Hair Designer), Sarah Lunnie (Dramaturg) and Jeremy Chernick (SFX Consultant).

David Cromer said, “We always think we may have lost something as we move ahead, which is true: maybe we've lost not knowing and thus lost innocence. And we always think we might be missing something. But that's inherently part of our human grasping, it's why we search: and these other beings are searching as well.”

Caitlin Sullivan said, “Jordan, David, and I are attempting to think about what an emotional and embodied experience might be when we're all gone. When humanity has been reduced to specific artifacts—where snippets and imaginings leave the space to feel our absence, and the impossibility of representing us fully.”

SPECIAL EVENTS FOR THE ANTIQUITIES

Play On Words: A Conversation with Poet Ruben Quesada
Wednesday, May 21 | 6 – 7:15pm; $5 ticket includes light refreshments
Join us for a conversation with lauded poet Ruben Quesada as he guides us through his poem in response to The Antiquities. Reservations are required.

AI: Preserving the Past for the Future
Friday, May 23 | $60 ticket includes the 6pm Reception and 7:30pm Performance
Explore the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence and history at this Goodman CONTEXT event. Join scholars and artists in an open dialogue about how AI is transforming our futures while discovering new methods to preserve and study our past.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jordan Harrison (he/him) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marjorie Prime, which had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons after premiering at the Mark Taper Forum. Other plays include Maple and Vine, Log Cabin, and Doris to Darlene (all at Playwrights Horizons), The Amateurs (Vineyard Theatre), The Grown-Up (Humana Festival), Amazons and their Men (Clubbed Thumb), Futura (NAATCO, Portland Center Stage), Act a Lady (Humana Festival), and Finn in the Underworld (Berkeley Rep). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, the Kesselring Prize, and the Horton Foote Prize for Best New American Play. TV and Film: Three seasons as writer-producer on the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” as well as Netflix's “GLOW” and AMC's “Dispatches from Elsewhere.” A film adaptation of Marjorie Prime premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Prize. Harrison's debut novel, Miss Archer, will be published by William Morrow/HarperCollins next year, and he is writing the screenplay adaptation for 3000 Pictures.

David Cromer (he/him) directed the world premiere of Prayer for the French Republic Off-Broadway. Also in New York: Camp Siegfried, A Case for the Existence of God, The Sound Inside, The Band's Visit, The Treasurer, The House of Blue Leaves, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Nikolai and the Others, The Effect, When the Rain Stops Falling, Tribes, Adding Machine, Our Town, and Orson's Shadow. For his work he has received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk, three Obies, three Lortels, and in 2010 he was named a MacArthur Foundation fellow.

Caitlin Sullivan (she/her) is a director and theater maker based in New York City. Recent work includes Find Me Here (Crystal Finn/Clubbed Thumb), The Keep Going Songs (The Bengsons/LCT3), The Good John Proctor (Talene Monahon/Bedlam), Nova (Obehi Janice/Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Pemberley Productions), United States vs Gupta (Deepali Gupta/JACK in collaboration with New Georges), WORK HARD HAVE FUN MAKE HISTORY (reid tang/Clubbed Thumb), Ohio (The Bengsons/Actors Theatre of Louisville and piece by piece productions), and Sanctuary City (Martyna Majok/NYTW). Caitlin co-founded Seattle's critically acclaimed Satori Group. As Artistic Director, she created and/or directed seven original works. Born and raised in Boston (Dorchester!), Caitlin is a graduate of Williams College; an alum of the Drama League Directors Project, the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship and the New Georges Jam; and a New Georges Affiliate Artist.

Full Company of The Antiquities (in alphabetical order)

By Jordan Harrison
Directed by David Cromer and Caitlin Sullivan

Marchánt Davis...Man 2
Layan Elwazani...Woman 4
Andrew Garman...Man 3
Helen Joo Lee...Woman 3
Thomas Murphy Molony...Boy
Aria Shahghasemi...Man 1
Kristen Sieh...Woman 1
Ryan Spahn...Man 4
Amelia Workman...Woman 2

Understudies for this production include Arash Fakhrabadi, Raymond Fox, Jennifer Jelsema, Jaylon Muchison, Dana Saleh Omar, Leighton Tantillo and Emily Tate.

Creative Team

Based on an Original Set Design by…Paul Steinberg
Costume Designer…Brenda Abbandandolo
Lighting Designer…Tyler Micoleau
Sound Designer…Christoher Darbassie
Wig and Hair Design…Lea Loukas
Dramaturgy..Sarah Lunnie

Casting is by Alaine Alldaffer, CSA, Lisa Donadio, CSA and Lauren Port, CSA. Patrick Fries is the Production Stage Manager.

ENHANCED AND ACCESSIBLE PERFORMANCES AT GOODMAN THEATRE

ASL-Interpreted Performance: Friday, May 23 at 7:30pm – Professional ASL interpreter signs the action/text as played.

Touch Tour* and Audio-Described Performance: Saturday, May 24, 12:30pm Touch Tour; 2pm performance – The action/text is audibly enhanced for patrons via headset.

Spanish-Subtitled Performance: Saturday, May 24 at 7:30pm – An LED sign presents Spanish-translated dialogue in sync with the performance.

Open-Captioned Performance: Sunday, May 25 at 2pm – An LED sign presents dialogue in sync with the performance.