Timeline Theatre Company Announces FALSETTOS And More For 2024-25 Season

TimeLine Theatre Company has announced a 28th season that offers a scope unprecedented in the company’s history.

TimeLine’s 2024-25 subscription season involves producing partnerships with three of the city’s most preeminent arts institutions—Court Theatre, The Theatre School at DePaul University, and Writers Theatre—plus the internationally acclaimed company the american vicarious—and invites audiences to travel with TimeLine across Chicagoland to enjoy three unique and extraordinary theatrical experiences in Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, and Glencoe.

TimeLine Theatre’s three-play 2024-25 subscription season includes:

• The groundbreaking musical about family, faith, and love, Falsettos, with music and lyrics by William Finn, book by William Finn and James Lapine, produced in partnership with Court Theatre and directed by TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling;
• The Chicago premiere of the american vicarious’ Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen, an immersive reenactment of one of history’s most infamous debates on the occasion of its 60th anniversary, presented in partnership with The Theatre School at DePaul University;
• The world premiere of a play to be announced, produced in partnership with Writers Theatre.

This remarkable season marks the launch of TimeLine’s next era. The company will depart its longtime home on Wellington Avenue in Lakeview East this summer, moving to a temporary administrative base closer to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood as it continues the process toward establishing its future home at 5035 N. Broadway Avenue.

“TimeLine is ready to embark on a new era with this transformative season,” said Artistic Director PJ Powers. “As we move on from the space on Wellington Avenue that we’ve called home for the last 25 years, we’re moving closer to establishing our dynamic new home in Uptown. And while we await construction on that theatre to be fully completed, our 2024-25 season offers the opportunity to perform in three gorgeous, unique venues across Chicagoland.”

Powers continued: “We are so honored to partner with three venerable institutions we’ve long admired—Court Theatre, Writers Theatre, and the school where I am my fellow TimeLine founders trained, The Theatre School at DePaul University, as it celebrates its centennial. Each of the three productions in Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, and Glencoe will allow TimeLine to perform on a larger canvas, while retaining the signature qualities that have defined our work for the past 27 seasons—intimacy, transformation, provocative storytelling, and astounding artistry. We can’t wait to bring our supporters on this journey with us, across our city, alongside tremendous artistic partners, and leading into TimeLine’s next era.”

Save on regular ticket prices, enjoy impressive flexibility, and join the journey of TimeLine’s 2024-25 season with a TimeLine FlexPass. Four options, priced from $103 to $232, are now on sale. For more information and to purchase, call (773) 281-8463 x6 or visit timelinetheatre.com.

THE 2024-25 TIMELINE THEATRE SUBSCRIPTION SEASON IS:

FALSETTOS

music and lyrics by William Finn
book by William Finn and James Lapine
produced in partnership with Court Theatre
directed by TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling
November 8 – December 8, 2024
presented at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago
                                           
The Tony Award-winning Falsettos is a tribute to family and its many forms; a playful interrogation of faith and identity; and a celebration of the beauty, complexity, and necessity of love.
        
Marvin has left his wife, Trina, for his male lover; Trina has married Marvin’s therapist; and their son, Jason, is grappling with his parents' divorce and his looming Bar Mitzvah. Everyone’s world has been upended and now, they must explore what their new lives may hold. Featuring a sung-through score and set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic, Falsettos is a humorous and heartbreaking web of ex-spouses, co-parents, new lovers, and the lesbians next door.
        
TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling returns to Court Theatre—where he served as Associate Artistic Director nearly 30 years ago alongside Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell—to make his Court directorial debut. Groundbreaking in its depiction of queerness, Falsettos shines with ingenuity and contemporary relevance.

Chicago Premiere
the american vicarious’
DEBATE: BALDWIN VS. BUCKLEY

adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen
presented in partnership with The Theatre School at DePaul University
January 29 – March 2, 2025
presented at DePaul University’s Cortelyou Commons, 2324 N. Fremont St., Chicago
 
Following critically acclaimed runs in New York City and London, TimeLine is bringing the american vicarious’ radically staged production of the historic debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. to Chicago, on the occasion of the event’s 60th anniversary.
 
“Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?” This was the topic on February 18, 1965, when an overflow crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to bear witness to a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America’s most influential conservative intellectual. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy. This historic clash reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of racial conflict that continues to haunt America.

TimeLine will partner with the internationally acclaimed company the american vicarious and The Theatre School at DePaul University—the Midwest’s leading theatre conservatory and the alma mater of TimeLine’s founders—to present this theatrical event at DePaul’s Cortelyou Commons, which replicates the Cambridge Union where the original debate was held. It will be an immersive, site-specific production tailor-made for Chicago.
 
Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley will feature Teagle F. Bougere as Baldwin and Eric T. Miller as Buckley in the cast. Additional casting and production team members are to be announced.

World Premiere TO BE ANNOUNCED

produced in partnership with Writers Theatre
presented at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
                        
TimeLine will partner with Writers Theatre for the third production in its 2024-25 season, presenting a world premiere play to be announced.

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