TV: Highlights from GOODNIGHT NOBODY at McCarter Center

The Big Chill meets This is Us in Rachel Bonds' play Goodnight Nobody. In this deeply moving and funny world premiere, a group of old friends reconnect after years apart. They reminisce with wild abandon, until the things they aren't telling each other come hurtling to the surface. The production runs January 10 through February 9 in McCarter's Berlind Theatre. More about the production at mccarter.org.

Continuing its tradition of introducing major new plays and voices to the American Stage (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Convert, Anna in the Tropics), McCarter is pleased to bring this original commission to life, celebrating the artistry of Rachel Bonds (Five Mile Lake at McCarter), a playwright whose work has a "sublime tone" (The New York Times) in its well-constructed mix of character, potent dialogue, and nuanced subtext.

In Goodnight Nobody, Bonds leans in to a variety of relevant and timely themes. What is the cost of pursuing artistic excellence? Is there a connection between creative brilliance and mental illness? Can a female artist-however disciplined-ever attain freedom from the fact of her own womanhood?

McCarter's Resident Playwright and Artistic Director Emily Mann remarked "after directing Bonds' beautiful play Five Mile Lake in 2015, I sensed that Rachel was on her way to becoming a major new American playwright. We immediately commissioned her next work, which became Goodnight Nobody. Rachel explores the bonds and fractures between friends and family. She looks at our responsibly to one another, and she looks without sentimentality at new motherhood-the complex magnitude of that moment in time-in a more genuine ways than most playwrights have dared. With humor and compassion, Rachel gives us a portrait of her generation."

The cast includes two-time Emmy Award-winner Dana Delany (China Beach, Desperate Housewives); Ken Marks (The Matchmaker at McCarter, Broadway's Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark, and Spring Awakening); Nate Miller (Ayad Akhtar's JUNK at Lincoln Center Theater); Saamer Usmani (Shakespeare in Love at Stratford Festival); and Ariel Woodwiss (Significant Other at Roundabout).

The creative team includes Kimie Nishikawa (scenic design), Ásta Bennie Hostetter (costume design), Jen Schriever (lighting design), and Daniel Kluger (sound design). Dramaturgy provided by Christine Scarfuto. Casting by Kelly Gillespie, CSA. Alison Cote and Christine Whalen are the stage managers.

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