Brian Dennehy News

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced the addition of a 12th production to its 2011 playbill. Seana McKenna will present her one-woman show SHAKESPEARE'S WILL at the Studio Theatre.

Goodman Theatre is proud to announce that Governor Pat Quinn has appointed Resident Artistic Associate Henry Godinez as a member of the Illinois Arts Council. Governor Quinn and Godinez celebrated the announcement with the cast of The Sins of Sor Juana-including Malaya Rivera Drew and Tony Plana-following a recent performance at Goodman Theatre.

Stratford, Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced the lineup for the 2011 Festival.

Canadian Stage unveiled its highly anticipated 2010-2011 season today, marking the first season programmed by Artistic & General Director Matthew Jocelyn. The season heralds a bold, new direction for the company. Jocelyn seeks to redefine Canadian Stage as a centre for national and international multi-disciplinary theatre that pushes boundaries, adopts a 21st-century perspective and reflects Toronto's cultural diversity. The work will be driven by directors and auteurs at the forefront of contemporary theatre and audiences will have the opportunity to discover a new generation of story-tellers who challenge and entertain.

BlueRare Productions has announced the cast and creative team for its Off-Broadway premiere of the probing and politically-charged mash-up comedy, Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party, by Aaron Loeb.

For the sixth consecutive summer, Goodman Theatre welcomes 86 students from Chicagoland public, private and parochial schools as participants in its General Theater Studies (GTS) program, a free, six-week intensive introduction to the theater arts.

Matthew Jocelyn, Artistic & General Director of Canadian Stage today announced casting for Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter: An Attempt at the Truth and The cosmonaut's last message to the woman he once loved in the former Soviet Union, featured productions in the company's upcoming 2010-2011 season. Saint Carmen of The Main will be announced at a later date.

ANNE CATTANEO is the dramaturg of Lincoln Center Theater and the creator and head of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors' Lab. A three term past president of Literary Mangers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, she is the recipient of LMDA's first Lessing Award for lifetime achievement of dramaturgy. She has worked widely as a dramaturg on classical plays with directors such as James Lapine, Robert Wilson, Adrian Hall, Robert Falls, Mark Lamos and JoAnne Akalaitis. As the director of the Playworks Program at the Phoenix Theater during the late 1970's, she commissioned and developed plays by Wendy Wasserstein (Isn't It Romantic) Mustapha Matura (Meetings) and Christopher Durang (Beyond Therapy). For the Acting Company, she created two projects: Orchards (published by Knopf and Broadway Play Publishing) which presented seven Chekhov stories adapted for the stage by Maria Irene Fornes, Spalding Gray, John Guare, David Mamet, Wendy Wasserstein, Michael Weller and Samm-Art Williams, and Love's Fire (published by William Morrow) responses to Shakespeare sonnets by Eric Bogosian, William Finn, John Guare, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Ntozake Shange and Wendy Wasserstein. Her own translations of 20th Century German playwrights include Brecht's Galileo (Goodman Theater 1986 starring Brian Dennehy) and Botho Strauss' Big And Little (Phoenix production starring Barbara Barrie, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) She is currently on the faculty at Juilliard.

For the sixth consecutive summer, Goodman Theatre welcomes 86 students from Chicagoland public, private and parochial schools as participants in its General Theater Studies (GTS) program, a free, six-week intensive introduction to the theater arts.

Artistic Director Robert Falls announced two exciting mainstage additions plus an unprecedented partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art to Goodman Theatre's upcoming 2010/2011 season (begins September 2010), completing the season schedule.

Casting is complete for Goodman Theatre's Chicago-premiere production of Tracey Scott Wilson's The Good Negro, directed by Resident Director Chuck Smith. Wilson and Smith have tapped nine actors to bring this historical drama to the Albert stage, including Karen Aldridge (Goodman's The Cook; Proof); Teagle F. Bougere (Broadway's A Raisin in the Sun; The Tempest); Tory O. Davis (Goodman's Magnolia); John Hoogenakker (Goodman's Rock 'n' Roll; Chicago Shakespeare's Othello); Billy Eugene Jones (Broadway's Passing Strange; Radio Golf); Nambi Kelley (Goodman's Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Victory Gardens' The Lost Boys of Sudan); Demetrios Troy (Northlight's Awake and Sing; Chicago Shakespeare's Richard III); Dan Waller (Goodman's Ghostwritten; Talking Pictures) and Mick Weber (Goodman's Rock 'n' Roll; Chicago Theatre's Shear Madness). The production will run from May 1 - June 6, 2010.

The Wagner College Theater Department proudly announces that Tony Award-winning actress Michele Pawk will join its faculty this fall. She will teach classes in advanced acting, directing, and the history of American film as well as direct the college's Main Stage production of 'Seussical.'

Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the second extension of Oh Coward!, words and music by Noel Coward, devised by Roderick Cook. The production, which began its run in November 2009 is directed by Jim Corti, with musical direction by Doug Peck. The production has been extended through April 18, 2010, at Writers' Theatre, 664 Vernon Avenue in Glencoe.

Tonight, Goodman Theatre's Education and Community Engagement department presents a special panel discussion, Too Broken to Reform? How We Can Fix Public Education. Education experts Valerie Hannon and Dr. Tim Knowles, discuss the current state of Chicago school systems, while engaging the community in a call to action for education reform.

Artistic Director Robert Falls announced today that the Chicago premiere of the Tony Award-winning God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza's 'savvy and deliciously caustic new comedy of urban ill-manners' (Chicago Tribune) and Broadway sensation, will take place at Goodman Theatre starting March 5, 2011.

According to Variety, stage and screen veterans Brian Dennehy and Dianne Wiest have officially been cast in A Big Year, directed by David Frankel. Dennehy and Wiest join an all-star cast, including Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Anjelica Huston, among others.

Casting is complete for Goodman Theatre's Chicago-premiere production of Tracey Scott Wilson's The Good Negro, directed by Resident Director Chuck Smith. Wilson and Smith have tapped nine actors to bring this historical drama to the Albert stage, including Karen Aldridge (Goodman's The Cook; Proof); Teagle F. Bougere (Broadway's A Raisin in the Sun; The Tempest); Tory O. Davis (Goodman's Magnolia); John Hoogenakker (Goodman's Rock 'n' Roll; Chicago Shakespeare's Othello); Billy Eugene Jones (Broadway's Passing Strange; Radio Golf); Nambi Kelley (Goodman's Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Victory Gardens' The Lost Boys of Sudan); Demetrios Troy (Northlight's Awake and Sing; Chicago Shakespeare's Richard III); Dan Waller (Goodman's Ghostwritten; Talking Pictures) and Mick Weber (Goodman's Rock 'n' Roll; Chicago Theatre's Shear Madness). The production will run from May 1 - June 6, 2010.

Spurred by the one-year anniversary of President Obama's pronouncement to close Guantanamo, Culture Project brings its Blueprint for Accountability series to the Newseum.The event will take place April 22 at the Newseum in Washington D.C. and will feature Matt Dillon, Dr. Anna Keller, Dr. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., John Leguizamo, Jeremy Scahill, Rose Styron, Ron Suskind, Vince Warren, and Valerie Plame Wilson.

Was it natural disaster or man-made greed that led to the loss of 2,200 lives in 1889? Playwright Rebecca Gilman teams up with Tony Award-winning Director Robert Falls for the world premiere of A True History of the Johnstown Flood, an epic theatrical event set against the backdrop of the 1889 flood-a disaster more deadly than Hurricane Katrina. The production will end its run April 18th.

Artistic Director Robert Falls announced today the final production of Goodman Theatre's 2009/2010 season-The Good Negro, Tracey Scott Wilson's 'thunderous...stunning' (Variety) new play, comes to Chicago fresh from its off-Broadway run at The Public Theater. Resident Director Chuck Smith, who previously collaborated with Wilson on the Goodman's 2004/2005 Chicago-premiere production of The Story, will direct The Good Negro in the Albert Theatre in Spring 2010.