Dion Boucicault News

Artists Repertory Theatre launches its 2017/18 season with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' provocative An Octoroon. An incendiary satire, this bold start to their 35th theatre season is co-directed by Lava Alapai and Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez.

The Shaw's production of An Octoroon is perhaps the funniest, and certainly the most subversive, theatre experience this season. Riffing off of Dion Boucicault's melodrama The Octoroon, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Obie Award-winning play is his sardonic, radical response to present and past attitudes of race. Directed by Peter Hinton, An Octoroon makes its Canadian premiere at the Royal George Theatre, beginning previews July 16.

Goodman Theatre is proud to support Chicago's off-Loop theater companies Teatro Vista, Definition Theatre Company and Collaboraction as a producing partner on several high-profile productions this summer - two of which open this week.

Definition Theatre Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tyrone Phillips and Managing Director Neel McNeill, presents the first play of its 2017-2018 season, the Chicago premiere of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Gloria, Appropriate), produced in association with Goodman Theatre. An Octoroon is directed by Goodman Theatre Resident Director Chuck Smith and runs now through August 20, 2017 in the Richard Christiansen Theater at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, as part of Definition's tenure in the Victory Gardens Resident Theater Program. The press opening was last night, July 24, and BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's stunning remount of AN OCTOROON by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Nataki Garrett reunites the principal cast and production teams from Woolly's sold out 2016 run. Boy, did I move to DC just in time. The Washington Post declares Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company 'a national champion of the new-and frequently provocative-American play' and after laughing, crying, and thinking through Woolly's AN OCTOROON I would be hard pressed to find better descriptors. In the heart of the nation's capital, a stone's throw from The White House, AN OCTOROON is a living, breathing, vital dialogue about racial tension in America.

Definition Theatre Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tyrone Phillips and Managing Director Neel McNeill, announces casting for the first play of its 2017-2018 season, the Chicago premiere of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Gloria, Appropriate), produced in association with Goodman Theatre.

The Shaw's production of An Octoroon is perhaps the funniest, and certainly the most subversive, theatre experience this season. Riffing off of Dion Boucicault's melodrama The Octoroon, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Obie Award-winning play is his sardonic, radical response to present and past attitudes of race. Directed by Peter Hinton, An Octoroon makes its Canadian premiere at the Royal George Theatre, beginning previews July 16.

Following an overwhelmingly positive response from critics and audiences, Berkeley Rep has announced that the West Coast premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon will extend for an additional week. Originally scheduled to close on July 23, the provocative play will now run through Saturday, July 29.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the West Coast premiere of An Octoroon written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Eric Ting will close out its season.

Definition Theatre Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tyrone Phillips and Managing Director Neel McNeill, announces casting for the first play of its 2017-2018 season, the Chicago premiere of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Gloria, Appropriate), produced in association with Goodman Theatre.

An Octoroon is a person who has one-eighth black heritage. In 1850s Louisiana, that meant they are automatically unclean and, ultimately, a slave. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins radically reimagines Dion Boucicault's 1859 play based upon a tragic and rather melodramatic love story between white plantation owner George and his uncle's illegitimate daughter Zoe. Entwined in this is the apparent financial ruin of the plantation, which leads to a series of racially motivated violent events.

City Lit Theatre Artistic Director Terry McCabe has announced the cast for the company's season finale, the British comedy London Assurance. First produced in London in 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and shortly thereafter in New York City, London Assurance is considered a transitional play between the 18th century comedies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith and the late 19th Century plays of Oscar Wilde. It has been one of Great Britain's most popular comedies of the standard classical repertoire and in recent decades has been performed by some of Britain's leading actors. 

Blackfriars Repertory Theatre and The Storm Theatre Company will present the world premiere of Death Comes for the War Poets, a dramatic verse tapestry by Joseph Pearce. The production, which will be performed June 9-24, 2017 at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture's Black Box Theater, is directed by Peter Dobbins.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the West Coast premiere of An Octoroon written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Eric Ting will close out its season.

Definition Theatre Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tyrone Phillips and Managing Director Neel McNeill, announces the first play of its 2017-2018 season, the Chicago premiere of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Gloria, Appropriate), produced in association with Goodman Theatre. An Octoroon is directed by Goodman Theatre Resident Director Chuck Smith and runs July 21 - August 20, 2017 in the Richard Christiansen Theater at Victory Gardens Theater as part of Definition's tenure in the Victory Gardens Resident Theater Program.

Those nice people from the North who are getting ready to create great theater are beaconing people from CLE to be their guests.

The Shaw Festival proudly announces casting for Artistic Director Tim Carroll's first season. The Shaw's 2017 ensemble is a mix of new faces and Festival favourites - each actor ready to entertain and excite audiences in this season's 11 productions.

Theater represents the era from which it comes! In 1859, when THE OCTOROON opened in New York, the United States was in racial chaos. The slaves of the South had been 'freed,' but, in reality, they weren't free from their years of enslavement. Yes, blacks, the only mass group of people who came to this country against their free will, were the center of much controversy.

City Lit Theater's 37th season will honor its traditions while bringing Chicago audiences four plays that will be new to nearly all audience members. The season lineup announced today by City Lit artistic director Terry McCabe includes a mix of three world premieres (two of them adaptations of novels and one original new comedy), plus a classic comedy of the 19th Century that has not been seen in Chicago in 120 years.

The Shaw Festival is pleased to announce the playbill and directors list for the 2017 season; the company's 56th and the first led by Artistic Director Designate Tim Carroll.