Tanya Palmer News

Silk Road Theatre Project will begin its 2010 season with the World Premiere of THE DNA TRAIL: A Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity, and Utter Confusion, conceived by SRTP's artistic director Jamil Khoury, commissioned by Silk Road Theatre Project, directed by Steve Scott, and featuring new plays by Philip Kan Gotanda, Velina Hasu Houston, David Henry Hwang, Jamil Khoury, Shishir Kurup, Lina Patel, and Elizabeth Wong.

For the fifth consecutive summer, Goodman Theatre welcomes young people from the Chicagoland area as participants in its General Theater Studies program (GTS), a free, six week intensive introduction to the theater arts.

Goodman Theatre's Board of Trustees proudly announces Patricia Cox as the new Chairman-Elect. Cox, whose involvement with the Goodman spans two decades, is currently its Vice Chairman. A founding member of Chicago's legendary St. Nicholas Theatre Company (with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet and actors William H. Macy and Stephen Schachter), Cox was among the city's first performing arts marketing, development and management leaders to emerge under the late, great Lyric Opera impresario Danny Newman. She has since worked with and consulted for a wide range of not-for-profit arts organizations in Chicago and across the country. Cox will assume chairmanship in the fall, as current Chairman Shawn M. Donnelley concludes her two-year tenure.

'Hooray for Joey Slotnick!' Director Henry Wishcamper has tapped Chicago native Joey Slotnick for the lead role of the African explorer 'Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding'-the heightened vaudevillian persona created by Groucho Marx for the 1929 stage and screen original-in Goodman Theatre's season opening musical Animal Crackers, written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.

Goodman Theatre is the proud recipient of an unprecedented $275,000 gift from the Shubert Foundation, marking the largest annual general operating support grant in the theater's 84-year history. The grant, which represents a $35,000 increase for the Goodman over last season, is part of a record $17.6 million funding that the Shubert Foundation announced for not-for-profit companies in 2009.

For the fifth consecutive summer, Goodman Theatre welcomes young people from the Chicagoland area as participants in its General Theater Studies program (GTS), a free, six week intensive introduction to the theater arts.

Goodman Theatre proudly concludes its 2008/2009 season with José Rivera's newest play, Boleros for the Disenchanted, 'an epic study of wedded life that is simply?and not so simply?marvelous' (Variety). A true love story inspired by Rivera's parents' courtship and eventual migration from Puerto Rico to Alabama, Boleros for the Disenchanted makes its Chicago premiere directed by Henry Godinez?the Goodman's Resident Artistic Associate who was named 2008 Latino of the Year by the Chicago Latino Network. Chicago actors Elizabeth Ledo and Sandra Marquez command the stage in the role of Flora, based on Rivera's mother, at various points in her life. Godinez's cast also includes Liza Fernandez, Joe Minoso, Rene Rivera and Felix Solis. Boleros for the Disenchanted is performed in English in the Albert Theatre June 20 ? July 26, 2009. Tickets are $25 ? $70. A complete performance schedule including dates, times and ticket prices appears at the end of this release. Meet the playwright and director at a free post-performance discussion on Thursday, June 25, moderated by Myrna Salazar of the International Latino Cultural Center. Tickets and information: 312.443.3800 or GoodmanTheatre.org. The Chicago Community Trust is the Major Production Sponsor.

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.

Goodman Theatre unites six diverse Chicago theater companies who are presenting work created, produced and/or performed by women for a special spring series, 'Taking the Stage: A Celebration of Women Making Theater,' April 4 - 19, 2009. Over the course of two weeks, each of the participating companies-Babes with Blades, Berwyn's 16th Street Theater, Goodman Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Serendipity Theatre Collective and Teatro Luna-presents productions, panel discussions and workshops that highlight the voices and visions of female theater artists, as well as the opportunities and obstacles they face today.

Artistic Director Robert Falls proudly announces a diverse line-up-from musical hilarity and classic yarns, to memory pieces and family dramas, to stories with ethnic roots that reflect today's world-in Goodman Theatre's new 2009/2010 season.

Magnolia By Regina Taylor and Directed by Anna D. Shapiro Tickets on sale now! Atlanta, 1963. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspires Atlanta's black citizens to fight passionately for their civil rights, the new mayor erects 'The Payton Wall' to restrict where they can live. Amid these churning social currents, Magnolia Estate faces foreclosure, pitting the sensual, free-spirited heiress Lily Forrest against Thomas, a strong-willed businessman who lays claim to the estate where his ancestors were slaves.

Artistic Director Robert Falls announces an unprecedented creative partnership with Austria's 'Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture,' advancing his focus on international programming for Goodman Theatre. The Goodman and 'Linz09'?a year-long festival devoted to projects in all cultural disciplines?will share Joan Dark, created and directed by emerging Bosnian director Aida Karic with Goodman Literary Manager Tanya Palmer. A new adaptation of the story of Joan of Arc involving live music and movement, Joan Dark originates in Austria in a one-week June 17-20 engagement at 'Linz09' and makes its U.S. premiere at Goodman Theatre September 11 ? November 11, 2009.

What do a chicken, a bathtub on wheels, a girl in a pink bikini, a bagpiper, and a stuffed deer wearing a pink tutu have in common?