Goodman Theatre's big 100th season: David Byrne, an ‘Office' star and the return of Robert Falls

Chicago Tribune

25-02-2025

The Goodman Theatre has announced a celebrity-crusted Centennial Season with a remarkable six world premieres, a pre-Broadway tryout and an overall level of ambition that surpasses the previous 99 seasons.
Attractions for the upcoming slate include an off-site immersive show, 'Theater of the Mind,' as created by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame and the writer Mala Gaonkar. The show, which premiered in Denver, features multiple casts performing day and night, with scattered starting times for groups of around 16 patrons at a time. It's billed as 'an intimate and immersive journey inside how we see and create our worlds.' As directed by Andrew Scoville, the show is slated for an open run (perhaps of a year or more) inside the renovated Reid Building (333 N. La Salle St.), potentially a boon for downtown tourism. Goodman executive director John Collins said in an interview that Chicago will have the piece exclusively 'for at least a year.' Dates have yet to be announced. Collins said he hopes the show will begin in the fall but the construction timeline may mean it will open in the spring.
Byrne attended a press event Tuesday at the theater announcing the 2025-26 season, led by Collins and artistic director Susan Booth.
The Albert Theatre mainstage will feature several familiar names and Chicago-centric works.
In the fall, Jenna Fischer (of television's 'The Office') will star in the world premiere of a new play by Lee Kirk (Fischer's husband) titled 'Ashland Avenue' (Sept. 6 to Oct. 5) and named after the prosaic but essential Chicago street. Set in a creaking TV and video store of the old-school, the drama will also star Francis Guinan and be directed by Booth.
Then former artistic director Robert Falls returns to the Goodman for the first time since his exit to direct a new contemporary adaptation of Philip Barry's 'Holiday' (Jan. 31 to March 1, 2026), a 1928 farce that was twice adapted to film, one starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. The new comedy, set in the present day, is the work of Richard Greenberg, a familiar though recently absent writer for Chicago audiences, and is likely to feature at least one well-known star, although casting has yet to be announced.
Veteran Goodman artistic associate Chuck Smith continues his series of new productions of August Wilson plays with 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' (March 28 to April 26, 2026), this time with Harry J. Lennix, currently on Broadway with Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 'Purpose,' serving as both associate director and music director. 'Ma Rainey' is the only Wilson play set in Chicago.
Next summer will continue the Goodman's recent tradition of presenting pre-Broadway musicals, with Kathleen Marshall directing the world premiere of the musical comedy 'Iceboy! or, The Completely Untrue Story of How Eugene O'Neill Came to Write 'The Iceman Cometh'' (June 9 to July 19, 2026), with a book by Erin Quinn Purcell and Jay Reiss, score by former Chicagoan Mark Hollmann ('Urinetown') and lyrics by Hollmann and Reiss. Megan Mullally will star in a story of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal discovered frozen in the Arctic and adopted by a Broadway star. Broadway producer Barbara Whitman also attended Tuesday's event.
Goodman will, as ever, stage its annual production of 'A Christmas Carol' (Nov. 15 to Dec. 31). Christopher Donahue returns as Scrooge and Malkia Stampley becomes the show's new director, likely for longer than just this coming holiday season.
The Goodman's smaller Owen Theatre also has high-profile works of a scale not seen in years.
The fall begins with 'Revolution(s)' (Oct. 4 to Nov. 9) another new musical, this one commissioned by the Goodman. It's penned by Northwestern professor Zayd Ayers Dohrn (the son of the radical activists Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground), and features music and lyrics by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. Steve H. Broadnax III directs (as he does the upcoming 'The Book of Grace' at Steppenwolf Theatre). The show is billed as 'a groundbreaking new punk/metal/hip hop musical … about a young artist finding his voice, why violence is as American as cherry pie, and how young radicals across generations are still motivated by love.' Morello performed a song from the show on Tuesday.
'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao' (Feb. 21 to April 5, 2026) by Marco Antonio Rodriguez follows in the Owen. This is a world-premiere adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novel by the Dominican American writer and college professor Junot Díaz, a coming-of-age story set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised.
In May, longtime Goodman-affiliated solo artist Dael Orlandersmith returns with a new work, 'Blood Memory' (May 2-31, 2026), directed by Neel Keller. It will focus on division and decision-making and the pressure point between unity and ideological retreat.
Finally, the Goodman continues its association with the magician Dennis Watkins and the venue known as The Magic Parlour, and its New Stages Festival next season will offer shows in a new Theater for the Very Young initiative. Also, a year-long program titled '100 Free Acts of Theater ' will offer the arts for free across Chicago's 50 wards, produced in partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, details to be announced.
'The beauty of the Chicago audience is what a rich stew of beings comprise it,' said Booth when asked about such an expansive and extensive season. 'The gift and the challenge of curating for that wildly diverse group of people is immense.'