Goodman Theatre 2023-24 season: A pair of Broadway contenders in the first season for Susan Booth
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“Seasons,” says Susan V. Booth, “need to reveal themselves.”
Booth announced her first one Wednesday as the new artistic director of the Goodman Theatre, taking over the role from Robert Falls, who served for more than three decades. The Goodman’s 98th year has many tantalizing highlights, including a new show created and performed by the actor Dana Delany, famed for her work on “Desperate Housewives,” which draws from her own experience as the victim of an online scam involving a correspondent who turned out to be very much other than who they claimed to be.
That piece, penned by Jen Silverman and titled “Highway Patrol,” already has a commercial producing partner and seems a likely candidate for Broadway, said Booth, who was known for producing several pre-Broadway tryouts in her previous job as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.
The other show likely for Broadway is a new musical, “Female Troubles,” a period comedy about female reproductive rights, slated for the summer of 2024 and penned by Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden, with music by Curtis Moore and lyrics by Amanda Green. (Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose and Bonnie Milligan recently recorded a number from the musical in the studio).
Mary Zimmerman also is creating a new show for Booth’s debut season, a pocketbook version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” The project, Booth said, will be in the vein of Zimmerman’s Lookingglass Theatre holiday hit “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and allow for an intimate exploration of that opera, with one foot in the operatic world and another in the theatrical. “Mary aims to demystify the material,” Booth said.
The complete 2023-24 Goodman Theatre season:
“The Nacirema Society” (Sept. 16 to Oct. 15 in the Albert Theatre): For the opener, Booth is generously throwing attention on a Chicago-based director, Lili-Anne Brown, who will direct the Pearl Cleage play about wealthy African American debutantes. Brown, who Booth says was a debutante herself, has a busy freelance directing career across the country. It’s been a long time since a Cleage play has been seen at the Goodman; Booth previously directed this work at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2010. “What August Wilson contributed to the canon of roles for Black actors,” Booth said, “Pearl has added to the canon for Black actresses.”
“Lucha Teotl” (Sept. 29 to Oct. 29 in the Owen Theatre): A coproduction with the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance as part of the Destinos Festival, Prism Movement Theater’s “Lucha Teotl” is written and directed by Christopher Llewyn Ramirez and Jeff Colangelo. It’s about the world of lucha libre, or Latino pro wrestling.
“A Christmas Carol” (Nov. 18 to Dec. 31 in the Albert Theatre): The 46th annual holiday production of the Charles Dickens story is adapted by Tom Creamer, directed by Jessica Thebus, with the expected return of longtime favorite Larry Yando as Scrooge.
“Highway Patrol” (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18, 2024, in the Albert Theatre): World premiere directed by Mike Donahue, written by Silverman from Delany’s digital archives.
“The Matchbox Magic Flute” (Feb. 10 to March 10, 2024, in the Owen Theatre): A world premiere adapted and directed by Zimmerman.
“The Penelopiad” (March 2-31, 2024 in the Albert Theatre): Booth’s directing debut as Goodman artistic director (though she previously directed at the theater as literary manager). Margaret Atwood’s play is a feminist take on, or response to, Homer’s “The Odyssey” with multiple characters. Booth said the piece has been seen across Canada and the U.K., but not in Chicago or New York.
“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” (April 13 to May 19, 2024, in the Albert Theatre): Chuck Smith directs a revival of August Wilson, part of a project to restage each of Wilson’s plays — several of which premiered at the Goodman — but this time in the chronological order of their setting.
“English” (May 10 to June 9, 2024, in the Owen Theatre): Booth has forged a coproduction with the Guthrie Theatre of Minneapolis: a staging of Sanaz Toossi’s “English,” directed by Hamid Dehghani. The show, set among foreign-language students in 2008 Iran, was well received in New York in 2022, where it was a coproduction of the Atlantic and Roundabout theater companies.
“Female Troubles” (June 25 to August 4, 2024, in the Albert Theatre): A world premiere musical comedy set in 19th century England.
“I think,” Booth said of the season, “that the theme that has presented itself is, ‘from whose point of view?’
The play development program known as the New Stages Festival will also return, with a focus that now will include musicals, Booth said. Season tickets and various packages are now on sale at goodmantheatre.org
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
