Writers Theatre for 2023-24: Braden Abraham’s first season includes ‘The Band’s Visit’
Writers Theatre in Glencoe now has a new artistic director, Braden Abraham, who most recently was artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. And it has a new season to announce, a slate that Abraham, 46, said reflected his desire to build on the popularity of musicals like the recent production of “Once” and to focus more on a family audience.
Writers Theatre kicks off its 2023-24 season with the first Chicago-area production in several years of Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” (Sept. 21-Oct. 22), a take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth first produced in Chicago at the Piven Theatre in Evanston in 2004 and also seen in 2008 at the Victory Gardens Theater. The show will mark Abraham’s directorial debut at Writers.
In the winter, following a reprise staging of last year’s holiday hit “Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol” (Nov. 16-Dec. 24), Writers will stage an intimate version of the Broadway musical “The Band’s Visit” (Feb. 8-March 17, 2024) in a co-production with TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The show, about an Egyptian police band lost in Israel and originally directed on Broadway by the longtime Chicago director David Cromer, will be helmed at Writers by Zi Alikhan, previously the associate director for the first national tour.
In an interesting departure from recent practice, Writers will present the frequent Chicago visitor Hershey Felder in his “Monsieur Chopin” (April 10-May 12, 2024). The show was first seen in Chicago at the Royal George Theater in 2005. In an interview, Abraham said the new season reflected current financial realities and was thus a mix of shows built by Writers and those that have originated elsewhere. He also said that Felder planned to rework the piece for its more intimate Writers staging.
The final piece of the mainstage season will be the Chicago premiere of Katori Hall’s “The Hot Wing King” (June 20-July 21, 2024). The winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in drama and set in Memphis, “The Hot Wing King” will be directed by the freelance Chicago director Lili-Anne Brown.
Full details and dates of the new family programming initiative, Abraham said, have yet to be announced, but will kick off with a partnership with Chicago’s Filament Theatre and “FORTS!” an interactive event wherein families are encouraged to enter a theater space together and use cardboard boxes and other materials to build “new worlds” together.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
