Cast, Creative Team Announced for SOUPS, STEWS, AND CASSEROLES: 1976 at Goodman Theatre

On the heels of their critically acclaimed world premiere of Luna Gale, playwright Rebecca Gilman and Artistic Director Robert Falls again join forces for her newest drama, Soups, Stews, and Casseroles: 1976. Change is coming to a small Wisconsin town when a corporation acquires a local cheese manufacturer, which employs the majority of the town's working class citizens. For the Durst family, the merger presents newfound opportunity-and a moral dilemma. The Chicago premiere, which marks the play's second production following its 2014 world premiere at The Repertory of St. Louis, features Cliff Chamberlain as longtime factory employee Kim Durst; Cora Vander Broek as his wife Kat; Lindsay Stock as their daughter, Kelly. Rounding out the cast are Ty Olwin (Kyle), Angela Reed (Elaine) and Ann Whitney (JoAnne). The creative team includes Kevin Depinet (set), Richard Woodbury (sound), Jenny Mannis (costumes) and Jesse Klug (lights). Kimberly Osgood is the production stage manager. Soups, Stews, and Casseroles: 1976 appears May 21 - June 19 in the Owen Theatre (opening night is Monday, May 31). Tickets ($10 - $40; subject to change) are on sale now at GoodmanTheatre.org/Soups, by phone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 North Dearborn). Mayer Brown LLP is the Corporate Sponsor Partner.

"I'm excited to reunite with my longtime colleague Rebecca Gilman and start rehearsals for Soups, Stews, and Casseroles: 1976," said Artistic Director Robert Falls. "Among her contemporaries, Rebecca is unrivaled in her ability to illuminate the struggle of so-called "ordinary" Americans to survive seismic economic and cultural upheavals which they have had little or no power to control, and which have propelled both them and their communities toward a future fraught with uncertainty."

The Chicago premiere of Soups, Stews, and Casseroles: 1976 marks the eighth collaboration (five of which were Goodman commissions) between Goodman Theatre and Gilman-"one of Chicago's hottest playwrights" (Chicago Tribune). Falls' and Gilman's last collaboration, Luna Gale, most recently earned the 2016 LA Drama Critics Circle, as well as the 2015 Steinberg/ATCA Award and the 2014 Jeff Award for New Work. Falls first encountered Gilman when he read her 1998 play The Glory of Living (a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist that was first produced at Circle Theatre). Soon after, he commissioned Gilman to write a new play for the Goodman; she responded with Spinning Into Butter (premiered in the Goodman Studio in 1999, directed by Les Waters, subsequently produced at Lincoln Center Theater in 2000 and made into a feature film starring Sarah Jessica Parker). The show's run was extended three times and led to Gilman's next Goodman commission, Boy Gets Girl (premiered at the Goodman in 2000, directed by the late Michael Maggio), which transferred to New York's Manhattan Theatre Club and was named by Time magazine as one of the "best theatre productions of the decade." Falls later directed both Blue Surge (2001) and Dollhouse (2005)-a modern interpretation of Ibsen's A Doll's House. The Crowd You're In With, directed by Wendy C. Goldberg, made its Chicago debut in 2009 at the Goodman, followed by A True History of the Johnstown Flood, a Goodman commission that had its world premiere at the Goodman in 2010 under Falls' direction.

About the Artists

Cliff Chamberlain (Kim Durst) most recently appeared at the Goodman in The Seagull during the 2010/2011 Season. His previous Goodman credits include A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Magnolia, The Ballad of Emmett Till and Oedipus Complex. His other Chicago credits include Belleville, The Herd, Clybourne Park, Superior Donuts and Theatrical Essays at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; The Sparrow (Jeff Award for Best Ensemble) at The House Theatre of Chicago, where he is a company member; The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Northlight Theatre and Can You Spot Me? at Sandbox Theatre Project, where he is a founding member. His Broadway credits include Superior Donuts. His film and television credits include State of Affairs, Chicago P.D., Win it All, Sleep With Me and The Wise Kids.

Cora Vander Broek (Kat Durst) makes her Goodman debut. Her Chicago credits include The Mousetrap and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Northlight Theatre), Hank Williams: Lost Highway (American Blues Theatre), Luck of the Irish and Madagascar at Next Theatre, All My Sons at TimeLine Theatre, Dead End (Jeff Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role) at Griffin Theatre, Book of Days (After Dark Award for Best Actress in a Principal Role) and The Seagull at Raven Theatre and understudying in Dead Man's Cell Phone at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Regional credits include In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at Actors Theatreof Louisville and Milwaukee Repertory, The Glass Menagerie at Vandal Theatre Lab and Doubt and A Christmas Carol at Indiana Repertory Theatre. Recent films include Where We Started, Of Minor Prophets and Blur Circle. Vander Broek has appeared on Chicago Fire and will appear in the upcoming NBC pilot Love is a Four Letter Word.

Lindsay Stock (Kelly Durst) makes her Goodman debut. Her Chicago credits include Sketchbook 15 with Collaboraction, Ladies Night of the Living Dead with Random Acts at the Chicago Fringe Festival, EL Stories and Art on Track with Waltzing Mechanics, as well as staged readings and workshops with The Gift Theatre, Chicago Dramatists and Pride Films and Plays. Television credits include Chicago P.D.

Ty Olwin (Kyle) makes his Goodman debut. His Chicago credits include East of Eden, Russian Transport and Lord of the Flies at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Brilliant Adventures at Steep Theatre Company; Season on the Line at The House Theatre of Chicago; Vieux Carre at Raven Theatre and Jackalope Theatre Company's Living Newspaper Festival 2013. Television credits include Crisis and Chicago Fire.

Angela Reed (Elaine) makes her Goodman Theatre debut. Her Broadway credits include The Country Girl, Rock 'n' Roll and The Rainmaker. Off-Broadway credits include work with the Keen Company, Mint Theater, TACT and Classic Stage Company. Regional credits include As You Like It and Short Plays by Thornton Wilder (Center Stage); Broken Glass (Westport Country Playhouse); The Whale, After Ashley and Map of Heaven (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); Time Stands Still (Pittsburgh City Theatre); and Rabbit Hole (Cleveland Play House). Television credits include Girls, Daredevil, Shades of Blue, The Blacklist, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Third Watch.

Ann Whitney (Joanne) returns to the Goodman, where she previously appeared in Passion Play, A Christmas Carol, A Little Night Music, Pirates Lullaby and Trojan Women. Chicago credits include Quilters, Driving Miss Daisy (Sarah Siddons Award), The Cripple Of Innishmann, Lost In Yonkers (Jeff Award nomination) and Grey Gardens at Northlight Theatre; 70 Girls 70, Me And My Girl (Jeff Award nomination), Anything Goes, Oklahoma, Eleanor, Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? (Jeff Award nomination), Little Women and My Fair Lady at Marriott Theatre; On Golden Pond and Arsenic and Old Lace at Drury Lane Theatre; A Delicate Balance and James Joyce's The Dead at Court Theatre; Inspecting Carol and Stepping Out (Jeff Award for Best Ensemble) at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Pygmalion, The Gin Game, Three Tall Women (Jeff Award nomination) and My Old Lady at Apple Tree Theatre; Freshly Fallen Snow (Jeff Award nomination) and The Ballad Hunter (Jeff Award nomination) at Chicago Dramatists; The Trip To Bountiful at American Theatre Company; Do Not Go Gentle at Northwestern University and Over The Tavern at Mercury Theatre. Film and television credits include Home Alone, Sugar, The Fugitive, While You Were Sleeping, Columbo, Early Edition, Missing Persons and Murder Ordained.

Rebecca Gilman's plays include Luna Gale, A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Dollhouse, Boy Gets Girl, Spinning Into Butter, Blue Surge (all of which were commissioned and originally produced by the Goodman), The Glory of Living, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Crowd You're in With. Gilman is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Harper Lee Award, The Scott McPherson Award, The Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, The Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, The Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, The George Devine Award, The Theatre Masters Visionary Award, The Great Plains Playwright Award and an Illinois Arts Council playwriting fellowship. Boy Gets Girl received an Olivier nomination for Best New Play, and she was named a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for The Glory of Living. She is a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America and a board member of the ACLU of Illinois. She received her MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa. Gilman is a professor of playwriting and screenwriting at Northwestern University as part of its MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage program. She is the recipient of a Global Connections Grant by Theatre Communications Group and an American Scandinavian Foundation Creative Writing Grant for the development of a new play in conjunction with Göteborgs Dramatiska Teater in Gothenburg, Sweden: Rödvinsvänster (Red-Wine Leftists): 1977.

Robert Falls, a recent inductee into the Theater Hall of Fame, most recently co-adapted/directed the world premiere of his critically acclaimed production of 2666 based on Roberto Bolaño's internationally celebrated novel. Last season, he reprised his critically acclaimed production of The Iceman Cometh at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed Rebecca Gilman's Luna Gale at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, and directed a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Other recent productions include Measure for Measure and the world and off-Broadway premieres of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian. Among his other credits are The Seagull, King Lear, Desire Under the Elms, John Logan's Red, Jon Robin Baitz's Three Hotels, Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio and Conor McPherson's Shining City; the world premieres of Richard Nelson's Frank's Home, Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture (his last play), Eric Bogosian's Griller, Steve Tesich's The Speed of Darkness and On the Open Road, John Logan's Riverview: A Melodrama with Music and Rebecca Gilman's A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Blue Surge and Dollhouse; the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's House and Garden and the Broadway premiere of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida. Falls' honors for directing include, among others, a Tony Award (Death of a Salesman), a Drama Desk Award (Long Day's Journey Into Night), an Obie Award (subUrbia), a Helen Hayes Award (King Lear) and multiple Jeff Awards (including a 2012 Jeff Award for The Iceman Cometh). For "outstanding contributions to theater," Mr. Falls has also been recognized with such prestigious honors as the Savva Morozov Diamond Award (Moscow Art Theatre), the O'Neill Medallion (Eugene O'Neill Society), the Distinguished Service to the Arts Award (Lawyers for the Creative Arts) and the Illinois Arts Council Governor's Award.

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