Casting Announced for Goodman Theatre's 17th Annual New Stages Festival

Rehearsals have begun for the two centerpiece "developmental productions" featured in Goodman Theatre's 17th annual New Stages Festival, a free celebration of new works by some of the country's finest established and emerging playwrights. Cast is listed below. The two plays-Nightwatch by Max Yu, directed by Chay Yew and Layalina by Martin Yousif Zebari, directed by Sivan Battat-are staged in repertory following two weeks of rehearsal.

Three staged readings are presented during the last weekend of the festival, December 18-19: Fires, Ohio by Beth Hyland, directed by Marti Lyons (Saturday, December 18 at 10:30am); Your Name Means Dream by José Rivera, directed by Audrey Francis (Saturday, December 18 at 3pm); Watching the Watcher by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Neel Keller (Sunday, December 19 at 10:30am). In addition, from December 3 - 6, the cutting-edge virtual reality experience Hummingbird by Jo Cattell, created by Daria Tsoupikova, Sai Priya Jyothula, Andrew Johnson, Arthur Nishimoto and Lance Long will take place at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory in the University of Illinois at Chicago (842 W. Taylor, #2032).

Nightwatch and Layalina appear December 1 - 19 in repertory in the Owen Theatre; to reserve FREE tickets, call 312.443.3800, visit GoodmanTheatre.org/NewStages or the box office (170 N. Dearborn).

For "Professionals Weekend" information, visit GoodmanTheatre.org/Professionals.

Since New Stages' inception, nearly 100 plays have been produced as a developmental production or staged reading, which have gone on to productions at 130 different theater companies, in 68 cities in 27 states. In addition, both

Nightwatch and Layalina were part of the inaugural season of Future Labs-the Goodman's newest artistic effort to develop works authored and directed by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, AAPI, SWANA and other artists of color. Established in January 2021, Future Labs is designed primarily for Chicago-based writers who have not had a play produced at the Goodman. To learn more about Future Labs and to submit a project for consideration, visit GoodmanTheatre.org/FutureLabs

ABOUT NIGHTWATCH AND LAYALINA

The cast for Max Yu's Nightwatch, directed by Chay Yew, includes Aurora Adachi-Winter (Bonnie), Stan Egi (爷爷 (Yeye)), Wai Ching Ho (奶奶 (Nainai)), Alec Silver (Leo) and Matthew C. Yee (爸 (Ba)). When 20-year-old Leo drops out of college and returns home to San Francisco's Chinatown, he discovers a secret that's been kept from him: his father passed away weeks ago. To try to cope, he delves into his family's untold past in the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution, redefining everyone and everything he thought was in his bloodline. Winner of the 2019 Relentless Award, this thrilling new play reckons with unknown history and generations of hidden family stories.

The cast for Martin Yousif Zebari's Layalina, directed by Sivan Battat, includes Salar Ardebili (Young Mazin/Yousif), Arash Fakhrabadi (Sahir/Amin), Gloria Imseih Petrelli (Young Layal/Marwa), Louis Sallan (Yasir/Mazin) and Shadee Vossoughi (Karima/Layal). In 2003, newlywed Layal imagines a future with her family as they make plans to immigrate to the U.S. from Baghdad. 17 years later, just outside of Chicago, Layal's life and responsibilities look unimaginably different from what she had envisioned two decades before. Martin Yousif Zebari's surprising new play examines how families maintain their love in the midst of turbulent global and social change. Sivan Battat directs.

The design teams include Kevin Depinet (Original Set Design), Courtney O'Neill (Sets), Izumi Inaba (Costumes for Nightwatch) and Uriel Gomez (Costumes for Layalina), Heather Gilbert (Lights) and Mikhail Fiksel (Sound for Nightwatch) and Ronnie Malley and Eric Backus (Layalina).

To post a comment, you must register and login.