Photo Flash: Sam Shepard's BURIED CHILD Comes to Writers Theatre

Writers Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma, presents Buried Child, written by Sam Shepardand directed by WT Resident Director Kimberly Senior. Buried Child runs May 9 - June 17, 2018 in the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe. The Press Opening is Wednesday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m.

On a cross-country trip from New York to the west coast, Vince and his girlfriend Shelly decide to make a stop at his grandparents' rural Illinois home. But when they arrive, neither his grandparents, Dodge and Halie, nor his father Tilden and uncle Bradley seem to recognize or remember him. As Vince searches for answers, truths begin to emerge that reveal a deep corrosion of this fragmented family living in a forgotten America.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece will be newly invigorated for the WT stage by Resident Director Kimberly Senior (Hedda Gabler, The Diary of Anne Frank, Marjorie Prime, The Scene), drawing audiences deeply into the story of a family fighting to come to grips with an America that may have left them behind.

"Part of the Writers Theatre mission is to revive plays from the existing dramatic canon," says artistic director Michael Halberstam "As a company that eschews overly conceptual stagings, the opportunity to look at that canon with fresh eyes is essential to keeping these plays relevant. Shepard's writing has a decidedly masculine perspective and yet, thematically, his play seems to signal the death of the patriarchy, the dwindling of the American Dream and it offers empathic insight into a segment of the population that the mainstream largely ignored, until they made themselves viscerally heard in the most recent election. It is therefore very worthy of revival.

"Kimberly Senior is the perfect director to guide this play into life on the Nichols Theatre stage. She has assembled a superb team of artists to realize her vision. It's a play that ignites her passion on a personal level and fires up her fierce intellectual curiosity. For those who have not seen the play before, this will be a perfect introduction to a fiercely complex and consciously imperfect playwright. For those who have experienced Buried Child previously, this will be a new realization. Either way, expect the unexpected. As she did with Hedda Gabler and The Diary of Anne Frank, Kimberly will find an emotionally blisteringly and thrillingly sharp way to bring this text into the hearts and souls of audiences with absolute present-day currency."

The cast of Buried Child includes: Shannon Cochran (Halie), Allen Gilmore (Father Dewis), Arti Ishak (Shelly), Timothy Edward Kane (Bradley), Shane Kenyon (Vince), Mark L. Montgomery (Tilden) and Larry Yando (Dodge).

The designers are Jack Magaw (scenic), Mieka van der Ploeg (costumes), Heather

Gilbert (lighting), Mikhail Fiksel (sound) and Scott Dickens (props). The fight director is Matt Hawkins and the production stage manager is David Castellanos.

Tickets are priced $35 - $80. Subscriptions and individual tickets may be purchased online at www.writerstheatre.org, by phone at 847-242-6000 or in person at the box office at 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe.

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow

Larry Yando

Tim Kane, Larry Yando

Mark Montgomery, Artii Shak, Larry Yando, Shannon Cochran

Larry Yando, Tim Kane, Artii Shak

Shannon Cochran, Larry Yando

Larry Yando