The Goodman to Examine the Ferguson Unrest and Aftermath in Two Plays

A collective of perspectives. A public outcry. The establishment of a movement. This month, two new plays- Until the Flood by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Neel Keller and florissant & canfield by Kristiana Rae Colon, directed by Derrick Sanders-bring a national dialogue to the stage. Orlandersmith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and "one of the country's top talents for solo performance" (Time Out Chicago), explores the social unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of teenager Michael Brown. Colón developed florissant & canfield, which chronicles the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, during her time as a Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit member-including a staged reading in the 2016 New Stages Festival. Until the Flood appears in a limited engagement April 26 - May 12, 2018 (opening night is April 29 at 7pm) in Goodman Theatre's 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre. Tickets ($10 - $29; subject to change) are available at GoodmanTheatre.org/UntilTheFlood, by phone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 N. Dearborn).florissant & canfield appears through April 21 in a workshop production at UIC Theatre (1044 W. Harrison). Tickets ($5 - $17) are available at TheatreandMusic.uic.edu, by phone at 312.996.2939 or at the box office (1044 W. Harrison St, lower level).

ABOUT THE PLAYS

Hailed as a New York Times "Critics Pick" in its off-Broadway engagement, Until the Flood is a "fast-paced, imaginative" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) theatrical experience that demonstrates "the potential of art to reach across cultural boundaries and bring us all closer together" (Theatermania). Pulling from extensive interviews with residents of Ferguson, Orlandersmith creates "a sobering, brick-by-brick portrait of a society still reckoning with racism in all its insidious forms" (TheaterMania), in which this diverse mosaic of voices struggle to come to terms with events that shook the nation. Originally commissioned in 2016 by The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and currently appearing at Milwaukee Repertory Theater (through April 22), Until the Flood continues its journey at Goodman Theatre (April 26 - May 12) and Seattle's A Contemporary Theatre (June 8 - July 8), followed by an engagement at Portland Center Stage at The Armory in Oregon next season (March 16 - April 21, 2019).

West Florissant Street and Canfield Drive-"the intersection of tear gas and teddy bear memorials"-is the setting of florissant & canfield, where a loose alliance of neighbors in Ferguson find themselves hurled into the national spotlight. Fusing music, dance and poetry, Colon shines a light on individual ideologies and documents the birth of a civil rights renaissance in a digital age-and the vanguard of the Black Lives Matter movement. florissant & canfield concludes the 2017/2018 UIC Theatre season.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Dael Orlandersmith (Playwright) is an Artistic Associate and Alice Center Resident Artist at the Goodman. Orlandersmith has collaborated with the Goodman on Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men during the 2012/2013 Season and Stoop Stories during the 2009/2010 Season. Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men was developed as a co-commission between the Goodman and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it was staged in May 2012. Orlandersmith first performed Stoop Stories in 2008 at The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival and Apollo Theater's Salon Series; Washington, D.C.'s Studio Theatre produced its world premiere in 2009. Her play Monster premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996. The Gimmick, commissioned by McCarter Theatre, premiered in their Second Stage OnStage series in 1998 and went on to great acclaim at Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop; Orlandersmith won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick in 1999. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at McCarter Theatre in a co-production with The Wilma Theater and Long Wharf Theatre. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for Yellowman in 2002. The Blue Album, in collaboration with David Cale, premiered at Long Wharf Theatre in 2007. Her play Horsedreams was developed at New Dramatists and workshopped at New York Stage and Film Company in 2008, and was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2011. Bones was commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum, where it premiered in 2010. Orlandersmith wrote and performed a solo memoir play called Forever at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Long Wharf and New York Theatre Workshop in 2015, at Portland Center Stage in 2016 and The Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2017. In the fall of 2016, Orlandersmith wrote and performed Until the Flood, which was commissioned by St Louis Repertory Theatre. Most recently, the production concluded a winter 2018 run at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York, with current performances at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and appearances scheduled later this year at ACT Seattle. Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Yellowman and a collection of her earlier works have been published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service. Orlandersmith attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. She is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an Obie Award for Beauty's Daughter. Orlandersmith is currently working on two commissions.

Neel Keller (Director) is a Los Angeles-based theater director and an Associate Artistic Director at Center Theatre Group, where he helps develop, direct and produce productions at CTG's three venues: the Ahmanson, Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas theaters. As a director and collaborator, he has worked extensively on new plays. His recent productions include the world premieres of Julia Cho's Office Hour, Jennifer Haley's The Nether, Kimber Lee's different words for the same thing, Dael Orlandersmith's Until the Flood and Forever and Lucy Alibar's Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up. He has also directed works by Shelia Callaghan, John Guare, David Greig, Tom Babe, Jessica Goldberg, Nicky Silver and Howard Gould, as well as classic plays by Molière, Tennessee Williams, Moss Hart, Joe Orton and Shakespeare. Keller's productions have been mounted at theaters across the country, including The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theater, South Coast Repertory, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theater, Remains Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Portland Center Stage and Ireland's Abbey Theatre. He has helped develop new plays with many organizations including, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Hedgebrook and The Playwrights Center. He has served on review panels for several national organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kilroys, PEN West and Theatre Communications Group. He is an honors graduate of Oberlin College and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Directors Guild of America.

Kristiana Rae Colón (Playwright) is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, creator of #BlackSexMatters and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. She was awarded 2017 Best Black Playwright by The Black Mall. In 2016, her play good friday had its world premiere at Oracle Productions and but i cd only whisper had its American premiere at The Flea Theater in New York. Colón's play Octagon was the winner of Arizona Theatre Company's 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and the Polarity Ensemble Theatre's Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays. The play had its world premiere in 2015 at the Arcola Theatre in London and its American premiere at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago in 2016. In 2013, she toured the U.K. for two months with her collection of poems promised instruments, winner of the inaugural Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize and published by Northwestern University Press. She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools. She appeared on the fifth season of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. Colón's work was also featured in the 2016 Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival.

Derrick Sanders (Director) is the Producing Director of the August Wilson Monologue Competition and a member of the faculty in the theater department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is an award-winning theater and film director who has recently directed the opera La Clemenza di Tito for Chicago Summer Opera and The African Company Present Richard III and The Island at American Players Theatre. His other credits include the Washington, D.C. and West Coast premieres of Will Power's Fetch Clay, Make Man at Round House Theatre and Marin Theatre Company, Fences, The Mountaintop, Clybourne Park and the world premiere of Beneatha's Place in repertory for The Raisin Cycle, King Hedley II, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Radio Golf, Jitney and Stick Fly, Sanctified, Gee's Bend, Topdog/Underdog and world premieres of Mr. Chickee's Funny Money, Bud Not Buddy, Jackie and Me and Five Fingers of Funk. Sanders' productions have been staged at theaters nationally including Virginia Stage Company, Signature Theatre, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Baltimore Center Stage, True Colors Theatre Company, Lincoln Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, American Theater Company, Chicago Children's Theatre and The Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. As the founding artistic director of Congo Square Theatre, Sanders directed numerous productions and received numerous awards and accolades for his work including several Jeff Awards for his production of Seven Guitars. He was also named the Chicago Tribune's Theatre Chicagoan of the Year in 2005. His short film Perfect Day, which he wrote and directed, has been screened in more than 20 film festivals around the world and has garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards. Sanders received his BFA from Howard University and MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.

ABOUT Goodman Theatre

AMERICA'S "BEST REGIONAL THEATRE" (Time magazine), Goodman Theatre is a premier not-for-profit organization distinguished by the excellence and scope of its artistic programming and civic engagement. Led by Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the theater's artistic priorities include new play development (more than 150 world or American premieres), large scale musical theater works and reimagined classics (celebrated revivals include Falls' productions of Death of a Salesman and The Iceman Cometh). Goodman Theatre artists and productions have earned two Pulitzer Prizes, 22 Tony Awards, over 160 Jeff Awards and many more accolades. In addition, the Goodman is the first theater in the world to produce all 10 plays in August Wilson's "American Century Cycle" and its annual holiday tradition A Christmas Carol, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this season, has created a new generation of theatergoers. The Goodman also frequently serves as a production partner with local off-Loop theaters and national and international companies by providing financial support or physical space for a variety of artistic endeavors.

Committed to three core values of Quality, Diversity and Community, the Goodman proactively makes inclusion the fabric of the institution and develops education and community engagement programs that support arts as education. This practice uses the process of artistic creation to inspire and empower youth, lifelong learners and audiences to find and/or enhance their voices, stories and abilities. The Goodman's Alice Rapoport Center for Education and Engagement is the home of such programming, most offered free of charge, and has vastly expanded the theater's ability to touch the lives of Chicagoland citizens (with 85% of youth participants coming from underserved communities) since its 2016 opening.

Goodman Theatre was founded by William O. Goodman and his family in honor of their son Kenneth, an important figure in Chicago's cultural renaissance in the early 1900s. The Goodman family's legacy lives on through the continued work and dedication of Kenneth's family, including Albert Ivar Goodman, who with his late mother, Edith-Marie Appleton, contributed the necessary funds for the creation of the new Goodman center in 2000.

Today, Goodman Theatre leadership also includes the distinguished members of the Artistic Collective: Brian Dennehy, Rebecca Gilman, Henry Godinez, Dael Orlandersmith, Steve Scott, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor,Henry Wishcamper and Mary Zimmerman. David W. Fox, Jr. is Chair of Goodman Theatre's Board of Trustees, Cynthia K. Scholl is Women's Board President and Justin A. Kulovsek is President of the Scenemakers Board for young professionals.

Photo: Dael Orlandersmith in Until the Flood at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Photo by Robert Altman.

To post a comment, you must register and login.