Writers Theatre in Glencoe has announced the final piece of its 2017–18 season will be a new take on Don Quixote, to star Henry Godinez. The theater also revealed full or partial casting for all six shows on the slate.
Quixote: On the Conquest of Self is the creation of Mexican theater maker Claudio Valdés Kuri, cowritten with Mónica Hoth and directed by Valdés Kuri. Godinez, who will play the title role, was the driving force behind the Goodman Theatre’s Latino Theatre Festival, which first brought Valdés Kuri’s work to Chicago in 2003 when it presented his company Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes’s The Grey Automobile.
The Museum of Contemporary Art has also hosted touring productions of Valdés Kuri’s work, including Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati and El Gallo: opera for actors. Quixote will take the fall slot in Writers’ studio space, the Gillian Theatre, running September 27 to December 17.
Casting announced for the new musical Trevor (Aug 9–Sept 17 in the mainstage Nichols Theatre), based on the Oscar-winning short film about a gay teen, includes Ariana Burks (Ensemble), Isabel Kaegi (Ensemble), Eloise Lushina (Mary), Carly Meyer (Ensemble), Jhardon DiShon Milton (Jack), Emma Nelson (Frannie), Reilly Oh (Jason), Salisha Thomas (Diana Ross), Brady Tutton (Pinky), Matthew Uzarraga (Walter), Tori Whaples (Cathy) and Jarrod Zimmerman (Dad/Father Joe/Others); the title role, Mom and others remain TBA.
Writers artistic director Michael Halberstam’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest (Nov 8–Dec 23 in the mainstage) will feature Alex Goodrich as Jack Worthing, Steve Haggard as Algernon Moncreif and Shannon Cochran as Lady Bracknell. Rounding out the Oscar Wilde comedy are Anita Chandwaney (Miss Prism), Aaron Todd Douglas (Rev. Canon Chasuble), Rebecca Hurd (Cecily Cardew), Jennifer Latimore (Gwendolyn Fairfax) and Ross Lehman (Lane/Merriman).
William Brown’s staging of Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten (Feb 7–Mar 18 in the mainstage) will star Jim DeVita as Jim Tyrone and Bethany Thomas as Josie Hogan, with A.C. Smith as her father, Phil; the roles of Mike Hogan and Stedman Harder remain uncast.
The final show in the Nichols is Kimberly Senior’s production of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize winner Buried Child (May 9–June 17), to feature Shannon Cochran (Halie), Allen Gilmore (Father Dewis), John Hoogenakker (Bradley), Arti Ishak (Shelly), Shane Kenyon (Vince), Mark Montgomery (Tilden) and Larry Yando (Dodge).
And the season’s second show in the Gillian, the Chicago premiere of Lydia Diamond’s Smart People (March 21–June 10), will include Kayla Carter (Valerie), Erik Hellman (Brian) and Deanna Myers (Ginny), with the role of Jackson still uncast.
Writers’ latest production, The Mystery of Love and Sex, opens Thursday night.
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