OnStage - Goodman Theatre

January – March 2013
The Personal and the Political:
A Conversation with Jon Robin Baitz
and Henry Wishcamper on Other
Desert Cities
Where the Truth Lies: Memoir
and Memory
A Conversation with Christopher Shinn

January – March 2013
CONTENTS
In the Albert
2 The Personal and the Political: A Conversation with Jon Robin Baitz and
Henry Wishcamper on Other Desert Cities
6 Where the Truth Lies: Memoir and Memory
8 The Cast of Other Desert Cities
In the Owen
9 A Conversation with Christopher Shinn
12 The Individual and the Collective: Social Movements on College Campuses
At the Goodman
15 Coming This Spring: The 2013 Latino Theatre Festival!
16 Insider Access Series
In the Wings
17 GeNarrations: Stories from the School of Life
Scene at the Goodman
18 Season Opening Celebration
Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men Opening
19 Cocktails and Conversation
Celebrating Diversity: The Goodman’s Annual Breakfast
for Community Leaders
Off Stage
20 Goodman Theatre’s Annual Meeting—Kicking Off our WILD Season
New Trustees
For Subscribers
21 Calendar
Volume 29 #2
Co-Editors | Lesley Gibson, Lori Kleinerman,
Tanya Palmer
Graphic Designer | Amanda Good
Production Manager | Lesley Gibson
Contributing Writers/Editors | Neena Arndt,
Jeff Ciaramita, Lisa Feingold, Katie Frient,
Lesley Gibson, Lori Kleinerman, Dorlisa
Martin, Julie Massey, Tanya Palmer, Teresa
Rende, Victoria Rodriguez, Denise Schneider,
Steve Scott, Willa J. Taylor, Kate Welham.
OnStage is published in conjunction with
Goodman Theatre productions. It is
designed to serve as an information source
for Goodman Theatre Subscribers. For ticket
and subscription information call
312.443.3810. Photo of Linda Kimbrough,
Tracy Michelle Arnold, John Hoogenakker,
Chelcie Ross and Deanna Dunagan by Brian
Kulhmann. Cover: Image design and direction
by Kelly Rickert.
Goodman productions are made possible
in part by the National Endowment for
the Arts; the Illinois Arts Council, a state
agency; and a CityArts grant from the City
of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
and Special Events.
Written comments and
inquiries should be sent to:
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IN THE ALBERT
From the Artistic Director
Photo by Brian Kuhlmann.
Why Other Desert Cities?
Few American plays of the last decade have received the critical or audience acclaim that greeted last season’s
Broadway production of Other Desert Cities, the latest in a distinguished body of work by the playwright Jon
Robin Baitz. At first glance, the story might seem to come from the latest issue of People magazine: the
placid Christmas reunion of an affluent, notably conservative California family is rocked by the revelation of
an about-to-be-published, tell-all memoir by the daughter of the family, a disclosure of secrets that threatens
to fracture both the family’s public image and the unexpectedly fragile bonds that bind parents to children,
brothers to sisters. But the wit, humanity and wisdom of the play’s creator makes Other Desert Cities a work
that is all too rare in the contemporary theater: a highly intelligent, savagely funny and overwhelmingly compassionate
portrait of a family struggling to reconcile the secrets of the past with the realities of the present.
My own association with Jon Robin Baitz began in 2011, when I was asked to direct a production of his marvelous
play Three Hotels at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Although I certainly knew of his previous work
for both the stage and television, I had never had the opportunity to work with him or any of his plays, and
during my work on Three Hotels I gained an incredible amount of affection and respect for both the writer and
his work. Baitz is a writer who remains relatively unknown in Chicago, and when he suggested that the
Goodman be among the first theaters in the country to produce Other Desert Cities after its extremely successful
New York run, I jumped at the chance. At about the same time, Henry Wishcamper, the extraordinary
young director who had had such success with previous Goodman productions of Horton Foote’s Talking
Pictures and the outrageous musical farce Animal Crackers, approached me about possibilities for future
productions here, and I found that his enthusiasm for Baitz’s work (and Other Desert Cities in particular)
matched my own. I knew immediately that Henry would bring exactly the right mix of humor and drama to this
production, and that he would put together a powerhouse cast to bring Baitz’s words and characters to life.
Although Other Desert Cities deals with a very specific family caught in a very specific situation, its brilliance
lies in part in its ability to connect with each of us, no matter what our family backgrounds or relationships
might be. It is a rich, rewarding and powerful piece of theater—and one that I am very pleased to include in
our 2012/2013 Season.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
1

IN THE ALBERT
The Personal and the Political:
A Conversation with Jon Robin Baitz and
Henry Wishcamper on Other Desert Cities
Jon Robin Baitz
Other Desert Cities playwright Jon Robin Baitz makes his
Goodman debut this January—but he is already well-known to
regional theater, Broadway and Hollywood audiences for his psychologically
rich plays and the television show Brothers & Sisters,
which he created and oversaw during its five-year run on ABC.
Baitz’s stage work includes The Film Society, a 1987 off-Broadway
hit that starred Nathan Lane, The End of the Day, The Substance
of Fire, Three Hotels and the Pulitzer Prize–nominated The Fair
Country, among many others.
In 2011, he made his Broadway debut
with Other Desert Cities. The play chronicles
a particularly dysfunctional Christmas
Eve with the Wyeth family in Palm
Springs, California, when the middleaged
daughter, Brooke, arrives with the
manuscript of her soon-to-be-published
memoir, which threatens to blow open an
old family secret. Adding to the tension
are the family members’ disparate political
perspectives—the parents, Lyman and
Polly, are long-time Republicans, while
the rest of the family is passionately
liberal. Other Desert Cities’ Broadway
run was enormously successful, and was
Henry Wishcamper
a Pulitzer Prize finalist and received a
Tony nomination for Best Play.
The Goodman’s production will be
freshly interpreted by newly appointed
Artistic Associate Henry Wishcamper,
who directed Animal Crackers in the
2009/2010 Season, and will feature
a powerhouse cast of Chicago-based
actors. A few weeks before rehearsals
began, Henry spoke with Jon Robin
Baitz about the play.
Henry Wishcamper: What was your
initial inspiration for Other Desert Cities?
Jon Robin Baitz: Initially, I was interested
in all of the interconnected impasses
that had occurred in American life and
my own at the same time. Culturally
in the time period—the play starts in
2004—the smoke was starting to clear
from the first moments of a long war,
and sides were very vividly drawn in
the country. There was a sense that
there had been a sea change within
the conservative movement and that
there was a kind of nostalgia for the old
Republicans—Reagan Republicans, and
prior to that, Eisenhower Republicans.
This new kind of conservatism is fascinating
to me. It seems to be very
aggressive and involve a lot of new
language like “preemptive” and “unilateralism.”
And I wondered how that had
happened and I also wondered how the
old Republicans were reacting to it.
At the same time I was involved in
figuring out my own relationship with
California, which is my natural habitat—
but one that I don’t have a very peaceful
relationship with—and I started to see
this play. The Palm Springs in the play
is a kind of battleground, but a battleground
at the end of America, where all
the promise of the West has been frozen
in time. There were these anachronistic
Americans living in a kind of cinematic
library of old Hollywood movies, old
versions of Western success. They were
flitting around in my head, as was my
own increasing anxiety about the role
of the writer in the lives of others, and
the responsibility that a writer has to
himself and the people he loves. I had
recently created and left a TV show—
Brothers & Sisters—in Los Angeles,
and sworn never to go back to that life,
and I thought I’d try and do some of the
things that Brothers & Sisters would
2

not permit me to do: to write about the
family as a narrative, and a certain kind
of privileged America which is acknowledged
in the play.
HW: I’m curious to hear you talk about
the members of the family but also the
central impasse in which we find the
family when the play begins.
JRB: Lyman is a kind of lionesque
benign patriarch who appears to be
profoundly affable—a peacemaker,
a diplomat, slightly opaque, slightly
befuddled. But that may very well be
a defense mechanism, a mask even;
he’s a very practiced actor. Like many
fathers he loves his children in ways
that sometimes shock even him. He
especially worries about his oldest
daughter, Brooke, who’s exiled herself
from the West much like I did; moved
out to Sag Harbor much as I did; has
written professionally, been a novelist,
and has dried up, much as I occasionally
have; has suffered from serious
Synopsis
Other Desert Cities transports us to Christmas Eve, 2004, in the Palm Springs mansion
of Lyman and Polly Wyeth, two old-guard Hollywood Republicans. For the holiday
they’re hosting their son, Trip, a laid-back Hollywood producer; their daughter,
Brooke, a middle aged liberal writer with a history of depression; and Polly’s sister,
Silda, a liberal former screenwriter recently released from rehab. When Brooke
arrives she announces that she has brought the manuscript of her soon-to-be-published
memoir—a book that portrays her parents in an unflattering light and threatens
to expose a long-buried family secret. When the family members discover the
book’s contents a full-on battle between Brooke and her parents erupts, as deepseated
issues are dredged to the surface and the characters are forced to grapple
with the consequences of the choices they made in the distant past.
clinical depression much as I have;
and is burdened by the memory of her
older brother’s suicide when they were
teenagers. And this has caused her a
lifetime’s worth of agony and a sense of
loss and betrayal. Her ability to function
over the years has dwindled and she’s
been hospitalized. When we meet her,
she’s regained buoyancy and has just
completed a new book that the family
thinks is a novel, but of course is actually
a memoir. She’s come to announce
this book and ask for her parents’
approval before it’s published.
This brings us to Polly, the matriarch of
the family. There are ways in which she
mirrors Nancy Reagan, the Annenbergs
and the old California conservatives.
She’s modeled her life with a kind of rigorous
combination of discipline and certitude.
She’s a realist, and she’s fiercely
dedicated to her family’s survival.
Trip, the surviving son, who is younger
than Brooke, has found a way to survive:
to go with the flow. His overarching
dogma consists of “let it go, it’s
California, it’s all fine.” He has become
a producer of TV game shows, he’s
steeped in pop culture and fornication,
and he’s constantly being called
upon to make peace between Polly
and Brooke. And the other character is
Polly’s troublemaking sister, Silda, also
a writer. She is as much a liberal as
Polly is a conservative, and they have a
volatile relationship but one that’s built
out of love.
LEFT: President-elect Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy
with Walter and Leonore Annenberg in Palm Springs in
November, 1980. Ron Edmonds / Copyright Bettmann/
Corbis / AP Images
3

IN THE ALBERT
And thus you have this fragmentation
that reverberates throughout the piece.
I strive to find the exact point in a narrative
where the personal and the political
intersect perfectly, because I find
the two things completely inseparable.
America is currently in a giant political
debate, and you see a kind of war going
on that’s actually a very old war. I’m trying
to mirror that in the play. Our elections
are about the soul of this country,
which is what makes them so harrowing.
It’s like every four years there’s
open heart surgery here, and having had
heart surgery I can’t conceive of doing it
again and again throughout one’s life. I
see the country as really broken, much
as the family in the play is breaking.
And I think the undercurrent of the play
is that the civility that exists in the old
guard GOP, which is even reflected in
the differences between Bush 41 and
Bush 43, have resulted in what is as
close to a conceptual civil war that you
can get.
HW: There’s a debate that happens in
this family about what truth is and its
role in the larger questions that they’re
debating. It particularly gets tossed
around when people are talking about
what a writer’s responsibility is to herself,
but also to the people that she’s
writing about. Could you talk a little bit
about that?
JRB: Joan Didion famously said that
writers are always betraying somebody,
which is a very funny and mostly true
epigram. For me it’s always very important
to have authorial credibility and
create characters that are dimensional
and recognizable. I take pride in not
truly understanding anything other than
all the shades of gray: I don’t know
“I think the only thing I’ve really
learned is that my flawed vision
of my own little life is actually
quite dangerous.”
—Jon Robin Baitz
anything about black and white but am
obsessed with gray. I’ve always written
very closely from my own experiences
and attempted to reconstruct events,
but some of those plays were written by
a younger playwright who lacked selfcriticism.
In some ways I’m trying to
take an accounting in this play of some
of what I’ve done over the years.
I actually like not being a young writer
any longer. I feel tempered because I
started so young, getting my first play
produced in ’84 or ’85. I think the
only thing I’ve really learned is that my
flawed vision of my own little life is
actually quite dangerous. I have to take
responsibility for it and continue to write
knowing that someone has to gather
the chaos together and write these little
incremental bits of memory and of emotion
into a thing called a narrative so
that some part of life makes a tiny bit
more sense.
HW: What is your connection to the
Goodman?
JRB: I think my connection to the
Goodman really begins with a growing
relationship with Bob Falls, who
directed my play Three Hotels at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival last year.
We had been talking for years about
working together and finally we got to.
It was a bit like meeting a long-lost
slightly older brother. I completely fell in
love with him: his enthusiasm, his passion
and his vigorous and inexhaustible
love for the theater. I haven’t really had
a home in Chicago, and so it seemed
to me that this was the beginning of a
beautiful relationship. You don’t necessarily
want to work in New York all of
the time or start plays only in New York.
My experience with Chicago is that it’s
the great American city and magical
in a very concrete way. I’m excited by
the opportunity to find new and different
themes and manifestations of older
themes in the work that are approached
by an utterly new group of artists. I love
actors and I’m one of those playwrights
Featured Sponsor:
Northern Trust
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aligned its efforts with guiding principles of service,
expertise and integrity. We are dedicated
not only to meeting the needs of our clients and
shareholders, but also serving as a responsible
corporate citizen through a commitment to the
communities in which we live and work. We are
proud to be counted among Goodman Theatre’s
loyal supporters, and thank this important
organization for helping to enrich the lives of
so many.”
-David W. Fox, Executive Vice President and
Head of Americas, Northern Trust, Goodman
Trustee
4

LEFT: Rachel Griffiths and Thomas Sadowski in the
Broadway production of Other Desert Cities. Sara Krulwich/
The New York Times/Redux
JRB: It’s a volatile combination in a
good way, and I’m very curious about
the chemical reactions between this
particular bit of theater and a Chicago
audience. My only experience thus far
was with a group of New Yorkers and
occasionally some tourists who wanted
to go see a straight play on Broadway.
There’s a kind of litmus test for just how
universal a play is. I just got a letter
from a theater company in Turkey who
wanted to do Other Desert Cities, and
I wrote to them and asked how they
thought this play relates to Turkish life?
And frankly, their answer was the thing
that most relieved me. They said, “We
don’t, we just want to see if it does.”
That was a great answer.
who actually writes plays because I like
being around them. I love their undervalued
bravery and their willingness to
experience and feel things. I love their
ability to pretend in a kind of madness
to be something else or someone else,
and do so out of a strange, suffering
generosity. You know, we have a cast of
highly, highly accomplished American
actors, whom I love spending time with
and getting to know, and I really do
believe that building an informal company
of actors is an important part of what
it means to be a playwright. So the
more good actors I know from different
places, the better it makes me able to
imagine a new play and a new character.
It’s all part of a learning experience
for a playwright. I want to see what
these people do: I’ve seen most of them
before, and watching an actor identify
and invent and translate an emotional
secret into something palpable is stunning
to me. So I want to meet new
actors and a new director, and build
those relationships. I know I would have
been happier in a time where there were
big repertory companies and I could
steep myself in creating pieces for a
specific group of actors.
HW: I think that there’s something
exciting about the way theater gets
made in Chicago and the way artists
make a living and apply their trade.
With this particular play, the depth and
the richness of the characters and the
volatility underneath this personal and
American story feels like a really exciting
combination to me.
Featured Sponsor:
Mayer Brown
“Anyone who understands the intellectual and
emotional riches that great theater brings knows
what a treasure we have in Goodman Theatre.
I’m pleased to represent Mayer Brown in supporting
the Goodman and in helping to underwrite
Other Desert Cities.”
-Elizabeth A. Raymond, Partner, Mayer Brown
LLP, Goodman Trustee
Individual Season
Sponsors/Major
Contributors
Goodman Theatre is grateful to these individuals
for their outstanding support of the 2012/2013
Season.
The Edith-Marie Appleton Foundation/Albert
and Maria Goodman
Julie and Roger Baskes
Ruth Ann M. Gillis and Michael J. McGuinnis
Principal Major Sponsors
Patricia Cox
Sondra and Denis Healy/Turtle Wax, Inc.
Carol Prins and John H. Hart
Alice Rapoport and Michael Sachs/Sg2
Merle Reskin
Leadership Major Sponsors
Commitments as of December 10, 2012
5

IN THE ALBERT
Where the Truth Lies:
Memoir and Memory
By Neena Arndt
“How often do we tell our own life
story? How often do we adjust, embellish,
make sly cuts? And the longer life
goes on, the fewer are those around to
challenge our account, to remind us
that our life is not our life, merely the
story we have told about our life. Told to
others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”
–Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
In Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities,
Brooke Wyeth arrives at her parents’
Palm Springs mansion for the holidays.
In her baggage is a draft of her soon-tobe-published
book, a tell-all memoir that
dissects her parents’ relationship with
her older brother, a leftist activist who
was implicated in a bombing decades
earlier. Brooke, a gifted writer who loves
her parents but thinks poorly of their
right-wing political views, has suffered
from depression that has prevented her
from writing for several years, but writing
this personal story has unmuted her
voice. She gains strength from telling the
truth about her family—but her parents
question whether Brooke’s truths are
objective truths or merely her garbled,
biased understanding of the events of
her youth. Her mother, Polly, points out
that, “you may of course write whatever
you like, but the ice gets thin when it
involves we the living. We, the living,
would like to go out gracefully.”
While novels spring primarily from
imagination and non-fiction writing relies
on research as its foundation, memoirs
depend heavily on memory, personal
perception and interpretation of events.
But there are at least two sides to every
story—interpretation is subjective and
memory is unreliable, malleable and
slippery. And while events might occur
at random, we long to connect our own
dots, creating narratives from the scattershot
of our lives. To what extent,
then, are memoirs accurate? Is accuracy
a reasonable expectation? Do other
people get a say in our memories?
In the past decade, countless incidents
of memoir forgery have surfaced; examples
include Herman Rosenblat’s Angel
at the Fence, the touching tale of a
young girl passing him food through the
barbed wire of his concentration camp,
and Matt McCarthy’s Odd Man Out,
in which he describes his misadventures
on a minor league baseball team.
Evidence suggests that neither story is
entirely true. But while these authors
may have been deliberately deceitful,
their stories both sprang from objective
“...you may of course write whatever
you like, but the ice gets thin when it
involves we the living. We, the living,
would like to go out gracefully.”
—Polly, Other Desert Cities
LEFT: Herman Rosenblat and his wife, Rosa, the subject
of his forged memoir, Angel at the Fence. AP Photo/J.
Pat Carter.
truth. Rosenblat, indeed, survived the
Holocaust in a concentration camp,
and McCarthy, without a doubt, played
for the Provo Angels. Because the
stories rely on people accurately reporting
incidents that happened years or
decades ago, teasing out the truth from
lies proves difficult. And could it be possible
that, rather than being liars, these
authors truly believe they remember
incidents that never occurred?
Since the early twentieth century, psychologists
have consistently found that
our minds don’t work like video cameras;
they neither passively record information,
nor play it back the same way they
recorded it. In the 1930s, psychologist
Frederic Bartlett told study participants
Native American folktales with which
they were unfamiliar, then asked them to
retell the tales. While most participants
recalled the gist of the folktales, they
forgot details and provided false informa-
6

RIGHT: Dr. Elizabeth
Loftus delivers testimony
on her research in court.
AP Photo/Jodi Hilton.
tion to fill in the gaps—without realizing
they had made changes. Furthermore,
their retellings often omitted aspects of
the tale that were inconsistent with their
own worldviews: for example, if a tale
contained Native American mysticism,
participants (who were raised primarily
in Judeo-Christian Western cultures)
tended to forget those details, and
remember the aspects of the story that
were more familiar, such as the relationships
between family members. Upon
being asked to retell the tale several
times, people increasingly embellished
certain details and left out others with
each repetition. Each participant told
his or her own version of the folktale,
a version shaped both by imperfect
memory and preexisting worldviews.
Since then, numerous studies have bolstered
Bartlett’s findings. Preeminent
psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has conducted
research on memory for more
than 40 years, focusing particularly on
the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
Memories, she has found, are vulnerable
creatures, subject to suggestion and
outside input that occurs after the event
in question has ended. Loftus showed
study participants an image of a car near
a yield sign, then gave them a written
description of the picture they’d seen.
Some descriptions contained misinformation—they
stated that the car was at a
stop sign. Those participants with faulty
descriptions were likely to state that
the car had indeed been at a stop sign.
While this error had no consequences in
a laboratory setting, in the real world the
consequences can be dire. As a consultant
on hundreds of court cases, Loftus
counsels legal professionals on when and
how to use eyewitness testimony—and
when to discount it.
When a writer pens a memoir, then,
what story is she or he telling?
Psychologist and writer Lauren Slater
tackles the question in her book Lying.
Slater explains, “There is only one kind
of memoir I can see to write, and that’s
a slippery, playful, impish, exasperating
text, shaped, if it could be, like a question
mark.” She writes about suffering
from epilepsy since age 10, enduring frequent
seizures and smelling nonexistent
scents. She describes receiving therapy
from nuns and learning to ice skate. She
recounts, with precise detail, succumbing
to and overcoming her illness. But
Slater explains unapologetically along
the way that we, the readers, shouldn’t
take her too literally. Her truths are
metaphorical: they reflect her subjective
experience, rather than the literal events
of her life. She might, or might not, have
ever had epilepsy at all.
Slater’s evasion of fact is purposeful
and transparent; her purpose is to raise
questions about the nature of truth and
lying. But her lies vary only in degree
from memoirs which purport to be truthful.
In Other Desert Cities, is Brooke’s
viewpoint more truthful than that of her
parents? Is the ice, indeed, thin when a
memoir involves people who are still living,
whose reputations can be tarnished?
And can we, amid the muddle of our
lives and the chaos of our consciousness,
find any truth at all?
Individual Support
for Other Desert Cities
The Goodman is proud to acknowledge the following
individuals who support the Goodman’s
production of Other Desert Cities.
Marcia S. Cohn
Doris and Howard Conant Family Foundation
Cynthia and Michael R. Scholl
Director’s Society Sponsors
Commitments as of December 10, 2012
American Airlines Sets the Stage for Global
Citizenship
With a relationship spanning 30 years, American Airlines has lent its expertise in “making connections” to
play a vital role in Goodman Theatre’s productions and programs.
American has provided travel for virtually all of Goodman Theatre’s performers, as well as its literary and
artistic leadership. This generosity has enabled the Goodman to continue its ongoing collaboration with
Havana’s Teatro Buendía and has helped it discover the next generation of theater artists that will light up
the Goodman’s stages. American, American Eagle and AmericanConnection operate over 3,500 flights a day
to more than 260 airports in over 50 countries and territories.
This longstanding partnership between these two pillars of the community allows the Goodman to shine in
its role as a cultural gem of Chicago and serves as a reminder of the strong commitment that American has
to the communities it serves at home and abroad.
7

IN THE ALBERT
The Cast of Other Desert Cities
Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities offers nearly everything an avid theatergoer could wish for: a provocative story, crackling dialogue
and five of the most memorable characters to be found in the contemporary theater. For the Goodman’s production of the play,
director Henry Wishcamper has assembled a cast of some of the most accomplished performers now working in Chicago, a topnotch
company of true Chicago-grown artists whose previous work has resulted in some of the most indelible onstage (and onscreen)
moments of the past few decades:
Playing the role of Cities’ matriarch, Polly
Wyeth, is Deanna Dunagan, a 30-year
veteran of such Chicago theaters as Victory
Gardens Theater, Chicago Shakespeare
Theater, Court Theatre and the Goodman.
She is probably best known for her Tony
Award–winning turn as another indefatigable
mother, Violet Weston, in the Steppenwolf
Theatre Company production of August: Osage County.
Appearing as Lyman, the head of the
fractured Wyeth clan, Chelcie Ross
returns to the Goodman stage (where he
last appeared in Landscape of the Body
nearly 25 years ago) from a successful
career as one of Hollywood’s most soughtafter
character actors. Among the films on
his resume: My Best Friend’s Wedding,
Primary Colors, Major League and Hoosiers; plus, he has made
memorable appearances on such television series as Scandal,
Boss, CSI: Miami and Mad Men.
Tracy Michelle Arnold makes
her Goodman debut as Brooke Wyeth,
the family’s troubled daughter, but her
stage credentials include roles at Chicago
Shakespeare Theater, Writers’ Theatre,
Northlight Theatre and Steppenwolf
Theatre Company. As a mainstay for
a number of seasons at the American
Players Theatre in Wisconsin, her roles there range from Julie
Cavendish in The Royal Family to Regan in King Lear to Kate in
The Taming of the Shrew.
Linda Kimbrough’s career has included
roles at every major Chicago theater as
well as London’s Barbican Theatre, the
Provincetown Playhouse and the Galway
Arts Festival. She has appeared in 12
past Goodman productions—most recently
Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby—
and has been seen in such films as State
and Main, Door to Door and Straight Talk. In Other Desert
Cities she plays Silda, Polly’s acerbic sister.
Trip Wyeth, Brooke’s long-suffering, placating
brother, is portrayed by John
Hoogenakker, who won critical plaudits
last season as the semi-delirious Willie
Oban in the Goodman’s production of The
Iceman Cometh. John has been seen in
such other Goodman productions as The
Good Negro and Rock ’n’ Roll, and has
appeared at Writers’ Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and
Milwaukee Repertory Theater, as well as in the films Contagion,
Public Enemies and Flags of Our Fathers.
8

IN THE OWEN
A Conversation
with Christopher Shinn
Known for his incisive, closely observed
explorations of characters grappling with
events beyond their control, Pulitzer
Prize finalist Christopher Shinn was
inspired to write Teddy Ferrara in the
wake of a number of well-publicized
incidents of bullying of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and questioning
(LGBTQ) youth, including the tragic
case of Rutgers University student
Tyler Clementi. Commissioned by the
Goodman and developed in our annual
New Stages series, Teddy Ferrara
explores the contemporary climate for
LGBTQ youth in universities, asking difficult
questions about victimization and
responsibility, and delving into what
it means to come of age in an era dominated
by social media. In a conversation
with Tanya Palmer, the Goodman’s director
of new play development, Shinn
discusses his inspiration and his relationship
to the world of the play.
Tanya Palmer: What inspired you to
write Teddy Ferrara?
Christopher Shinn: In 2010 there was
a string of suicides of gay youth, many
of which seemed linked to bullying. And
for some reason there was more public
attention paid in this period than there
had been previously to these issues. It
is something I’ve wanted to write about
for a very long time. After Matthew
Shepard was killed, I remember I saw
The Laramie Project and thought, wow,
the one thing this play doesn’t dramatize
is the person who was killed. That
was what interested me the most. Ever
since then I wondered when, if ever,
I would write that play—a play that
explores the issues that interested me
back then. And when these issues were
in the news in 2010, those feelings and
thoughts got restimulated in me and it
felt like a really ideal time to explore
in-depth the dynamics behind bullying
and suicide.
TP: I know from our conversations that
some of the characters in the play are
drawn from your memories of your
own college days, but the piece is also
very grounded in college today and the
particular way in which social media
impacts students in that age group.
Could you talk about the similarities
and differences?
Synopsis
Teddy Ferrara introduces us to Gabe, a college senior and the president of his campus’
Queer Students Group. Gabe has a great new boyfriend, fun friends and aspirations
to start a career in politics when he graduates. But when a campus tragedy
occurs, Gabe finds himself inadvertently pulled into the center of a tense debate
that threatens to tear down everything he’s worked to build up.
ABOVE: Playwright Christopher Shinn.
CS: I’ve always wanted to paint a really
complete portrait of the characters that I
was writing about. I didn’t want to write
a play about an issue—I wanted to write
a play about complex human beings
moving through the world. And my task
and my challenge was to make it really
convincing. I couldn’t just write about
myself and transpose it; it really is a different
world today. I remember the first
time we signed onto America Online in
1993—I was 18 years old. Kids today
grow up with extraordinary technology
from the time they are very young, and
it is an entirely different social world as
mediated through media and technology.
An extraordinary coincidence was that I
had an opportunity to teach undergraduates
at The New School just as I was
beginning to work on the play. I usually
teach graduate students, but now I was
working with students who were 18,
19, 20 years old, and I was watching
them—watching how they interacted
with each other, how they interacted
with their mobile devices, how they paid
attention, how they didn’t pay attention.
So as I was digging into my memories
of being that age, I was able to measure
my experience and my memories of my
feelings against what I was experiencing
in this intimate classroom setting with
undergraduates. So that became the
tension that drove the play in an exciting
way for me.
TP: Beyond the young characters who
are central to the play, you’re also looking
at the university—the faculty and
administration who are trying to deal
with LGBTQ issues. What interested
9

IN THE OWEN
you about those characters?
CS: Having worked at a university for
eight years now, I was very excited to
translate my own experience not only
as a professor but also as somebody
who has served on committees and the
faculty senate. Also, when I was an
undergrad at New York University (NYU)
there was very little effort on the part
of the administration to proactively deal
with the mental states of the students. I
remember seeking out counseling, really
having to work hard to find out how you
got counseling at NYU, back in 1993
and 1994. I know from my work at The
New School that universities today see
themselves as having a much broader
responsibility—it isn’t just about educating
students, it’s also about taking
care of them. I think there’s a tension
between adolescents, late adolescents
and adults that is part of human history
going back forever. So adults or institutions
have to deal with that tension
when they attempt to reach out to a
population that, at best, has ambivalent
feelings about adults and institutions.
Featured Sponsor:
KATTEN
“Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP is honored to support
Goodman Theatre’s production of Christopher
Shinn’s powerful new drama, Teddy Ferrara. We
have always been committed to supporting the
many magnificent cultural resources in Chicago,
especially its vibrant theater community. We are
proud to partner with Goodman Theatre, one of
the city’s most iconic, internationally renowned
cultural institutions.”
-Vincent A.F. Sergi, National Managing Partner,
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Goodman
Trustee
“When an issue grabs me, I pay
particular attention to what is
happening in my life at the moment
and what that event does for me.”
—Christopher Shinn
It presents extraordinary challenges for
institutions and administrators, who
have very good intentions but run into
the psychological complexity of intergenerational
conflict.
TP: Something I find interesting about
your work in general is that a lot of it
looks at big traumatic public events—
like 9/11, or the Iraq War, or in this
case these suicides—but through very
closely observed relationships and
personal encounters. They don’t feel
like “issue” plays because they’re
very much about the people and their
connections. I’m curious about your
process—do you start with the sense of
the relationship and find the event, or
do you find the event and then explore
how people are impacted by it?
CS: When an issue grabs me, I pay
particular attention to what is happening
in my life at the moment and what that
event does for me. An example is my
last play, Now or Later, which is about
the gay son of a Democratic candidate.
One of the issues in the play is that the
son is mad at his father for not supporting
gay marriage. The idea for that
play was born during the Democratic
presidential primary in late 2007 or
early 2008. The candidates sat down
with Logo, a gay network, and gave an
interview and they were all against gay
marriage. I remember watching Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton explain that
they thought marriage was between a
man and a woman. The feeling I had
was, wow, what if one of them had a
gay son? I immediately imagined myself:
what if I was a 19- or 20-year-old and
I was watching my parent say that?
How would I feel? Similarly, with Teddy
Ferrara, I thought about Tyler Clementi,
who was the most prominent LGBTQ
suicide of 2010. I remembered the
despair and pain that I felt at his age,
and that made me think about the other
gay people I knew at that time and
my first relationship from that time. It
started me on this path of remembering
and thinking and feeling. Something
about that very public issue had become
a spark for me to sift through these
memories from that period in my life.
TP: For this production at the Goodman
you’re going to be working with director
Evan Cabnet. I know you’ve known him
for a long time, but this is your first
collaboration, right?
CS: Yes. He was the assistant director
on my play Dying City, which is where I
met him, but this is the first time he will
have directed a play of mine.
TP: What was it about Evan that made
you feel he was the right director for
this play?
CS: I had gotten to know Evan on a
very basic level as someone who is
10

ABOVE: Michael Goldsmith and Grant MacDermott in
the Huntington Theatre Company’s American premiere
production of Christopher Shinn’s Now or Later. Photo by
Paul Marotta, courtesy the Huntington Theatre Company.
immensely sensitive and patient. Dying
City was directed by a British director,
James MacDonald, so for most of the
run Evan was the one watching because
James was back in London. And we
began a dialogue about what we were
seeing and how the performances had
changed, and I was impressed with his
insight, sensitivity and patience. He was
someone who could watch, absorb and
think in a very deep and sustained way.
Then, a few years later I saw a string
of plays he directed that had younger
actors in them. I was extraordinarily
impressed with how complex, natural
and fearless the performances were
from these young actors. I hadn’t been
in the rehearsal rooms so I didn’t know
exactly at the time how he had gotten
those performances, but I felt like his
patience and sensitivity were probably
big factors in getting young actors to
trust him and trust themselves. When
Evan and I began talking more at length
about Teddy Ferrara, it was clear from
the way he talked about young actors
that he had a very particular insight
about how to work with them. He
approaches young actors with patience,
lots of nurturing and lots of building off
of their impulses and their instincts.
After our casting process, I got some
Facebook messages from some of the
actors we didn’t cast. They remarked
about what a warm and inviting and
safe audition room it was, and how
most of their experiences auditioning
weren’t like that. I can’t wait to be in
an extended rehearsal period and get to
know even more how Evan works.
TP: Who are your influences—what artists,
other playwrights, other writers, do
you look to?
CS: Anytime a writer really seems to be
writing somewhere deep within him or
herself, I get inspired. Like the South
African novelist J.M. Coetzee; it feels
like he is writing about who he is from
the deepest part of himself. I also think
a lot of Caryl Churchill’s work has that
quality; even when it’s very intellectual
or formally inventive, you can feel her
psyche being worked through. There’s a
middle period of David Mamet around
the time of The Cryptogram and The
Old Neighborhood when I feel like he
was in touch with something very traumatized
in himself, and writing with an
honesty that remains striking all these
years later. Those are a few names
of people who have that quality that
I strive for, where you feel like you’re
in the presence of someone trying to
communicate the deepest part of themselves
in a clear, accessible way to an
audience. What all three of those writers
have in common is real simplicity
and directness. They have a hunger to
be as direct and clear and convincing as
possible, and that really inspires me.
Individual Support
for New Work
Goodman Theatre is proud to acknowledge the
following individuals who support the Goodman’s
dedication to producing new work.
Catherine Mouly and LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr.
Shaw Family Supporting Organization
Orli and Bill Staley
New Work Season Sponsors
Neil Ross and Lynn Hauser
Susan and Bob Wislow
Director’s Society Sponsors of Teddy Ferrara
Commitments as of December 10, 2012
Target Supports Student Matinees
Goodman Theatre is pleased to recognize Target as a returning Major Corporate Sponsor of the Student
Subscription Series for the 2012/2013 Season.
The Goodman’s Student Subscription Series is a national model for arts education. Target support provides
teachers with the resources they need to incorporate arts education and live theater experience in their
curriculum in order to enhance students’ reading, writing, critical thinking and communication skills both
inside and outside the classroom. Through universal themes, Goodman plays provide opportunities for
students to deepen their understanding of the world and invite them to become more engaged participants
in their communities.
Goodman Theatre salutes Target for its investment in arts education and for its long-standing
generous support.
11

IN THE OWEN
The Individual and the Collective:
Social Movements on College Campuses
By Lesley Gibson
In Teddy Ferrara, Gabe, a gay college
senior, finds himself in the middle of
a campus social movement almost by
default: as the president of the college’s
Queer Students Group he is pulled into
discussions on the experience of LGBTQ
students on campus that pit them against
the administration, even though all sides
believe they have the best interest of the
students at heart. What unfolds brings
to light a picture of the complex nature
of new social movements on campuses
and reveals the delicate balance that universities
face between allowing students
freedom of expression while maintaining
a peaceful environment.
College students in the United States
have long used organized movements
as a means of expression and protest.
While the mention of student movements
usually evokes a collage of images from
the protests of the turbulent 1960s—
long-haired students raging against the
government, war and blatant discrimination
policies as they worked to tear
them down—even before that era college
campuses were a ripe breeding ground
for social movements, with American
students actively engaged in protests on
campuses as far back as the Civil War.
Student movements that organized to
speak out against economic, global and
military issues were a permanent (if primarily
ineffective) presence on campuses
throughout the first half of the twentieth
century, laying the groundwork for generations
of students to come.
But the 1960s would forever alter
the role of student protests in affecting
change in America. By the middle
of the century the college population
had changed dramatically: enrollment
skyrocketed from four percent of the
college-aged population in 1900 to
almost 35 percent by 1970. The student
body became more diverse—economically
and racially, with a greater gender
balance—than ever before. Unlike the
youth of earlier decades, who entered
the workforce straight out of high school
(or much sooner), young people in the
1960s spent a greater amount of time
confined with one another in the sheltered
world of the educational system,
pondering the intellectual and political
issues of the time while developing the
relationships that would serve as the
building blocks for collective action. As
a result, many of their social movements
reflected a growing cultural gap between
the younger, more educated generation
and their elders, and focused on issues
of immediate relevance to students
themselves. While the protests of their
parents’ generation had always run in
tandem with the collective adult move-
Above: The University of Michigan chapter of Students
for a Democratic Society protesting the Vietnam War.
Copyright Bettmann/Corbis / AP Images
12

The young are particularly likely to be drawn into a movement
that represents an unconventional or unexplored aspect of
their identity, and these types of social identity movements
thrive on college campuses where self-discovery and freedom
of expression are paramount.
ments of their time, like advocating for
workers’ rights, students in the 1960s
fought for reform both in public policies
that affected their generation, as well
as issues relevant to campus life: they
spoke out against the Vietnam War and
its toll on their generation and pushed
back against restrictions on personal
freedom (particularly for women) and
civil liberties imposed by institutions that
saw it as their responsibility to provide
students with moral guidance as well as
an education. The student movements of
the 1960s achieved mixed results, but
they successfully established student protests
as a permanent tool with which to
achieve social and political change. And
after the turbulent protests of the 1960s
retreated into the history books, a whole
new type of social movement begin to
take over college campuses.
While student movements through the
end of the 1960s tended to focus on
achieving specific changes within an
institution—whether it be a university
or the government—the new social
movements that have emerged in later
decades focus primarily on cultural issues
and advocate for change within a society.
These movements are typically built
around a single broad theme, and strive
to create a cultural environment that
embraces the values and individuals that
these groups represent, with the greater
goal of achieving mainstream acceptance
of a marginalized group or fringe issue.
Often they form on behalf of a group of
individuals with a shared common identity,
like feminists or LGBTQ individuals,
and work to alter the perception of that
demographic both within the greater
culture and within individual group members
themselves. In such movements
the goal is threefold: to clearly define
the identity of their members on their
own terms; to create an environment
in which individuals can thrive as their
most authentic, uninhibited selves; and
to advocate for mainstream acceptance
of new or unconventional lifestyles.
Since the intention is to change the culture
within a community rather than at
an institutional level, new social movements
are often built through grassroots
micromobilization, with recruitment
dependent on social networks and informal
existing relationships among individuals
of the group in question. Usually
movements form spontaneously through
the convergence of individuals with a
common identity, and establish solidarity
as individual members’ own sense
of identity develops in tandem with the
group identity as the collective struggles
to boldly accept itself and define “who
we are” as a group within a society.
Often, the movements are so closely tied
to the public identity of a demographic
that participation is assumed, as Debra
Friedman and Doug McAdam outline
in their essay “Collective Identity and
Activism: Networks, Choices, and the
Life of a Social Movement”:
“Most movements do not arise
because isolated individuals choose
to join the struggle. Rather, established
groups redefine group membership
to include commitment to the
movement as one of its obligations;
the threatened loss of member status
is usually sufficient to produce high
rates of participation. As a result,
the movement is largely spared the
need to provide selective incentives to
attract participants.”
The young are particularly likely to be
drawn into a movement that represents
an unconventional or unexplored aspect
of their identity, and these types of social
identity movements thrive on college
campuses where self-discovery and freedom
of expression are paramount. And
although most universities aim to encourage
self-discovery in students, social
movements on campuses have always
experienced push-back from administrators
as the balance between allowing
free speech and permitting destructive or
distracting behavior on campus is continually
in negotiation. Some universities
implement “speech codes” that define
the terms under which an institution permits
various forms of demonstration and
protest. While these codes are created
as a well-intended tool to limit conflict
and violence on campus, a 2011 study
by the Foundation for Individual Rights
in Education found that up to 65 percent
of the colleges had inadvertently created
policies that violated the Constitution’s
protection of free speech. (Public universities
are prohibited from limiting
nondestructive free speech, while private
institutions are granted more freedom
with their speech codes.) And while
students are free to organize and demonstrate
as they choose, often even peaceful
movements come into conflict with
contemporary university administrations
hesitant to draw attention to any degree
of discontent on campus.
New Work Fast Fact
Between 2004 and 2011, the Goodman’s New
Stages series offered staged readings of 45
new plays. Of these, 34—including Teddy
Ferrara—have gone on to full productions at
the Goodman or elsewhere to date.
Goodman Theatre would
like to thank all New
Work donors for their
help in making this program
possible.
13

IN THE OWEN
LEFT: Students at a gay pride parade in 2011. Photo by
Dan Leveille.
represent LGBTQ students on campus.
This dynamic is on display in Teddy
Ferrara as the university’s president
plans an informal forum with a group of
LGBTQ students to address the campus
environment—specifically, whether or not
it is welcoming to gay students. Echoing
the paternal nature of universities that
students railed against in the 1960s,
he articulates the university’s goals as
twofold: “to educate you and to take
care of you en route to your becoming
an adult.” In the interest of not rocking
the boat (and keeping costs down), he
hesitates to take action on the various
recommendations the students bring
forth, and instead suggests that cultural
change is slow and inevitable—and can
be improved only on a grassroots level
when students take initiative to reach
out to their peers.
But the president’s forum reveals the
inherent vulnerability of social movements
that advocate for individuals
with a common identity: no individual
defines him or herself by a single factor,
and each of us belong to myriad
groups based on our sex, race, nationality,
economic class, religion and so on.
Even though all four of the students and
faculty invited to the president’s forum
self-identify as either gay or transgender
and are in favor of creating a welcoming
environment for LGBTQ students on
campus, they themselves are a picture of
the diversity within the broader LGBTQ
community: Gabe is a gay undergraduate,
Ellen is a lesbian tenured professor,
Jaq is a transgender grad student and
Jay is a disabled gay undergraduate.
And they represent at least three separate
organizations that speak for LGBTQ
students on campus: Gabe is in the
Queer Students Group, a primarily social
organization that he is the president of;
Jaq is a member of the Gender Identity
Task Force, which addresses the needs
of transgender and gender-questioning
students; and Ellen heads the Social
Justice Committee, a group that aims to
promote the broad theme of “diversity,”
with a primary focus on LGBTQ issues
on campus. Though the four have been
recruited to represent LGBTQ students
primarily because of their sexual orientation,
over the course of the play, some of
them discover that their personal values
are incompatible with the goals of the
movement that eventually emerges to
This incompatibility between the individual
and the collective identity reveals the
inherent fissures in campus social movements
that focus exclusively on creating
a better environment for a specific demographic.
Movements often discover that
the building blocks of their success—a
group of young individuals invested in
self-discovery—form a weak foundation
in the long term, when individual group
members embrace aspects of their identity
that clash with the broader goals and
values of the collective.
References:
Morris, Aldon D. and Carol McClurg Mueller, eds.
Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992.
Laraña, Enrique, Hank Johnston and Joseph R. Gusfield,
eds. New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity.
Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1994.
Altbach, Philip G. and Patti Peterson. “Before Berkeley:
Historical Perspectives on American Student Activism,”
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Vol. 395 (1971): 1 – 14.
Lukianoff, Greg. “Feigning Free Speech on Campus,” The
New York Times, October 24, 2012.
Buckley, Cara. “The New Student Activism,” The New
York Times, January 19, 2012.
Support Diversity at the Goodman
Each season, Goodman Theatre highlights its commitment to quality, diversity and
community with its Community Engagement Partners—Donors dedicated to promotion
and celebration of the Goodman’s education and diversity initiatives. Community
Engagement Partnerships are a unique way to give back to the theater with a
tax-deductible gift of $500 that comes with an array of benefits including, but
not restricted to, VIP tickets for related Diversity Night events, direct access to
purchasing house seats and production recognition.
To pledge your support as a Community Engagement Partner for Teddy Ferrara—
including an invitation to Diversity Night on February 20—contact Molly
McKenzie at 312.443.3811 ext. 597 or MollyMcKenzie@GoodmanTheatre.org.
14

AT THE GOODMAN
Coming This Spring:
The 2013 Latino Theatre Festival!
Mark your calendars: the Latino Theatre Festival returns to the Goodman in March 2013! This year’s festival will feature
three groundbreaking works from some of the most exciting theater artists around. For tickets or to learn more, visit
GoodmanTheatre.org/LatinoTheatreFest, or call 312.443.3800.
March, 2013
Goodman Theatre in association with MCA Chicago presents
the Teatro Buendía production of Pedro Páramo
March 22 - 31, 2013 | Owen Theatre
Presented in Spanish with English subtitles
Havana’s formidable theater innovators Flora Lautén and
Raquel Carrió stage the greatest magical realism tale in
Latin American literature—Juan Rulfo’s 1955 novel
Pedro Páramo. The story follows a son who returns
home to meet his father and reveals how one man’s
unchecked appetite destroys both everything he loves and
the town that made him great. Tickets on sale now.
Photo of Sandra Delgado from Teatro Buendía’s
production of Pedro Páramo at MCA Chicago.
APRIL, 2013
The Happiest Song Plays Last
By Quiara Alegría Hudes
April 13 - May 12, 2013 | Owen Theatre
Presented in English
Produced in association with Teatro Vista
At the dawn of the Arab Spring in an ancient
Jordanian town, an Iraq War veteran struggles
to overcome the traumas of combat by taking
on an entirely new and unexpected career: an
action film hero. Tickets on sale now.
July, 2013
Albany Park Theater Project presents
Home/Land
July 18 - 28, 2013 | Owen Theatre
Presented in English
With its characteristic humanity, creativity and
optimism, the award-winning Albany Park
Theater Project ensemble brings to vivid theatrical
life stories of desire, risk, resilience, heroism,
love and hope—as immigrant families strive to
stay together and make a better life in the land
they’ve come to call home. Tickets on sale now.
Photo of a member of Albany Park Theater Project teen ensemble.
The Boeing Company is a Fesival Partner for the 2013 Latino Theatre Festival. Baxter and Blue Cross Blue Shield are Contributing Sponsors for
The Happiest Song Plays Last. The Chicago Community Trust is a Foundation Partner for Albany Park Theater Project’s Home/Land.
15

AT THE GOODMAN
Want to Learn More About What
Inspires the Work on Our Stages?
Discover the Insider Access Series.
Insider Access is a series of public programs that provide insight into the Goodman’s artistic process. Take advantage of these events to
enrich your Goodman experience.
Other Desert Cities
Artist Encounter: Other Desert Cities
A discussion with Director Henry Wishcamper
Sunday, January 20 | 5pm
Healy Rehearsal Room
Hear about the making of Other Desert Cities from the
director himself in this intimate discussion preceding a
7:30pm performance.
FREE for Subscribers, Donors and students with ID; $5 for the
general public. Reservations are required. Call 312.443.3800
to reserve your seats.
PlayBack: Other Desert Cities
Following each Wednesday and Thursday performance of
Other Desert Cities, Albert Theatre audiences are invited to
attend free PlayBacks, post-show discussions with members of
the artistic team.
FREE
Other Desert Cities Pre-Show
Discussions
Before select performances of Other Desert Cities, members of
the Goodman’s artistic staff will host pre-show discussions.
Pre-show discussions begin at 7pm in the upper lobby on
January 25, February 1, February 8 and February 15.
FREE
Double Your Education
Support
Your gift supporting Goodman Theatre’s Education and
Community Engagement programs can go twice as far with
our $10,000 matching challenge. Make a donation of any
amount—up to $2,500—and designate it to Education.
Your support will be matched dollar-for-dollar by an anonymous
foundation until the challenge goal of $10,000 is
met. Your gift helps make crucial programs like the Student
Subscription Series and General Theater Studies available
free of charge to Chicagoland’s youth.
To make a gift, contact Scott Podraza at 312.443.3811 ext.
566 or visit GoodmanTheatre.org/SupportEducation.
Teddy Ferrara
Artist Encounter: Teddy Ferrara
Featuring Director Evan Cabnet
Wednesday, February 6 | 6pm
Polk Rehearsal Room
Learn about this exciting new play in a discussion with the
director before a 7:30 performance.
FREE for Subscribers, Donors and students with ID; $5 for the
general public. Reservations are required. Call 312.443.3800
to reserve your seats.
PlayBack: Teddy Ferrara
Following each Wednesday evening performance of Teddy Ferrara,
audiences are invited to attend free PlayBacks, post-show discussions
with members of the Goodman’s artistic team.
FREE
Looking for a
gift worthy of a
standing ovation?
THE NEW GOODMAN WILD CARD:
4 TICKETS TO MIX AND MATCH,
ALL FOR JUST $199.
The WILD CARD is good for 4 tickets to any
2012/13 production—and you’ll save up to 30%
off Albert single tickets!
GoodmanTheatre.org/WildCard
16

IN THE WINGS
GeNarrations: Stories from the School of Life
The following excerpt is taken from Mary Anthoney’s story
“Drink of Choice,” which she performed at the first reading
of the season for the Goodman’s GeNarrations program. The
GeNarrations program offers life-long learners age 55 and up
the opportunity to craft performative oral history pieces centered
on a theme from a main-stage show at the Goodman.
“My very first week on the job I was taken to lunch at the
Kinzie House (which is now Harry Caray’s). I was brand
new to the big city, and so easily impressed! We were
seated in the elegant dining room, a sea of crisp white
tablecloths and napkins. A solemn, tuxedo-clad waiter
approached our table. ‘Would you care for a cocktail?’
“This was new to me! I had never had a drink during the
day, much less during working hours, and I was caught
completely off guard. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t
even know what would have been appropriate to order.
I covered my naïveté—and ignorance—by quipping,
‘Nothing, thanks, I’m already intoxicated by the newness of
the city.’
“Problem is, I couldn’t use that line more than once. But I
did my research and learned that of all alcoholic beverages,
scotch and water has the fewest calories. That became my
drink of choice, even though the first sip never failed to
make me grimace.”
This season marks the fourth year of the Goodman’s
GeNarrations program, which initially began as a writing and
reading series at community centers throughout the city and
has expanded to include workshops that provide participants
with the performance skills needed to best bring their stories
to life on stage. The Goodman’s Education and Community
Engagement department, along with GeNarrations Lead
Teaching Artist Bobby Biedrzycki, now hold these workshops
prior to every GeNarrations performance.
The first writing topic for our 2012/2013 Season, which was
based on themes in Sweet Bird of Youth, was Stories from the
School of Life. Participants began writing their narratives in
early October and came to the Goodman on October 25, 2012,
for their first workshop of the new season. The workshop gave
participants the chance to use new techniques in the creation of
their stories while also developing performance skills. Goodman
Theatre Teaching Artists Bobby Biedrzycki and Julie Ganey,
who are professional performers as well as instructors, worked
with experienced members of the Goodman Youth Arts Council
(our teen leadership and advisory group) to walk GeNarrations
participants through myriad exercises, including devised theater
techniques in which scripts or stories are generated by collaborative,
group improvisation. Participants also practiced Anne
Bogart’s Viewpoints exercises, which help actors and artists
experiment with movement and gesture as a method of creating
dynamic staging for their scripts and stories. The result was not
only new acting skills, but the collaborative creation of crossgenerational
content that GeNarrations participants used in the
culmination of the training, the final reading of the Stories from
the School of Life session on November 10, 2012.
Next up for GeNarrations is our Family Secrets reading, which
will be performed in conjunction with Other Desert Cities.
Writing for this workshop will take place in our partner senior
centers from January 2013 through late February 2013, with
a final performance set for Saturday, February 23, 2013, at the
Chicago Cultural Center’s Renaissance Court. After that, we’ll
hold a writing workshop for Stories of Ambition and Identity,
in conjunction with our production of By the Way, Meet Vera
Stark; workshops will run from late April through late May
of 2013, with a final reading on Saturday, June 1, 2013, at
Renaissance Court.
For more information or to get involved with GeNarrations,
email GeNarrations@GoodmanTheatre.org or call 312.443.5581.
ABOVE: Members of GeNarrations participate in Viewpoints exercises at the October 25th,
2012, workshop by using their bodies to “sculpt” emotions and abstract concepts.
Goodman Theatre would like to thank the Field
Foundation for its generous support of
GeNarrations AND ALL EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT DONORS FOR THEIR HELP IN MAKING
THIS PROGRAM POSSIBLE.
17

SCENE AT THE GOODMAN
Season Opening Celebration
Goodman Theatre kicked off the 2012/2013 SOMETHING
WILD Season with a grand Season Opening Celebration on
Monday, September 24. More than 450 guests enjoyed the
festivities, including cocktails and dinner at The Standard
Club followed by the opening night performance of Tennessee
Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth. Co-chaired by Vicki V. Hood,
Carol Prins and Corporate Chair Elaine R. Leavenworth, the
event raised over $350,000 to support the theater. The
Goodman honored Sandra P. Guthman and Nikki Will Stein of
the Polk Bros. Foundation for 25 years of outstanding service
to the Chicago nonprofit community.
Special thanks to the production and event sponsors that made
the evening possible: Abbott was a Corporate Sponsor Partner
of the Season Opening Celebration and Abbott Fund was a
Sponsor Partner of Sweet Bird of Youth. Exelon and Ruth Ann
M. Gillis and Michael J. McGuinnis were Sponsor Partners
of the Season Opening Celebration. Fifth Third Bank, Katten
Muchin Rosenman LLP and PwC LLP were Guarantors of the
Season Opening Celebration and Corporate Sponsor Partners of
Sweet Bird of Youth. We would also like to thank the Principal
and Leadership Sponsors (listed in the opening recap below)
and Director’s Society Sponsors Sherry and Peter John.
RIGHT (left to right): Season Opening Co-Chairs Life Trustee Carol Prins and Vice
Chairman Vicki V. Hood with Diane Lane. Photo by Julia Nash. Season Opening
Celebration honoree Sandra P. Guthman, Executive Director Roche Schulfer, Board
Chairman Ruth Ann M. Gillis and honoree Nikki Stein. Photo by Violet Dominek. Vice
Chairman Joan Clifford and Josh Brolin. Photo by Julia Nash. Trustee and Season Opening
Corporate Chair Elaine R. Leavenworth, Suzy Lebold and honoree Sandra P. Guthman.
Photo by Julia Nash.
Black n Blue Boys/Broken
Men Opening
On Sunday, October 7, guests gathered to celebrate the opening
of Dael Orlandersmith’s Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men.
Attendees enjoyed dinner at Petterino’s followed by the opening
performance in the Owen Theatre.
Thank you to the following sponsors: The Joyce Foundation
for providing Principal Support of Artistic Development and
Diversity Initiatives; Principal Sponsors The Edith-Marie
Appleton Foundation/Albert and Maria Goodman, Julie and
Roger Baskes, Ruth Ann M. Gillis and Michael J. McGuinnis;
Leadership Sponsors Patricia Cox, Sondra and Denis Healy/
Turtle Wax, Inc., Carol Prins and John H. Hart, Alice Rapoport
and Michael Sachs/Sg2 and Merle Reskin; and New Work
Season Sponsors Catherine Mouly and LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr.,
Shaw Family Supporting Organization and Orli and Bill Staley.
18
RIGHT (left to right): Principal Sponsors and Life Trustee Albert Ivar Goodman with wife
Maria, Allan Drebin (The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation) with wife Ellen, Board Chairman
Ruth Ann M. Gillis and director of Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men, Chay Yew. New Work
Season Sponsor Charlene Shaw, Trustee Elizabeth A. Raymond (Mayer Brown LLP), Associate
Producer Steve Scott and Scenemakers Board President Lauren Blair (Pedersen & Houpt).

Cocktails and Conversation
On October 2, the Goodman invited Subscribers and Donors to a
special evening to meet the stars of Sweet Bird of Youth. Guests
enjoyed cocktails and a buffet in the Goodman lobby, catered by
Petterino’s. Following the reception, stage and screen star Diane
Lane and Broadway sensation Finn Wittrock took part in an indepth
discussion focused on Tennessee Williams and their work
bringing his unforgettable characters to life. The conversation
began with an introduction by Goodman Artistic Director Robert
Falls and was moderated by WBEZ’s Alison Cuddy. This exclusive
event was offered as a way of saying thank you to our Donors
and Subscribers for their loyal and generous support.
RIGHT (top to bottom): Goodman Executive Director Roche Schulfer and Artistic Director
Robert Falls with Diane Lane, Finn Wittrock and Goodman Chairman of the Board Ruth
Ann M. Gillis backstage before Cocktails and Conversation. Goodman Trustee Bob Denvir
and wife Leslie. Goodman Trustee Kristin Anderson-Schewe, Goodman Women’s Board
Member Leslie Carey and Goodman Scenemakers Board President Lauren Blair. Photos by
Violet Dominek.
Celebrating Diversity: The
Goodman’s Annual Breakfast
for Community Leaders
On November 8, JPMorgan Chase hosted the Goodman’s
Annual Diversity Breakfast for Chicago’s corporate and civic
leaders. Actress Tamberla Perry welcomed guests and kicked
off the presentation, which highlighted the Goodman’s ongoing
commitment to diversity throughout the organization, and in
particular its renowned Education and Community Engagement
programs. Terry Mazany of The Chicago Community Trust, Patty
VanLammeren of the Allstate Insurance Company and Resident
Director Chuck Smith each received a prestigious August Wilson
Award for their dedication to fostering diversity and inclusion in
the theater and across the wider Chicago community. Goodman
Theatre gratefully acknowledges the sponsors who have made
this work possible, including Diversity Initiatives Champion
Charter One/RBS Citizens and Diversity Initiatives Partners
Allstate, Ernst & Young, Exelon, Fifth Third Bank, Loop Capital,
Macy’s, Mesirow Financial and Walgreens, along with the Joyce
Foundation, for its ongoing support of the Goodman’s artistic
development and diversity initiatives, and JPMorgan Chase,
which provided event and venue support.
RIGHT (left to right): August Wilson awardee and Goodman Trustee Patty VanLammeren along
with colleagues from Allstate Corporation, a Diversity Initiatives Sponsor Partner. Terry Mazany
from The Chicago Community Trust accepting the August Wilson Award from Goodman Resident
Artistic Associate Henry Godinez. Goodman Trustee Anthony Maggiore along with Chase colleagues
Francee Harrington and Beverly Meek. Chase was the Diversity Breakfast host. Photos
by Julia Nash.
19

OFF stage
Goodman Theatre’s Annual Meeting—
Kicking Off our WILD Season
On October 3, members of the
Board of Trustees, Women’s
Board, Scenemakers Board
and invited guests attended the
Goodman Annual Meeting, hosted
by Harris myCFO President
and Goodman Trustee Joe
Calabrese at BMO Harris Bank.
The meeting celebrated our hit
2011/2012 RED HOT Season
and previewed our 2012/2013
SOMETHING WILD Season with
scenes and songs from upcoming
productions. Honored at the
meeting were new Life Trustees
Lester N. Coney, Patricia Cox
and Shawn M. Donnelley, who
received accolades for their service
to both the Goodman and
the community of Chicago.
At the Annual Meeting on October 3, Goodman Theatre presented three new Life
Trustee awards, to Lester N. Coney (third from left), Shawn M. Donnelley (third from
right) and Patricia Cox (right), pictured here with Executive Director Roche Schulfer,
Artistic Director Robert Falls and Chairman of the Board Ruth Ann M. Gillis.
After serving in the role for over 10
years, Tom Maurer recently stepped
down as Treasurer of Goodman Theatre.
We truly appreciate his long-standing
dedication to the theater, and his ongoing
contributions as a Trustee.
ABOVE (left to right): Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Immediate Past Women’s
Board President Joan Clifford and Women’s Board Vice President of Communications Marcia
Cohn. Trustee Lamont Change with Secretary of the Board of Trustees and Women’s Board
member Susan Wislow.
LEFT: Tom Maurer with wife Linda.
New Trustees
Kevin L. Cole is a partner in the Chicago office of Ernst
& Young and a graduate of the University of Arkansas.
Kevin serves as the Managing Partner of Accounts &
Business Development for the Midwest sub-area of Ernst
& Young. He is a member of the senior leadership team in
the Midwest, and is responsible for the deployment and
execution of the firm’s go-to market strategy across the
sub-area. Kevin currently sits on the Board of Directors
for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boys and Girls Club of Chicago and is a member of
the United Way Tocqueville Society.
Karen Forté is the Communications Director for Boeing,
and is responsible for developing internal and executive
communications strategy, planning and implementation for
the defense space and security business of the company.
Prior to this, she served as Media Spokesperson and
Chief Administration and Operations Leader for Corporate
Communications. Forté holds a bachelor’s degree from
Northeastern Illinois University, and is a member of the
Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She is a US Navy veteran, and currently lives in Chicago,
where she and her husband are members of several local community organizations.
Maria Holmes is Senior Vice President, Director of
Private Client Wealth and Risk Management for Fifth
Third’s Private Bank in Illinois and Northwest Indiana.
Prior to joining Fifth Third, Maria was the Market Leader
for Citigroup businesses in Illinois. Her career spans the
financial services industry; as such, she integrates the
experience gained from working in banking, lending and
wealth management to support an interdisciplinary leadership
perspective. A lifelong Chicagoan, Maria is married to Dr. Kenneth Holmes
and has two daughters. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Grant Park
Music Festival.
Anthony Maggiore is President of the Middle Market of
Commercial Banking in the Midwest for JP Morgan Chase,
and is responsible for a team that focuses on lending,
depository services, capital markets and customer service.
Maggiore has been an active member of the senior
leadership team in Chicago and has a role on the Midwest
Operating Committee and Illinois Contributions Committee.
He is also a member of the Executives’ Club of Chicago.
Maggiore began his career in 1987 with Marine Bank in the management training
program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration
with an emphasis on finance from the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater
in 1986.
20

Center Stage
Above: Cherie and Ken Rosko
With all of the options in Chicago, why do you
support Goodman Theatre?
The Goodman beautifully communicates the vibrancy
of change that has taken place in our basic culture.
The plays are timely and the actors’ professional
performances wonderfully portray the plays’ characters.
Is there a perk to donating that influences
your giving?
The contribution that we make financially is an effort
to encourage and help broaden Chicago theater
through original and new theatrical productions.
Which recent Goodman productions have been
particular favorites?
The outstanding performances of Brian Dennehy—
Death of a Salesman, Hughie, Krapps’ Last Tape
and The Iceman Cometh. He so accurately brings to
life the characters he portrays with depth of human
emotions and their successes and failures. And Ken
must note that one of his very favorite productions
was Animal Crackers on October 28, 2009. This
performance was our first date; we were married on
May 28, 2011.
Do you have favorite actors and directors who
work at the Goodman regularly?
Our favorite actors are Brian Dennehy, Steve
Pickering and Spalding Gray, and our favorite
directors are Robert Falls and Regina Taylor.
How would you describe the Goodman to others?
The Goodman is the best theater in Chicago,
presenting diverse, and sometimes risk-taking,
productions.
In the Albert
OTHER DESERT CITIES JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013
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In the Owen
TEDDY FERRARA FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
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A New Menu at Catch 35
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Catch 35 has expanded its menu of fresh seafood, juicy steaks and inventive Thai-inspired vegetarian fare for
the winter! Dubbed one of “the most innovative seafood restaurants around” by Chicago Tribune, the elegant
eatery—located just steps away from the Goodman—has been a favorite pre-show dining spot of Goodman
patrons more than a decade.
1/12
1/19
1/26
2/2
2/9
2/16
2/2
2/9
2/16
2/23
3/2
Catch 35’s revamped winter menu boasts lunchtime
classics like the Maine lobster surf roll on a freshly
baked buttered bun, wild Florida shrimp and beef
tenderloin sliders, while new dinner items include Point
Judith calamari, Florida red grouper with lump crabmeat
and ginger chili sambal. Plus, they’ve added six new
craft beers to the full bar!
As always, Catch 35 offers a pre-fixe three-course dinner
menu for just $29.95, and ticket-holding Goodman
patrons get free valet parking. Catch 35 is located at
35 West Wacker Drive in the Leo Burnett Building. Visit
Catch35.com or call 312.346.3500.
21

WHAT GREAT THEATER SHOULD BE
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Become A Goodman Scenemaker
Learn how to get involved with the Scenemakers—Chicago’s premier
young professionals support organization—through exclusive events
and membership at GoodmanTheatre.org/Scenemakers.