SKOKIE, ILL.: Northlight Theatre has announced its 2019-20 season, featuring five productions.
“Next season is both fresh and familiar, bold and brash, the kind of work we challenge ourselves and our audience with, season after season,” said artistic director BJ Jones in a statement.
The season will open with The Mother of the Maid (Sept. 12-Oct. 20), by Jane Anderson, a drama about Isabelle Arc’s journey raising her extraordinary daughter, Joan of Arc. The cast will feature Kate Fry, and Jones will direct.
Next up will be the world premiere of The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley (Nov. 7-Dec. 15), by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, a companion piece to Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. In this play, the servants at the Darcy estate find themselves in a holiday scandal as the Bennets and Darcys celebrate upstairs. Jessica Thebus will direct. The play is a rolling world premiere where both Northlight and Marin Theatre Company (in California), where the play was produced this past December, share the premiere rights.
Following will be the world premiere of Steven Dietz’s How a Boy Falls (Jan. 23-March 1, 2020), a psychological thriller about a newly hired au pair who gets caught up in a mysterious scheme when her charge goes missing. Jones will direct.
Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel (March 12-April 19, 2020) will be next, about a Black seamstress who sews her way out of poverty making fine lingerie for her clientele in New York City.
The season will close out with Songs for Nobodies (May 7-June 14, 2020), by Joanna Murray-Smith, a one-woman show featuring the iconic work of Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and Maria Callas. Bethany Thomas will star, and Rob Lindley will direct.
Founded in 1974, Northlight Theatre is dedicated to promoting changing perspectives by exploring the humanity of theatre and sharing it with their community and the world.
