Casting is complete for the World Premiere of Thomas Bradshaw’s Farcical and Incendiary Mary, February 5-March 8 at Goodman Theatre

 May Adrales directs this Goodman Commission with a cast of seven, including Myra Lucretia Taylor in the title role

 

Chicago, IL – Goodman Theatre announces casting for the world-premiere production of Mary by Thomas Bradshaw. Director May Adrales stages this Goodman Theatre commission, an explosive new play that takes a provocative, wickedly funny view on families, political correctness and the changing nature of bigotry in contemporary America. Myra Lucretia Taylor (Broadway: Nine, Macbeth) leads the ensemble cast as the Jennings family’s domestic servant, Mary; Barbara Garrick (As the World Turns; Broadway: A Thousand Clowns) plays Mary’s employer, Dolores Jennings; Scott Jaeck (The Seagull; August: Osage County) is Dolores’ husband, James Jennings; Alex Weisman (The History Boys; Peter Pan (A Play)) is Dolores and James’ gay son, David; Eddie Bennet (War with the Newts; Twelfth Night) portrays David’s boyfriend, Jonathan; Cedric Young (Bus Stop; Broadway: Radio Golf) plays Mary’s husband, Elroy; and Steve Pickering (The Seagull; King Lear) is the family’s priest. Mary runs February 5 – March 6, 2011 in the Goodman’s Owen Theatre. Prince Charitable

Trusts is the leading contributor to the Goodman’s New Works Endowment Fund. Principal Support of Artistic Development and Diversity Initiatives is provided by The Joyce Foundation.

 Named “Best Provocative Playwright” by The Village Voice and hailed as “brilliant” by The New Yorker, Thomas Bradshaw pulls no punches in his comic absurdist drama Mary. At the height of what Time magazine dubbed “AIDS hysteria” in 1983, college student David invites his boyfriend home to his parents’ house in Virginia, where nothing has changed since the 1800s—including the slave quarters. Confronting hypocrisy and oppression with exhilarating wit, Bradshaw’s work is “likely to leave you speechless!” (The New York Times).

Individual tickets to Mary ($10 – $42) go on sale January 7 at GoodmanTheatre.org. Subscriptions—a savings of up to 45% over single ticket prices—to the 2010/2011 season are on sale now: 312.443.3800 or ExploreTheGoodman.org. Four-play Albert Theatre subscriptions start at $79 and 2-play Owen Theatre subscriptions start at $38. A Platinum Subscription of all six plays starts at $117. Artists, dates and ticket prices are subject to change.

Playwright Thomas Bradshaw’s play The Bereaved premiered in New York in September 2009 at The Wild Project, and was produced at The State Theater of Bielefeld in Germany earlier this year. The Bereaved was named one of the Best Plays of 2009 in Time Out New York. In 2008, two of Bradshaw’s plays premiered: Southern Promises, at Performance Space 122 in September, and Dawn, at The Flea Theatre in November, and both were listed among the Best Performances of Stage and Screen for 2008 in The New Yorker. His play Purity was produced at Performance Space 122 in January 2007, and Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed were produced on a double-bill at Brick Theatre in February of that year. Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist was also produced in Los Angeles in the spring of 2008. Bradshaw recently completed a residency at the Soho Theatre in London, where he wrote his newest play, The Ashes, which was presented as a workshop at the end of February 2010. He is the recipient of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. His plays Prophet, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist, Cleansed, Purity, Dawn and Southern Promises are all Goodman Theatre Announces Casting for Mary by Thomas Bradshaw, Page 2 of 3 a World-Premiere Goodman Theatre Commission published by Samuel French, Inc. A German translation of Dawn was presented at Theater Bielefeld in Germany in October 2008 and published by Theater Der Zeit in that same month. Purity was published by Theaterheute in Germany in April 2008. Bradshaw received his MFA from Mac Wellman’s playwriting program and is an Assistant Professor at Medgar Evers College. He has been featured as one of Time Out New York’s10 playwrights to watch, as one of Paper Magazine’s Beautiful People, and Best Provocative Playwright by the Village Voice. He has received fellowships from The Lark Play Development Center, Soho Repertory Theater and New York Theater Workshop. He recently completed an adaptation of the Book of Job, which was workshopped with the Playwright’s Foundation at Stanford University and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in spring 2009. Job was presented as a Staged Reading at The Wilma in January 2010.

Director May Adrales has directed and developed work at Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Hangar Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her recent work includes Thomas Bradshaw’s The Bereaved with Partial Comfort Productions (Time Out New York Critics’ Pick), Lisa Ramirez’s Exit Cuckoo with Midtown International Theatre Festival (Best Solo Show), Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard with Fordham University, Lauren Yee’s Ching Chong Chinaman with Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and the upcoming production of Tommy Smith’s The Wife. Adrales’ awards and residencies include SSDC Denham Fellowship; Van Lier Fellowship, New York Theatre Workshop Fellowship, SoHo Rep. Writers/Directors Lab, Women’s Project Directors Lab; SDCF Observership, and Drama League Directing Fellowship. She served as an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater for two years. She is a recipient of the TCG New Generations grant and is in residence at The Lark Play Development Center where she directs and manages several core artist programs. Adrales is on the faculty of The Public Theater Shakespeare Lab and received her MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.

About Goodman Theatre

Now Celebrating A Decade on Dearborn, Goodman Theatre, “the leading regional theater in the nation’s most important theater city” (Time), is a major cultural, educational and economic pillar in Chicago, generating nearly $300 million in economic impact over the past decade in its state-of-the-art two-theater complex on North Dearborn Street. Founded in 1925 and currently under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Falls, “Chicago’s most essential director” (ChicagoTribune), and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, Chicago’s oldest and largest not-for-profit resident theater has experienced unprecedented success over the past 10 years in its new downtown facility, welcoming nearly 2 million patrons to productions and events—including 10 festivals celebrating playwrights such as David Mamet, August Wilson and Horton Foote, as well as the biennial Latino Theatre Festival—serving 30 percent more students through its Education and Community Engagement programs (including the FREE Student Subscription Series and other interactive programs) and employing more than 3,000 artists and theater professionals. The Goodman has earned more than 90 awards for hundreds of productions, including the Pulitzer Prize for Ruined by Lynn Nottage—one of 25 new-work Goodman commissions in the last decade. The chairman of Goodman Theatre’s Board of Trustees is Patricia Cox and Joan Clifford is President of the Women’s Board. American Airlines is the Exclusive Airline of Goodman Theatre.

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