Opening Tonight: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY at the Station Theatre

Last month, The New Yorker called Lauren Gunderson the most popular playwright you've never heard of. With an Steinberg/ATCA Award for I and You, the 2016 Lanford Wilson Award from the Dramatists Guild and the 2016 Otis Gurnsey Award, and nominations for the Susan Smith Blackburn and John Gassner Awards, Gunderson has emerged as a major force in American theater, so major that American Theatre recognized her as the most-produced playwright in the United States this year, ahead of people like Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and August Wilson.

A big part of Gunderson's popularity this year is Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, which she co-wrote with her friend Margot Melcon. This look at Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice characters and how they might spend their holidays has struck a chord with theaters looking for a warm and witty option for their December schedules.

Urbana's Station Theatre will open their production of Christmas at Pemberley tonight, with performances running through December 16. As they put it, "As the holidays approach, revisit your favorite Pride and Prejudice characters as they gather at Pemberley, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Middle sister Mary Bennet has come into her own as a confident woman full of curiosity and wit. But will her story end happily ever after? A true holiday delight, full of wit, warmth, and romance."

Joi Hoffsommer directs this Christmas at Pemberley, with a cast that includes Dominique Allen as Mary Bennet, Tyler Cook as Charles Bingley, Ashton Goodly as Arthur de Bourgh, Jenna Kohn as Lydia Wickham, Misty Martin as Anne de Bourgh, Aaron Miller as Fitzwilliam Darcy, Celia Mueller as Elizabeth Darcy, and Uche Nwansi as Jane Bingley.

You can make a reservation at the Station site or by calling 217-384-4000. Performances begin at 8 pm on weeknights and Saturdays from December 7 to 9 and 13 to 16, with a 3 pm matinee on Sunday the 10th.

The Station Theatre Serves Up Silence, Science and Lauren Gunderson for 17-18

The Station Theatre in Urbana

The Station Theatre is usually the last to announce its fall season. Artistic Director Rick Orr is wont to make the big announcement at the company party that marks the end of summer, meaning fall shows are just around the corner when he spills their details.

Lauren Gunderson

Last year, the Station made the unusual choice (for the Station, anyway) of including two plays by the same playwright in the same season. For 2016-17, the playwright in the spotlight was Conor McPherson, represented by The Night Alive in October and The Birds in November. For 2017-18, Lauren Gunderson, Manhattan Theatre Club playwright-in-residence, is the one who gets special attention, with her take on Jane Austen in Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley as a holiday offering in December 2017 and Silent Sky, the true story of early 20th century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, in February 2018. You'll notice that both works are not only written by a woman (Gunderson) but inspired by work of famous women (Austen and Leavitt) and they feature women characters front and center (Mary Bennet, the fictional middle sister in Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and the historical character of astronomer Leavitt). And they'll be directed by women, with Joi Hoffsommer at the helm of Miss Bennet and Katie Burke taking on Silent Sky. Bravo, Station!

There's more good news in the rest of the season, too, with lots of provocative and interesting choices that represent something a little different. Here's the full scoop on what you'll see at the Station Theatre in 2017-18:

October brings Will Eno's Title and Deed, directed by Deb Richardson. Eno has emerged as a major voice in American theater since Thom Paine (based on nothing) in 2005, for which he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He followed that up with the Horton Foote Award for Most Promising New American Play for Middletown in 2010. When Title and Deed played at New York's Signature Theater in 2012, Charles Isherwood called the play "gorgeously and inventively wrought, line by line." In that production, Irish actor Conor Lovett was the solo actor on stage, "recounting his past in another country and his present in a strange new one" in a meditation on roots and rootlesness, hope and hopelessness, and how we've all created and used language to try to give meaning to life. Lovett was directed by his wife, Julie Hegarty Lovett, at the Signature, just as the Station's Deb Richardson will direct her husband, David Barkley, for the Station. Title and Deed opens October 5 and continues through the 21st.

Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl is next, directed by Jaclyn Loewenstein in performances November 2 to 18. If a great deal of Title and Deed is about words, Small Mouth Sounds is about the lack of them, as its six characters are attending a retreat where they're not allowed to talk. They may be silent for most of the play's 100 minutes, but they are communicating nonetheless. "Filled with awkward and insightful humor, Small Mouth Sounds is the unique and compassionate new play that asks how we address life’s biggest questions when words fail us."

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley arrives December 6, in good time for holiday entertainment. Gunderson's play (which usually gives a co-writing credit to former MTC Director of New Play Development Margot Melcon) focuses on bookish middle sister Mary Bennet and what happens to her two years after the "happily ever after" her sister Lizzie got in Pride and Prejudice. Mary and the other Bennets are gathering at Pemberley, the home of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy, for Christmas, but often-overlooked Mary, who always has her nose stuck in a book, is not in a romantic frame of mind. Just in time, a suitor arrives -- Arthur de Bourgh -- an Oxford man, someone who is more sure of his intellect more than his heart, just like Mary.

In January, we'll get our first area look at Fun Home, the Tony-winning Broadway musical based on an autobiographical coming-of-age graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. The brilliant (and very, very funny) Lisa Kron wrote the book and lyrics of the musical, while Jeanine Tesori wrote the music. Fun Home won the Best Musical Tony in 2015, along with awards for its score, book, leading actor Michael Cerveris and director Sam Gold. For the Station, Latrelle Bright will direct this "refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes" with performances January 18 to February 3, 2018.

Gunderson's Silent Sky follows, opening February 15 and closing March 3, 2018.  "A lovingly crafted period piece that imagines Leavitt’s inner world against the backdrop of World War I, Einstein’s discoveries and the suffragette movement, Silent Sky is an intellectual epic told on an intimate scale. Bottom line: Heavenly," wrote Wendell Brock for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After Henrietta Leavitt earned a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College in 1892, she worked without pay as a "computer" at the Harvard College Observatory, studying photographic plates to determine the brightness of stars. Leavitt and the other computers worked with photographic plates rather than telescopes because women weren't allowed to use telescopes at that time. Although she toiled in obscurity and never reached any sort of fame, Leavitt was an important figure in astronomy history. She was "the woman who discovered how to measure the Universe."

Discovery is also at the heart of Cock, a play with a simple title that has engendered quite a bit of controversy. When Mike Bartlett's play -- about a man who thought he was gay but then cheats on his male partner with a woman, throwing into question what he thought he knew about himself -- premiered in London, it was called Cock. When it came to the United States, the New York Times wouldn't print the title, so it became The Cockfight Play. It stayed that way in LA, although Toronto and now Urbana are apparently sophisticated enough for the original Cock. In any event, this "comic discussion of identity and sexuality" will be directed by Rick Orr for the Station, with performances from March 22 to April 7, 2018.

The season will finish up with Tracy Letts' blistery family comedy/drama August: Osage County, which runs from April 26 to May 12, 2018. Mathew Green, who just finished up Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime August 12, will be at the helm of Letts' Pulitzer Prize winning play next spring. Although August: Osage County began its life at Steppenwolf in Chicago, its subsequent Broadway production ran for 648 performances and won five Tonys, including Best Play, Best Director (Anna D. Shapiro), Best Actress (Deanna Dunagan), Best Featured Actress (Rondi Reed) and Best Scenic Design (Todd Rosenthal). It may only be ten years old, but it's already a classic.

All in all, the Station is offering a compelling mix of words, wit, silence, science, family and fierce theatrical imagination. For more information, visit the main website here with tabs at the top for individual pages.

Summer at the Station: LEAVING IOWA and BAT BOY

Today may be the first official day of summer, but the Station Theatre in Urbana has already started their summer celebration. The Station Theatre production of Leaving Iowa opened last week, with performances continuing through July 2, while Bat Boy is on deck, scheduled to run July 14 to August 6.

Both shows are the kind of lighter fare the Station tends to look for during the summer months, with Leaving Iowa, a memory play that finds comedy in family road trips, absolutely on target for this travel-intensive time of year. Yes, my family took endless vacations in the car, and we almost seemed to be in Iowa, just like the people in the play by Tim Clue and Spike Manton.

For the Station Theatre, David Barkley directs a cast that includes Jeremiah Lowery as Don Browning, the man whose trip down Memory Lane drives the story, with David Heckman, Nancy Keener, Krystal Moya, Michael Murphy, Krysten Ostrom, Chris Taber, John Tilford, Laura Anne Welle and Kyrsten Ostrom as the family and folks Don sees in his rear-view mirror.

As for Bat Boy... This kicky little musical -- with book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming and music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe -- is torn right from the pages of the most outrageous tabloid you can imagine. Or at least the Weekly World News. The musical tells the tale of a misunderstood kid (or half-kid, half-bat) who grew up in a cave and is quite feral. When he is discovered in his cave (and he bites one of the rescuers) he is dragged out and taken to the home of the local veterinarian, whose kindly wife takes him under her wing. But the rest of the town isn't happy at all to have a strange creature like Bat Boy in their midst, and hysteria ensues. There are serious messages about tolerance of those who are different underlying all the camp and capers, but the catchy score is hard to shake. I saw Bat Boy at least ten years ago, but I can still hum "Hold Me, Bat Boy."

Mikel J. Matthews, Jr. directs Bat Boy with musical direction by Griffin Jenkins and choreography by Whitney Havice. Opening night is Thursday, July 14, with performances at 8 pm through Saturday, August 6.

For information about either show or to make reservations, visit the Station Theatre website or call 217-384-4000.

The Summer Season Starts... Now!

I feel as if we hardly had a spring (I think I say that every year) but here we are, with a toe dipped in June, and it seems summer is here, whether we're ready or not. With summer come some different theater options we don't see the rest of the year. More things involving the younger set, lighter fare, and fun stuff all around.

Starting tonight, Heartland Theatre is back with its 15th annual ten-minute play festival, this year on the theme "The Art Gallery," with performances June 2-4, 9-11, 16-18 and 23-25. For all the details on what kind of art playwrights chose for their "Art Gallery plays," check out this preview piece, including info on the eight winning plays, playwrights, directors and casts. For show times, you'll want to visit this page.

Also at Heartland, June brings auditions for the "New Plays from the Heartland" project, which offers staged readings of three new one-act plays written by Midwestern playwrights, this year directed by Illinois State University professor Cyndee Brown. The winning plays in need of actors are Key Ring by Steven Peterson from Chicago, Good Morning, Miriam by Jacqueline Floyd-Priskorn of Troy City, Michigan, and Pazediv (Positive) by Alyssa Ratkovich. You may remember Ratkovich, an ISU alum, from her appearances in several Heartland ten-minute play festivals of yesteryear. Brown will hold auditions on Monday, June 6, and Tuesday, June 7, from 7 to 10 pm at Heartland Theatre. You can read more about what she's looking for here.

Illinois Theatre, the production arm of the University of Illinois's theatre department, has announced the return of the Sullivan Project, which pairs Daniel Sullivan, Tony Award winning director as well Swanlund Chair in theatre at U of I, with a new play by a major playwright. This time the play is Long Lost, written by Donald Margulies, the playwright behind Dinner with Friends (a Pulitzer Prize winner, also directed by Sullivan), Sight Unseen, Time Stands Still and Collected Stories. Long Lost concerns two middle-aged brothers attempting to reunite after years of conflict. Seven performances are scheduled between June 8 and 12 in the Studio Theatre inside Urbana's Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. For ticket information, look for the green button on this page.

Normal Parks and Recreation's 2016 High School Summer Theatre brings You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown to the Connie Link Ampitheatre on Linden Street in Normal at 7:30 pm on June 9, 10, 11 and 12 and 16, 17, 19 and 19. As they describe it, "Happiness is...Charlie Brown and the Gang!" They're using the script from the 2012 revival of the musical (with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner) based on Charlie Shultz's comic strips and cartoons. Like the cartoons, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown features Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroeder and of course Snoopy, the dog who has fantasies of flying his doghouse against the Red Baron. The cast includes Jamie Keller (Sally), Nicholas Koch (Schroeder), Will Koski (Charlie Brown), Brendan Riley (Linus) Paige Woods (Lucy) and Simmy Woods (Snoopy), as well as about 35 more high school and junior high age actors, dancers and singers. The Normal Parks and Recreation Summer Musical Facebook page has a list of the entire cast.

If you have a hankering to return to the big hair and hot dance moves of the 1980s, you're in luck. The Normal Theater goes all the way back to 1986 for Pretty in Pink, where pretty Molly Ringwald yearns for popular Blane, played by Andrew McCarthy, while driven crazy by weird-but-interesting Duckie, played by Jon Cryer, on June 10, and then to 1984 for Footloose, the one where Kevin Bacon just wants to kick up his heels in a town where dancing isn't allowed, on June 16. If the Psychedelic Furs ("Pretty in Pink") or Kenny Loggins ("Footloose") and Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It for the Boy") are the soundtrack to your life, the Normal Theater is waiting for you.

The Station Theatre opens its summer season July 16 with the vacation comedy Leaving Iowa by Tim Clue and Spike Manton. The authors' website for the play tells us that "Leaving Iowa first premiered at Jeff Daniels’ Purple Rose Theatre, where it broke box office records and received a nomination for Best New Play from the Detroit Free Press. After a year-long, sold-out run at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, Leaving Iowa made its west coast debut at the Laguna Playhouse, where it earned another honor as one of SoCal Theater’s 10 Most Memorable Moments." Performance of Leaving Iowa, directed by David Barkley, will continue at the Station Theatre through July 2.

With a presidential race happening right now, especially one with a demagogue front and center, there could be no better time for Charlie Chaplin's 1940 masterpiece The Great Dictator. Cinema Judaica presents the film on Sunday, June 19, at 7:30 pm at the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign. Chaplin plays two roles, one an evil tyrant named Adenoid Hinkle (the country he's got in his grip is called Tomainia), a caricature of Adolph Hitler, and the other an innocent Jewish barber who bears a certain resemblance to Little Tramp, his own classic comic persona from silent films. The Great Dictator was Chaplin's first real talking picture, making the most of his grace and physical humor, with supporting performances from comedian Jack Oakie as Napaloni, the dictator of Bacteria, and Paulette Goddardas a beautiful young woman named Hannah. You need to see The Great Dictator. Even if you've seen it before, you need to see it again. I'm not kidding.

Schoolhouse Rock Live comes to Community Players Theatre on June 24, 25 and 26, showcasing a cast of performers ranging from 5th to 8th graders. This is the inaugural production under Players' new Summer Camp banner. And what's Schoolhouse Rock? It's a pop-culture phenomenon based on the Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning cartoon series from the 1970s. With songs like "Conjunction Junction" and "Just a Bill," Schoolhouse Rock taught grammar, history and math to unsuspecting kids.You can see Schoolhouse Rock Live with your children on Saturday, June 25, at 1 pm and 4 pm, or on Sunday the 26th at 2 pm. Director Kelly Rosendahl's cast includes Olivia Graham, Jacob Matchett, Monica Martinez, Savannah Sleevar and Matthew Williamson and an ensemble of about 40. To purchase tickets, click here.

As a teaser for its summer season, which starts in July, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival visits the Normal Public Library at 10:30 am on June 24 with something they're calling Scenes and Songs from Peter and the Starcatcher. Tickets for all three Festival productions -- Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Peter and the Starcatcher -- are now available, if you're considering a subscription or individual tickets. The Illinois Shakespeare Festival opens in previews July 5, with performances continuing through August 13.

There's plenty more happening in June and I'll try to catch up with that as we move along. But for now... It's time to start making reservations.

Spirited Meeting of Minds in Scott Carter's DISCORD at the Station Theatre

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord is not what you might call an accessible title, but it does sum up Scott Carter's play quite neatly. In an unspecified afterlife that looks like a plain old room with a table and three chairs, three great men ponder why they're there, if there is a God (or a Holy Trinity) and what the Word of God really means. Each of them, we're told, fashioned his own Bible in his time. Stuck together, they have a great deal of trouble -- or discord -- putting their deeply held beliefs together into some sort of Gospel.

As a Los Angeles Times reviewer put it, this play is "the dramaturgical love-child of 'Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds' and Jean-Paul Sartre’s 'No Exit.'"

Given the idea at the center of Discord, it's hard not to think of Meeting of Minds, the talk show on PBS in the late 70s and early 80s that put together panels of actors playing historical figures. On any given episode, you'd find folks like Attila the Hun, Emily Dickinson and Galileo pulling up chairs, with their discussion guided (and kept entertaining) by host Steve Allen. Scott Carter has given Discord that same feel and energy, with a lot more at stake for the trio he's trapped in Purgatory. They're not just having a chat, they're trying to find a way out. And in the end, faith, truth, fame, fortune, hypocrisy... They're all on the table.

As Dickens, Jefferson and Tolstoy attempt to create a version of the Gospels that works for all three of them, they fall into discord and disagreement right from the start. They can't even agree on what the fundamental basis of God's creation is. Dickens says it's all about the Word, while Jefferson falls on the side of reason and Tolstoy dismisses them both, passionately arguing on behalf of the spirit. By the time each has stated his position, Tolstoy is down to only three words left of the entire Bible.

That all may sound talky or dry, but Carter's script has plenty of spark as it plays out in Urbana's Station Theatre. Director Lindsey Gates-Markel and some helpful captions from lighting designer Jesse Folks define the action nicely, and actors Gary Ambler, David Barkley and Steven M. Keen succeed in creating distinct, pithy portraits of three very different men. Keen's Jefferson is more formal and analytical, Ambler's Dickens is expressive and showy, and Barkley's Tolstoy is overflowing with earthy intensity. If each represents an idea, they're also men when push comes to shove, with regrets, weaknesses and frailties.

It's a neat trick to take something with very little plot and make it seem so active. Kudos to Gates-Markel and her talented cast for mining the conflict and the humor so well.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The original schedule for the Station Theatre's production of The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord called for the show to finish up its run this week. The Station website and its reservation page now indicate that this week's shows have been pushed back two weeks and will take place on Wednesday May 18, Thursday May 19, Friday May 20 and Saturday May 21.

Just to clarify: No shows this week. No shows next week. Shows May 18 to 21. If you would like to make a reservation for the newly scheduled week, please visit the Station's main page and click on "Make a Reservation" or call 217-384-4000 for their box office.

Red Tape/Stage Left MUTT Pairs Director Vanessa Stalling and Actor Daniel Smith

Daniel Smith (L) and Michael Reyes as they appear in Mutt.

In this election year, two Chicago theaters -- Stage Left and Red Tape -- are collaborating on a very political play. Mutt, a new play written by Christopher Chen, is described as a "blisteringly funny satire that skewers not only the elephants in the room but the donkeys too," as it "burns down the entire house of racial cards." Mutt opened on stage at Theater Wit on January 9 and it runs till February 14.

I am alerting you to the existence of this production of Mutt not because of its timeliness, although that's certainly a big plus, but because of its central Illinois connections. Director Vanessa Stalling is someone I met in the masters' program at Illinois State University when she was finishing up her MFA in directing there, while Dan Smith, who plays the candidate on the left in the Mutt poster above, frequently appeared on stage at the Station Theatre in Urbana before he left for Chicago. He also happened to be in an acting class I once took in Champaign. That may not seem like much of a coincidence, but the classes I shared with Vanessa and Dan were more than 20 years apart, so it seemed striking to me.

Vanessa Stalling showed her strong directorial hand on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mrs. Packard,  The Maids, Gone Missing, Pullman WA and Mud while at Illinois State University. She was the Associate Artistic Director at Redmoon Theatre before she came to ISU, and since she left, she's directed Suzan-Lori Parks' The America Play at Oracle Theatre and Circuscope at Actors Gymnasium, continuing to add striking visual style and energy to illuminate complex material

As for Dan Smith... In the early 90s, he played a variety of major roles at the Station in shows ranging from Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Craig Lucas's Reckless, Eric Overmyer's In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe and Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata. He showed again and again that he can be compelling and charismatic no matter who he's playing. In Chicago, Dan has appeared at the Goodman (King of the Yees, Measure for Measure and The World of Extreme Happiness) as well as Victory Gardens (Never the Sinner), the Piven Theatre Workshop ( and Steppenwolf, where he created a role in Tina Landau's Space and traveled with the show when it moved to the Public Theatre in New York.

Dan's role in Mutt is Len Smith, which already sounds like it fits. As you can see in this teaser video, Len is "exciting and non-threatening at the same time" as well as "a mix of every major race in the world." He's a multi-racial war hero who looks like the perfect candidate for canny political operatives looking to score a presidential home run.

You can see a lot more about Mutt at both the Stage Left and Red Tape sites as well as on their Facebook pages and Stage Left's Youtube channel.

Loading Up Your April Basket

April always seems to be a big month for entertainment -- it's when people peek outside looking for shows after a winter spent inside, when theatre companies announce their new seasons and start hawking subscriptions, when TV shows gear up for spring sweeps, and new work starts cropping up at festivals around the country.

First, let's just get Mad Men out of the way right off the top. AMC's amazing piece of television history begins its final season this Sunday night, with ad man Don Draper and his colleagues, wives, lovers and kids taking a trip to the 70s. Watch out for polyester, plaid and a major infusion of facial hair. Where will Don and Peggy and Roger and Joan end up? Given what we've seen so far, happily ever after doesn't seem likely. Neither does Don ending up as D. B. Cooper, but that doesn't stop people from continuing to guess it.

Speaking of new work... I will be making my annual trip to Louisville for Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American plays next weekend. No better spot to wallow in theatre for an entire weekend. There will be six full-length shows, a program of three new 10-minute plays, parties, panels and impromptu discussions. I'll let you know what I thought about all of that as soon as I get back. But in the meantime...

I don't think there is any particular Tennessee Williams anniversary or event that we're celebrating this month, but it's not like the work of this quintessentially American playwright ever goes out of style. Thomas Lanier Williams, AKA Tennessee, was born March 26, 1911, and here he is, 104 years later, with his plays still a hot item on the stage. In fact, from Normal to Urbana, there is a Tennessee Williams Trifecta available this month. You can easily do all three if you have a hankering to compare/contrast, from the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire to perennial favorite The Glass Menagerie and upstart Not About Nightingales, all within a 50-mile radius.

Elia Kazan's 1951 movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire was nominated for a dozen Oscars, winning four, including Best Actress for Vivien Leigh as Blanche, Best Supporting Actress for Kim Hunter as Stella and Best Supporting Actor for Karl Malden as Mitch. Kazan had also directed the Broadway version of Williams' steamy drama, with Marlon Brando, Hunter and Malden in the same roles. There is much to admire and much to chew on in the movie, too, with Leigh almost translucent as poor, fading Blanche, and Brando giving a Method acting clinic as crude, sexual, red-meat-eating Stanley Kowalski. When Blanche and Stanley are thrown into conflict in a tiny, stifling, much-too-crowded New Orleans apartment, something's got to give, and we all know it won't be pretty. This Streetcar plays four times on the screen at the Normal Theater, 7 pm each night between April 2 and 5.

Streetcar on film is a perfect appetizer for The Glass Menagerie, which will be live on stage at Heartland beginning April 9. ISU professor Connie de Veer portrays Amanda Wingfield, another faded Southern belle fallen on hard times. Unlike Blanche DuBois, Amanda has children. But her relationship with theme is just as constricted and unsuccessful as anything Blanche attempts. Son Tom wants nothing more than to get out of the apartment to live a life of his own, but if he goes, he will have to leave his fragile sister Laura behind. Don LaCasse director Glass Menagerie for Heartland, with Joe Faifer as Tom, Elsa Torner as Laura and Patrick Riley as the Gentleman Caller. Performances continue through April 26, with a talkback with the cast scheduled after the Sunday matinee on April 19. For all the details, click here.

The Urbana part of the Tennessee Williams equation is a lesser-known work called Not About Nightingales, directed by Tom Mitchell at the Studio Theatre inside the University of Illinois' Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Nightingales opens April 9, as well, with performances through the 19th. Williams wrote this play in 1938, supposedly inspired by a real-life Pennsylvania case of abuse and death inside a prison. In the fictional prison, inmates go on a hunger strike and eventually riot as conditions become unlivable.

Illinois State University moves far away from Tennessee Williams, into a land of fantasy and folklore with Selkie: Between Land and Sea a lyrical drama by Laurie Brooks, directed by Jessika Malone for ISU's Westhoff Theatre from April 9 to 18. Olivia Candocia plays the mystical girl/seal creature called a Selkie, while Dave Lemmon and Eddie Curley portray the men in her story. For more information, try this link.

David Ives' All in the Timing is pretty much a perfect program of 10-minute plays, combining humor, commentary on modern relationships, and even a few barbs pointed in the direction of 20th century Russian politics. I'm looking at you, Leon Trotsky! Illinois Central College in East Peoria takes on All in the Timing April 10 to 19, with the Ives' collection directed by Rob Fulton, Julie Peters and Doug Rosson for the Studio Theatre in ICC's Performing Arts Center.

Eureka College's Pritchard Theatre is a fairly intimate setting, making it an interesting choice for Tracy Letts' sprawling, messy, dark family comedy August Osage County. There is a very large house at the center of August as well as several generations of the Weston family. Will that fit at Pritchard? Time and Eureka's production will tell the tale from April 14 to 18. Joel Shoemaker directs the Westons and their swirl of family troubles.

The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is big on improv, which means Broadway's Next Hit Musical, an improvised piece of musical comedy, is right up their alley. You can offer your own suggestions and see if the improvisers spin a new show out of your idea on April 16 at the BCPA.

If you like being involved in the show, you may be able to take it a step farther than just pitching ideas out of the audience. You can act, too! Or at least audition. Heartland often uses its annual 10-minute play festival to widen its pool of actors. And why not? There are more than 20 roles up for grabs in nine short plays, with characters ranging from a pair of 18-year-old high school students to a 90-year-old nun. Auditions for Heartland's 10-minute play festival will be held from 7 to 9:30 pm on April 20 and 21 at Heartland Theatre.

Appropriate, a firecracker of a play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, brings its creepy post-Colonial sins of the father to Urbana's Station Theatre from April 23 to May 9. Is its title referring to the verb "appropriate," meaning to steal, to seize, to convert to one's own possession? Or the adjective "appropriate,"meaning suitable or fitting? I think it's the former, given the plantation setting and thhe echoes of its racist past that continue to plague it. Like August: Osage County, Appropriate centers on a large family home. And the Station Theatre is even smaller than Pritchard over in Eureka. How will the overgrown plantation fit? It's a mystery! Appropriate is directed by Mike Prosise for the Celebration Company at the Station Theatre.

Back home in Bloomington-Normal, New Route Theatre offers Black N Blue Boys/Broken Men by Dael Orlandersmith. Look for Black N Blue April 24 to 26 and May 1 to 3 at New Route's new space at 814 Jersey Avenue in Normal. Don Shandrow directs Claron Sharrieff in this one-woman show, an examination of "the captivating life stories of six unforgettable male characters of diverse backgrounds whose inescapable connections tie them together through traumatic pasts."

Digging Out FLOYD COLLINS at Urbana's Station Theatre

Floyd Collins was a real person. He was exploring a cave in Kentucky in 1925, a time when sensational accidents, lurid crimes and freak shows were huge national news, and he got stuck, his leg wedged under a rock he couldn't move. Although some of his would-be rescuers could initially get close enough to bring him a little food and light, conditions in the cave deteriorated and they couldn't free his leg or get him out. But they could ferry info back to the radio broadcasters at the scene who were sending out every detail to homes across the country. It was huge news, a jump forward for mass media, and in 1925, a dramatic tale of life and death that played to Joe and Sally Sixpack like nobody's business.

Composer Adam Guettel wrote music and lyrics to turn Collins' sad story into a stage musical, collaborating with book writer Tina Landau, who contributed additional lyrics. Guettel's score combined bluegrass and folk with classical influences to try to capture Kentucky in the 20s, and it certainly earned its share of fans over the years, with songs showing up in concerts and albums.

Floyd Collins premiered in Philadelphia in 1994, transferring to Playwrights Horizon off-Broadway in 1996, with a cast that included stars like Jason Danieley and Brian d'Arcy James. A 2012 Chicago production at BoHo Theatre was also well-regarded. The BoHo show was directed by Peter Marston Sullivan, who received his directing MFA at Illinois State University, with IWU grad Sarah Bockel as Floyd's sister Nellie.

Bringing Floyd Collins to central Illinois seems like a natural, especially at Urbana's intimate Station Theatre, where Collins' dilemma will be played up close and personal. Kyle A. Thomas directs the musical for Urbana's Station Theatre with a cast that includes Andy Hudson as the doomed spelunker and Celebration Company favorites David Barkley, Mikel L. Matthews Jr. and John Tilford also in the mix. Director Thomas will play Floyd's brother Homer, with Kyle Kinnamon, Grant Morenz, Mark H. Muller, Michael Murphy, Quinn Murphy, Jodi Prosser-Muller, Craig Smith and Marah Sotelo completing the ensemble cast.

The Station's Floyd Collins opens tomorrow, February 19, with performances running through March 7. Check out the Station Theatre website for all the details.

Ring in December with Cary Grant, Holiday Movies and Spectacularity

You don't have to wait till Christmas to open these gifts. Yes, it's true -- the good stuff in December starts tonight.

It's Cary Grant Month on Turner Classic Movies all during December, and because December 1 is a Monday and Mr. Grant has a monopoly on Monday nights, the celebration begins tonight. TCM begins its Carypalooza with a pile of the early ones -- his feature film debut in This Is the Night (1932), two Mae West vehicles with She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I'm No Angel (1933), a war film called The Eagle and the Hawk (1933) where Grant serves as a rival for flying ace Fredric March, Hot Saturday (1932), a piece about the danger of small-town gossip, Suzy (1936), with Jean Harlow, and by the time it turns into December 2, The Toast of New York (1937), a historical piece about a robber baron in the 19th century, and Night and Day (1946), where he plays a very unrealistic version of songwriter Cole Porter. Things get even better later in the month, when the Cary Grant persona we all expect is on full display, with highlights like The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Gunga Din, Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and North By Northwest. Check out the complete listing here.

As if it wasn't enough for TCM to give us all that Cary Grant, they're matching it with Ingmar Bergman movies wall to wall on Wednesday December 3. Bergman movies are in a different universe from the Hollywood fare featuring Mr. Debonair, but serious film buffs need to see Smiles of a Summer Night, the charming film that inspired A Little Night Music, the beautiful and pensive Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal and its exploration of life, death and a medieval game of chess, and the intense psychological dramas Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.

You can also get traditional holiday fare like The Nutcracker ballet, playing from December 4 to 7 in the Tryon Festival theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana. This one is performed by the Champaign-Urbana Ballet with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra with conductor Stephen Alltop.

Also opening December 4 is an "operatic farce" by Charles Mee called Wintertime. This slightly crazy piece about pairs of lovers all descending on the same cabin features a cast of ten, with David Barkley, Wen Bu, Aaron Clark, Nancy Keener, Lincoln Machula, Jeff McGill, Diane Pritchard, Kate Prosise, Deb Richardson and Evan Smith under the direction of Timothy O'Neal at at Urbana's Station Theatre. Wintertime runs through December 20 at the Station.

And on December 5, you can see Live Window Vignettes from members of Playwrights Anonymous as part of First Friday celebrations in downtown Bloomington. These window plays will happen at 5:30 pm on Friday at the Herb Eaton Gallery. Click here to see Playwrights Anonymous's Facebook page.

That Friday is also the day the Holiday Spectacular returns to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. It really is spectacular, with a cast of thousands (okay, at least a hundred) including tappers, angels, wooden soldiers, father/daughter numbers and some fantastic voices, like Bob Mangialardi and Joe Penrod. The BCPA promises "all the blockbuster features that long-time attendees have come to love, such as the precision-dancing wooden soldiers, the mass choir nativity and an all-male a capella group" plus a whole bunch of surprises.

If you enjoyed seeing the Battling Gridleys as portrayed by Kathleen Kirk and Jeremy Stiller in October's Discovery Walk at Evergreen Cemetery, you can see Kirk and Stiller back in those roles when the newly restored Gridley Mansion is opened to the public for a holiday tour. You can read about the historic home renovation here. Owners Keith and Diane Thompson have partnered with Easter Seals to offer this mansion tour from 5 to 7 pm on December 11. The cost is $10 per person, with all proceeds going to Easter Seals. The tour of the premises at 301 East Grove Street will include work from local artists, info from Lincoln experts and light refreshments.

And that's just some of the entertainment available to keep you in the holiday spirit.

Upcoming in August

August is a bit calmer month for local entertainment, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to keep you busy.

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival continues through August 9, with their all-male Much Ado About Nothing at 7:30 pm in the theater on the grounds of the Ewing Cultural Center on Tuesday the 5th and Thursday the 7th and in the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts at 1:30 pm on Saturday the 9th; Antony and Cleopatra at Ewing at 7:30 pm on Wednesday the 6th and 8 pm on Saturday the 9th and inside the CPA at 1:30 pm on the 8th; and the not-written-by-Shakespeare-but-featuring-him-as-a-character play Elizabeth Rex, written by Canadian playwright Timothy Findley, at Ewing at 8 pm on the 8th and in the CPA at 1:30 pm on the 6th. If that sounds like a lot of performances, remember that this is the last week. And check here on the calendar if you want to keep it all straight or see ticket information.

Also continuing through the 9th is the Station Theatre production of Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles, a much-acclaimed new play about a grandmother and grandson trying to find common ground after he bikes across America and lands in her West Village apartment. Sara Boland-Taylor directs Janice Rothbaum and Casey Thiel as grandma Ida and grandson Leo in performances at 8 pm Wednesday through Saturday at the Station Theatre on Broadway in Urbana.

Terry Gilliam's weirdly wonderful Brazil comes to Champaign's Art Theater Co-op on August 6 and 7 in the 10 pm slot. Gilliam, the only American member of the Monty Python troupe, paints a picture of a sort of anarchic alt-world, not exactly the future or the past or the now, just a world that ours might have been or might become, where paranoia, an all-powerful bureaucracy and eccentric technology, as well as a lot of duct work, tubes and pipes, rule the day. That world is crushing the spirit of an everyman named Sam Lowry, played by Jonathan Pryce. It's funny, strange and sad, but never depressing. And visually, it is indeed a "nonstop dazzler," as the Art's website calls it.

If you were a fan of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series of time travel romance novels, you'll either be thrilled or horrified to find out there's finally a screen adaptation of her work. It's on Starz and it starts August 9 at 8 pm Central. And if you just can't wait, Starz is making the first episode available online now. Irish actress Catriona Balfe plays English nurse Claire Randall, the one who tumbles backwards in time, away from war-torn Britain, landing in Scotland in 1743. Her Scottish love interest, rough and tumble Jamie Fraser, is played by Scotsman Sam Heughan.

New Route Theatre is officially moved in to its new space at 814 Jersey Avenue in Normal now, and they have been celebrating that fact with a summer schedule of workshops and staged readings. The next one up is set for August 15th. It's called Flashbacks, and it is written by Gregory Hicks and Erica Thurman, based on Thurman's prior writings.  Hicks also directs. New Route describes Flashbacks as "a multi-media work that examines the intersection of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, poverty, sexism and racism through poetry, rap and dialogue." The performance will begin at 7:30 pm on August 15, with a talkback afterwards. Tickets are available at the door for a donation. If you'd like more information, you can visit New Route's Facebook page or email new.route.theatre@gmail.com

The University of Illinois' Krannert Center for the Performing Arts recently sent out its big annual packet on the 2014-15 season, featuring "Renée Fleming, Ragamala Dance, KODO, Cassandra Wilson, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Rosanne Cash, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Circus Oz, and dozens of other artists and intriguing events," as they put it. Tickets go on sale August 16 at 10 am for everything from the season's opening night festivities September 12 with Tiempo Libre, Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernández and Samba Soul to the Mark Morris Dance Group's Acis and Galatea in May, 2015. All the details are available here.

Doctor Who with new doctor Peter Capaldi comes to BBC America on August 23 with the "takeover" episode at 7 pm Central that night. But there's a slew of Doctor Who programming before and after the premiere, including a live pre-show and after-show, a marathon of episodes voted through by fans, and movie theater screenings. To see the trailer for Who with Capaldi, click here. For the complicated list of what exactly is happening to usher in Doctor No. 12, thumb through BBC America's roundup.

What May May Have to Offer

May is a funny month for entertainment options in Bloomington-Normal, as students move out and theaters finish up their spring seasons. That means you'll have to act quickly to catch the last performances of the gripping drama Iron at Heartland Theatre in Normal, starring Lori Adams and Alyssa Ratkovich as a mother and daughter attempting to reconnect after years of separation due to the mother's incarceration, and Parkland College's production of Monty Python's Spamalot, the fizzy and silly musical about knights of the round table looking for a grail, holy or otherwise. They are certainly different sorts of theater, but both shows finish up this weekend, and both have received very good notices, so if you can get your hands on a ticket, they're both well worth your time.

Also in Champaign, the Station Theatre continues its run of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, directed by Kay Bohannon Holley and starring Steven M. Keen, Carolyn Kodes-Atkinson, Joi Hoffsommer, Joel Higgins and Kate Riley as the wealthy but dysfunctional Wyeth family of Palm Springs. Baitz's newest play was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

If you are a fan of British films or of the amazing Jim Broadbent or Lindsay Duncan, you'll want to check out Le Week-End at the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign, on screen till May 8. The premise of the film -- that long-married couple Nick and Meg travel to Paris for a second honeymoon to try to find the spark their relationship has lost -- is set up nicely in the film's trailer. Le Week-End was directed by Roger Michell, known for rom-com Notting Hill and the recent soft-focus FDR pic Hyde Park on Hudson, and is described as a "magically buoyant and bittersweet film." Le Week-End will also move into the Normal Theater for a short stay from May 29 to June 1.

Before that, the Normal Theater is focusing on Audrey Hepburn as directed by Stanley Donen for four nights, starting with Charade, the delightful 1963 romantic caper/spy film that paired Hepburn with Cary Grant, on May 8 and 9. The Hepburn/Grant romance is given even more sparkle by the terrific Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer song also called "Charade" that pops up in the movie. Then it's time for Funny Face, the 1957 musical where Audrey is a beatnik turned into a fashion model by photographer Fred Astaire, on the 10th and 11th. As it happens, May 10 is Fred's birthday. You can celebrate by catching Funny Face at the Normal Theater, taking a look at Holiday Inn on the RETRO channel on May 16, or staying up till the wee hours for The Belle of New York on Turner Classic Movies on May 22.

Community Players takes a break from musicals to offer the Neil Simon classic The Odd Couple, opening May 15. Brian Artman and Tom Smith play mismatched roommates Oscar and Felix for director Jeremy Stiller, with a supporting cast that includes Stacy Baker, Andy Cary, Drew German, Allen Popowski, Thom Rakestraw and Bridgette Richard. Performances of The Odd Couple continue through May 25. Tickets for this show and for the 2014-15 Community Players season are available now.

Players will also hold auditions for their upcoming production of Shrek: The Musical from 6 to 7 pm (for kids from 3rd to 8th grade) and 7 to 9 pm (for everybody older than 8th grade) on May 18, 19 and 20. For all the details, check out the Shrek Auditions Facebook page.

As part of its Summer Arts Festival, Eureka College Theatre will hold a stage combat workshop in Eureka in collaboration with Western Illinois University beginning May 19. The workshop will include 30 hours of instruction in stage fighting with single sword and quarterstaff, with additional "Dueling Arts Certification" in unarmed and small sword categories. At the end of the workshop, students will be tested for Society of American Fight Directors certification. Please note that enrollment is limited to 18 and that college credit may be available for participants. Click here to see costs and other important information.

Instead of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? -- the TV improv show that started in Britain and then spawned two American versions --  the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts will host Whose Live Anyway? at 7:30 pm on May 31. I feel the need to point out that it should probably be "Who's" to indicate "Who is live?" as opposed to "Whose," which really makes no sense in this context. But I guess these are improv performers, not people who necessarily know their "whose" from their "who's." Anyway, a quartet of performers who frequently visited Whose Line , including Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis and Charles "Chip" Esten, who has since broken out as an actor on ABC's Nashville, will take on some of the games they did on the television show as well as some new ones. This is not the first time Whose Line personnel have visited Bloomington, but it may be the first time since Esten became a major TV heartthrob. For more information, click here.

CHESS: Opening Moves Tonight at the Station Theatre

There was a day when chess champions from the United States and Russia vied not just for bragging rights across the board, but in international headlines, as well. As Cold War tensions remained high, the battle between American Bobby Fischer and Russian Boris Spassky for the World Championship in chess took on greater significance. A prize of $250,000 raised the stakes. When the two superstars, so different in approach and temperament, one shaped by the traditional, dominant Soviet system, the other an American loner known as much for his tics as his brilliance, met for 21 games played over two months in Iceland, the world watched to see who would ultimately checkmate whom.

The musical Chess, which opens tonight at the Station Theatre in Urbana, does not specifically deal with Fischer and Spassky, although there are certain similarities. There's an American and a Russian, and their match is played for higher stakes than just a few pawns, with political and diplomatic implications at every turn. But there's also romance, which was, as far as we know, not part of the famous 1972 World Championship, subplots involving defection, blackmail and selling out, action set in Thailand (to fit the show's most famous single "One Night in Bangkok"), and the inclusion of music written by the male half of ABBA, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with lyrics by frequent Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator Tim Rice. Singing chess playes is quite a departure from the real deal! And that means that Chess may have been inspired by Fischer and the infamous match in Reykjavik, but the musical is its own, distinctive creation on stage. In the end, it isn't so much about the game of chess as it is about loyalty, responsibility, family and honor. Note that there have been several different versions of Richard Nelson's book over the show's lifetime to reflect changes in the political landscape of Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union fell.

Chess opens tonight at 8 pm at the Station, directed by Mikel L. Matthews, Jr. This production features Warren Garver as American bad boy chess champ Freddie Trumper and David Barkley as Soviet challenger Anatoly Sergievsky. Malia Andrus plays Florence, caught between the two men professionally and personally, while Kevin Paul Wickart takes on Molokov, the Russian handler and manipulater behind Anatoly; Dawn McDaniel plays Svetlana, Anatoly's wife; Jessica Miller is the Arbiter, the president of the International Chess Federation overseeing the matches; and Wen Bu, Lola McQueen, Michael Murphy, Kenna Reiss, Craig Smith and Rachel Warren comprise the ensemble.

The Station's version of Chess continues in performance through December 21. All the details are here on the show's Facebook page. The Station Theatre is located at 223 North Broadway in Urbana, and you may call 217-384-4000 for reservations.

What's Up at the Station in 2013-14

Urbana's Station Theatre has announced the selection of plays which will make up its upcoming 42nd season. As usual, the Celebration Company will mix old and new, musical and straight plays, provocative and experimental and tried and true.

Opening the Station's fall season will be J.T. Rogers' explosive White People, a "candid, brutally honest meditation on race and language in our culture." A play that has been well-produced all over the country, including a 2009 Off-Broadway production, White People features three characters, three decidedly white people, who reveal their feelings about race straight up. It will be directed by Joel Higgins, with performances from October 3 to 19, 2013. You can see J.T. Rogers talk about the play along with a few brief excerpts here.

That will be followed by William Inge's 1950 classic Come Back Little Sheba, directed by Tom Mitchell from the University of Illinois Department of Theatre. Come Back Little Sheba goes inside an unhappy middle-class household that gets even more unhappy when Doc, a chiropractor, and Lola, his blowsy wife, take in a pretty young boarder. Shirley Booth played the role of Lola on Broadway and in the 1952 movie, earning a Tony and an Oscar for her efforts. Her Broadway Doc, Sidney Blackmer, also won a Tony Award, but Burt Lancaster, the film version of Doc, went away empty-handed. The play was revived on Broadway in 2008, with Law & Order's S. Epatha Merkeson as Lola, Kevin Anderson as Doc, and Zoe Kazan as Marie, the young woman who upsets the fragile balance in their lives. At the Station, Come Back Little Sheba will run from November 7 to 23.

The musical Chess, with music by the male half of ABBA, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and lyrics by Tim Rice, is up next, scheduled for performances December 5 to 21. The story goes that Rice wanted to fashion a musical around the Cold War, and he chose the game of chess to frame the action after all the brouhaha surrounding Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky's World Chess Championship in 1972. Chess the musical, complete with hit pop song, "One Night in Bangkok," began as a concept album, followed by a production in London's West End in 1986. To get the show to Broadway, a book by Richard Nelson was added, but the show still didn't take off in New York, with the Imperial Theatre version only running for 68 performances. Still, Chess has kept its fan following over the years, as musical aficionados hope to find a production of this elusive and slippery show somewhere. The Actors Fund put together a special one-night performance in 2003, with an all-star cast that included Josh Groban, Sutton Foster, Norm Lewis, Adam Pascal and Raul Esparza. Mikel Matthews, Jr. will direct for the Station.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's prep-school drama Good Boys and True will open the Station's new year, with performance beginning January 23, 2014, directed by Thomas Schnarre. Good Boys and True premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre as part of its 2007-08 season that examined "what it means to be American." Aguirre-Sacasa's story involves Brandon Hardy, a golden boy at exclusive St. Joseph's prep school, and what happens to threaten his life of privilege when a video that purports to show him doing something very, very bad emerges. You'll get a better picture of  the play from Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey's intriguing notes on the play written during its production there.

Sarah Ruhl's quirky and surreal The Clean House, directed by Katie Baldwin Prosise, takes the stage next. Ruhl has become one of the freshest voices in 21st century American theatre, and The Clean House pretty much defies description. Its characters include Matilde, a young Brazilian woman who has a job as a cleaning lady but really sees herself as a stand-up comedian; Lane, her employer, who has noticed the house isn't very clean and wonders if her housekeeper is depressed; Lane's sister, Virginia, who is a compulsive-obsessive cleaner and tries to make a deal with Matilde to clean Lane's house on the sly; Charles, Lane's husband, who is cheating on her with a much older woman; and Ana, the breast cancer patient/older woman Charles is in love with. Add some apples dropped from one reality into another, the funniest joke in the world, the Jewish concept of "besheret," something like a soul mate, and a trip to Alaska to cut down a yew tree, and you have some concept of The Clean House, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won Ruhl the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for playwriting. Look for The Clean House on stage at the Station from February 20 to March 8.

The March 27 to April 12 slot is still open, with details to be announced at some future date, but the final show of the 2013-14 season will be Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, directed by Kat Bohannon Holley, with performances scheduled for April 24 to May 10, 2014. Baitz's play, "a taut, witty drama about an affluent California couple whose daughter has written a memoir that threatens to reveal family secrets about her dead brother," was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and its Broadway production won a Tony Award for Judith Light as Best Actress in a Featured Role. The Broadway cast also included Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach as the Wyeth parents, and Rachel Griffiths as their tell-all daughter.

If you're looking for more information, you can scan the specifics -- and check back to see what fills that March/April slot -- at the Station Theatre website.