by BJ Jones, Artistic Director
Every year about this time, we reveal what our plans are for the next season. This year we are particularly excited, in that next season we are planning to bring you fresh work from some of America’s great artists as well welcoming some of our cherished collaborators back to Northlight for your enjoyment.
Our mission here at Northlight is as heartfelt as it is aspirational. As with every season, we want to entertain our audiences with work that we know will please you, based on our thirty-six seasons of producing for you. And as we have seen from your feedback, entertainment comes in many different styles and genres – some of you enjoy musicals, others enjoy classics, many wish to be provoked, and all want to be taken out of themselves and to be told stories that speak to their humanity.
This coming year is no different. The current king of Broadway, Stephen Schwartz, brings some of his favorite compositions wholly reworked to tell the intimate story of a married couple in turmoil in Snapshots. Stephen’s glorious music raises this simple story to embrace all of our own experiences.
Two summers ago playwright Jeffrey Hatcher joined Arizona’s Theatre Company’s Artistic Director David Ira Goldstein and me in a tour of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne’s Wisconsin estate, and the result has become the new play Ten Chimneys. We were thrilled with the historical significance of Ten Chimneys, where many of the theatre’s “royalty” summered in the Wisconsin air. So near to Chicago, Ten Chimneys is a wonderful day trip rich with history, and surprisingly filled with secrets to share. Hatcher’s work has been a regular fixture here at Northlight, perhaps most notably Tuesdays with Morrie with Mike Nussbaum and Tracy Letts.
E. Faye Butler (our Ella and Dinah Washington) is back in Black Pearl Sings with a stirring tale filled with rousing songs and following the moving journey of a prisoner whose music liberated her and us. Alan Ayckbourn, one of contemporary theatre’s most prolific writers, gives us a hilariously dysfunctional family Christmas story with Season’s Greetings. And in a few weeks we will announce our final selection, which will delight all of you to be sure.
All of our work seeks to reach a wider audience, stretching your theatrical experience, enlarging your vision and asking you to reach out to embrace the familiar and the unusual. As you think back on our thirty-six seasons, you can recognize this pattern and understand our artistic impulse. So many of you have joined us year after year, and we think this is the reason. Our covenant with each other is simple – you bring us your willingness to grow and we bring you our best efforts to grow with you. And as always, to be Intensely Entertaining.
Read more about the 2011-12 Season
