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Mark L. Montgomery, Sandra Marquez and Stephanie Andrea Barron Marquez in 'Iphigenia in Aulist' at the Court Theatre. (Photo by Michael Brosilow)

Court Theatre 2015–16 Season to Include New Translation of ‘Agamemnon’

Also announced for the Chicago theatre are ‘Satchmo at the Waldorf,’ ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ and Greta Oglesby, back as Aunt Esther in ‘Gem of the Ocean.’

CHICAGO: The Court Theatre has announced its 2015–16 season, which will include the world premiere of a new version of Agamemnon, Terry Teachout’s Satchmo at the Waldorf, Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors and August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean.

The season will open with Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (Sept. 10–Oct. 11), starring Greta Oglesby as Aunt Esther, a role she originated in the play’s world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in 2003. The play follows Esther, living in 1904, as she takes in wayward souls  at her house in Pittsburgh.  Resident artist Ron OJ Parson will direct; this will be Parson’s seventh Wilson production for the Court.

Next, Court artistic director Charles Newell will helm a new version of Agamemnon (Nov. 4–Dec. 5, 2015), translated by former Court founding artistic director Nicholas Rudall. The play is the second installment in the Court’s three-year Greek Cycle. Sandra Marquez and Mark Montgomery, who both starred in last season’s production of Iphigenia in Aulis, will pair again for Agamemnon.

The new year will include Terry Teachout’s one-man-play Satchmo at the Waldorf (Jan. 7–Feb. 7, 2016), which imagines a reminiscence with Louis Armstrong on the eve of his death in 1971. Newell will direct.

Next will be Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night (March 10 through April 10), about a day in the life of the Tyrone family. Playwright David Auburn (whose play Proof was produced at the Court in 2013) will direct.

The season will conclude with Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, based on Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters, about the zany antics of a manservant employed by two upper-class criminalsNewell will direct the cast, which includes Court actors Timothy Edward Kane (An Illiad), Elizabeth Ledo (Tartuffe, The Secret Garden), Hollis Resnik (The Good Book) and Chaon Cross (Proof).

The Court Theatre is currently celebrating its 60th season, which includes the world premiere of Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson’s The Good Book, an exploration of the Bible.

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