CHICAGO: The Goodman Theatre has announced Live, a real-time online series that brings three new Goodman productions to audience’s homes through a partnership with Emmy-winning television producer Christina Tye and Hatfield Post/Production. Performances will be streamed live online in real time and will be filmed with multiple video cameras. Each production will have a five-performance limited run, with Tye and Gabe Hatfield working with directors to realize the vision of the play for camera.
“Much more than a simple capture of the play, this project is the innovative melding of cutting-edge technology, videography, and stagecraft—from the best way to seamlessly move a three-person camera crew from scene to scene, to how best to realize an ethereal or uncomfortable look,” said television producer, writer, and director Tye, whose national and international production experience includes NBC Network News, A&E, PBS, and more, in a statement. “I’m thrilled to partner with the Goodman to engage live audiences around the world.”
The series opens with the first live production of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside (May 13-16) since its Broadway run. Though creative writing professor Bella values her solitude, she finds herself opening up to a reclusive, mysterious freshman. Goodman artistic director Robert Falls will direct this production starring Mary Beth Fisher and John Drea.
Next up will be Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders (June 17-20), directed by Tiffany Nichole Green in her Goodman debut. The play follows Suzanne, an accomplished writer who returns to her alma mater to unravel a heartbreaking truth decades after she arrived there as one of a handful of Black freshman.
The Live series will conclude with Ike Holter’s I Hate It Here (July 15-18), in which Holter asks who we are in a world on the brink of explosion. Lili-Anne Brown will direct.
“It’s an enormous joy to at once produce live theatre again and reimagine how we deliver our art form,” said artistic director Falls, who conceived the Goodman’s new series together with his creative team, in a statement. “Each of these three extraordinary plays has something to say in this moment, realized through the vision of our directors in close creative collaboration with Christiana Tye and her team in a socially distanced process. We hope that Live is a special, memorable experience for artists and audiences alike as we await the day when in-person performances can safely resume.”
Founded in 1925, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre produces new plays, reimagined classics, and large-scale musical theatre works for Chicago-area audiences.
