TimeLine Theatre Company, acclaimed for presenting plays that explore today’s social and political issues through the lens of the past, is thrilled to announce a 28th season that offers a scope unprecedented in the company’s history.
TimeLine’s 2024-25 subscription season involves producing partnerships with three of the city’s most preeminent arts institutions—Court Theatre, The Theatre School at DePaul University, and Writers Theatre—plus the internationally acclaimed company the american vicarious—and invites audiences to travel with TimeLine across Chicagoland to enjoy three unique and extraordinary theatrical experiences in Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, and Glencoe.
TimeLine Theatre’s three-play 2024-25 subscription season includes:
- The groundbreaking musical about family, faith, and love, Falsettos, with music and lyrics by William Finn, book by William Finn and James Lapine, produced in partnership with Court Theatre and directed by TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling;
- The Chicago premiere of the american vicarious’ Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen, an immersive reenactment of one of history’s most infamous debates on the occasion of its 60th anniversary, presented in partnership with The Theatre School at DePaul University;
- The world premiere of a play to be announced, produced in partnership with Writers Theatre.
This remarkable season marks the launch of TimeLine’s next era. The company will depart its longtime home on Wellington Avenue in Lakeview East this summer, moving to a temporary administrative base closer to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood as it continues the process toward establishing its future home at 5035 N. Broadway Avenue.
“TimeLine is ready to embark on a new era with this transformative season,” said Artistic Director PJ Powers. “As we move on from the space on Wellington Avenue that we’ve called home for the last 25 years, we’re moving closer to establishing our dynamic new home in Uptown. And while we await construction on that theatre to be fully completed, our 2024-25 season offers the opportunity to perform in three gorgeous, unique venues across Chicagoland.”
Powers continued: “We are so honored to partner with three venerable institutions we’ve long admired—Court Theatre, Writers Theatre, and the school where I am my fellow TimeLine founders trained, The Theatre School at DePaul University, as it celebrates its centennial. Each of the three productions in Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, and Glencoe will allow TimeLine to perform on a larger canvas, while retaining the signature qualities that have defined our work for the past 27 seasons—intimacy, transformation, provocative storytelling, and astounding artistry. We can’t wait to bring our supporters on this journey with us, across our city, alongside tremendous artistic partners, and leading into TimeLine’s next era.”
Save on regular ticket prices, enjoy impressive flexibility, and join the journey of TimeLine’s 2024-25 season with a TimeLine FlexPass. Four options, priced from $103 to $232, are now on sale. For more information and to purchase, call (773) 281-8463 x6 or visit timelinetheatre.com.
THE 2024-25 TIMELINE THEATRE SUBSCRIPTION SEASON IS:
FALSETTOS
music and lyrics by William Finn
book by William Finn and James Lapine
produced in partnership with Court Theatre
directed by TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling
November 8 – December 8, 2024
presented at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago
The Tony Award-winning Falsettos is a tribute to family and its many forms; a playful interrogation of faith and identity; and a celebration of the beauty, complexity, and necessity of love.
Marvin has left his wife, Trina, for his male lover; Trina has married Marvin’s therapist; and their son, Jason, is grappling with his parents' divorce and his looming Bar Mitzvah. Everyone’s world has been upended and now, they must explore what their new lives may hold. Featuring a sung-through score and set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic, Falsettos is a humorous and heartbreaking web of ex-spouses, co-parents, new lovers, and the lesbians next door.
TimeLine Associate Artistic Director Nick Bowling returns to Court Theatre—where he served as Associate Artistic Director nearly 30 years ago alongside Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell—to make his Court directorial debut. Groundbreaking in its depiction of queerness, Falsettos shines with ingenuity and contemporary relevance.
Chicago Premiere
the american vicarious’
DEBATE: BALDWIN VS. BUCKLEY
adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen
presented in partnership with The Theatre School at DePaul University
January 29 – March 2, 2025
presented at DePaul University’s Cortelyou Commons, 2324 N. Fremont St., Chicago
Following critically acclaimed runs in New York City and London, TimeLine is bringing the american vicarious’ radically staged production of the historic debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. to Chicago, on the occasion of the event’s 60th anniversary.
“Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?” This was the topic on February 18, 1965, when an overflow crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to bear witness to a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America’s most influential conservative intellectual. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy. This historic clash reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of racial conflict that continues to haunt America.
TimeLine is thrilled to partner with the internationally acclaimed company the american vicarious and The Theatre School at DePaul University—the Midwest’s leading theatre conservatory and the alma mater of TimeLine’s founders—to present this theatrical event at DePaul’s Cortelyou Commons, which replicates the Cambridge Union where the original debate was held. It will be an immersive, site-specific production tailor-made for Chicago.
Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley will feature Teagle F. Bougere as Baldwin and Eric T. Miller as Buckley in the cast. Additional casting and production team members are to be announced.
World Premiere TO BE ANNOUNCED
produced in partnership with Writers Theatre
presented at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe
TimeLine will partner with Writers Theatre for the third production in its 2024-25 season, presenting a world premiere play to be announced.
ABOUT TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY
TimeLine Theatre Company, recipient of the prestigious 2016 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, was founded in April 1997 with a mission to present stories inspired by history that connect with today's social and political issues. Currently celebrating its 27th season, TimeLine has presented 90 productions, including 13 world premieres and 41 Chicago premieres, and launched the Living History Education Program and TimeLine South summer arts program, which bring the company's mission to life for students in Chicago Public Schools and beyond. Recipient of the Alford-Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence and the Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award from the Association for Strategic Planning, TimeLine has received 60 Jeff Awards, including an award for Outstanding Production 11 times.
The company has long been bursting at the seams of its current leased home located at 615 W. Wellington Avenue in Chicago’s Lakeview East neighborhood, where the theatre has been in residence since 1999. The company is currently working to develop its new home, located at 5035 North Broadway in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Plans feature an intimate black box theater seating up to 250 audience members, expanded area for the immersive lobby experiences that are a TimeLine hallmark, new opportunities for education and engagement, room to allow audience members to arrive early and stay late for theatergoing experiences that extend far beyond the stage, and more.
TimeLine is led by Artistic Director PJ Powers, Executive Director Mica Cole, and Board President John Sterling. TimeLine Company members are Tyla Abercrumbie, Will Allan, Nick Bowling, Janet Ulrich Brooks, Behzad Dabu, Charles Andrew Gardner, Lara Goetsch, Juliet Hart, Anish Jethmalani, Mildred Marie Langford, Mechelle Moe, David Parkes, Ron OJ Parson, PJ Powers, and Maren Robinson.
Major corporate, government and foundation donors providing season support via TimeLine’s Annual Fund include Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, Bayless Family Foundation, CIBC U.S., Crown Family Philanthropies, Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Polk Bros. Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and Van Dam Charitable Foundation. TimeLine also acknowledges the support of a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
For more information, visit timelinetheatre.com or Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (@TimeLineTheatre on all platforms).
ABOUT TIMELINE’S 2024-25 SEASON PARTNERS
Winner of the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award, Court Theatre reimagines classic theatre to illuminate our current times. In residence at the University of Chicago and on Chicago’s historic South Side, the theatre engages audiences with intimate and provocative experiences that inspire deeper exploration of the enduring questions that confront humanity and connect us as people. Court Theatre defines classic theatre as texts from any culture, tradition, or era that resonate throughout time and speak to our present moment. Now in its 69th season, Court Theatre was founded in 1955 as an amateur outdoor summer theatre at the University of Chicago. In 1971, classics professor Nicholas Rudall assumed the role of director and conceived Court’s tradition of translating and adapting classic texts for contemporary audiences. The theatre was established as a professional company with Actors’ Equity Association in 1975, and in 1981, Court built its current home, the intimate, 251-seat Abelson Auditorium. Charles Newell, Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director, has led Court since 1994. In the summer of 2024, Newell will transition out of his role as Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director and into the role of Senior Artistic Consultant, and Court will welcome a new Artistic Director.
The Theatre School at DePaul University, founded in 1925 as the Goodman School of Drama, is one of the nation’s oldest conservatory training institutions. With more than 15 undergraduate degree programs across three departments (design/technology, performance, and theatre studies), and two master’s degrees offered in acting and arts leadership, students combine rigorous coursework with continuous production practice to hone their skills. This hands-on approach develops students with practical problem-solving experience, not just in theatre, but in a variety of artistic and business pursuits. 100% of students receive a scholarship to help support artists from a variety of backgrounds and to encourage quality and accessible education to all. For more information, to donate, or to join The Theatre School’s mailing list, please visit theatre.depaul.edu or follow @theatreschooldepaul on Instagram.
Writers Theatre boldly looks to the future as it begins its 32nd season. Having captivated audiences for years with its dedication to creating the most intimate theatrical experience possible, the theatre is now a major Chicagoland cultural destination with a national reputation for excellence, being called “America’s finest regional theater company” by The Wall Street Journal. Since 1992, Writers Theatre has stayed true to its core values: valuing the power of the written word and uplifting the artists who bring that word to life. The company has produced over 120 productions—everything from inventive interpretations of classics to groundbreaking new work. In 2016, Writers Theatre opened a new, state-of-the-art facility designed by the internationally renowned Studio Gang Architects. The new facility has allowed the Theatre to accommodate its growing audience, while maintaining its trademark intimacy. Writers Theatre now welcomes more than 60,000 patrons each season and has helped establish the North Shore of Chicago as a premier cultural destination. Through its Literary Development Initiative, which has been responsible for the nurturing and premiering of over two dozen world premieres, the theatre has established itself as a major originator of new theatrical works. Serving as an extension of the Writers Theatre mission, WT Education programs engage hundreds of students each year with active learning opportunities centered around the written word.
the american vicarious is a New York City-based nonprofit producing company committed to generating creative content that crosses disciplinary boundaries and reflects on America’s ideals, realities, and that which unites and divides its people. Since its founding in 2018, the company has produced a wide variety of critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary works of art, including premiering Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley stage adaptation in New York City (2020, 2022) and London, Cambridge and Bristol (2023); two world premiere plays, Shooting Celebrities (2022) and (A)loft Modulation - a play with jazz (2019); the mixed-media jazz concert Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salvation (2020-22); two performance installations, Negative Liberty / Positive Liberty (2021) and Static Apnea (2020, The New York Times Critics Pick); and the documentary feature film, Far From the Nile (2022, Best Non-Fiction Film Award, Cairo Film Festival). The programs of the american vicarious are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and generous individual donors. For more information, visit theamericanvicarious.org.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Nick Bowling (Director, FALSETTOS) was the founding Artistic Director and is now Associate Artistic Director and a Company Member of TimeLine Theatre, where he has directed more than 30 productions. With Falsettos, he returns to Court Theatre, where he served as Associate Artistic Director nearly 30 years ago alongside Artistic Director Charles Newell, to make his Court directorial debut. Bowling is the recipient of eight Jeff Awards for Outstanding Direction, for The Normal Heart, The History Boys, Fiorello!, This Happy Breed, and The Crucible (TimeLine); Ragtime (Marriott); Sondheim On Sondheim (Porchlight); and Another Part of the Forest (Eclipse Theatre). Other directing credits at TimeLine include the Chicago premieres of Stefano Massini and Ben Power’s The Lehman Trilogy (with Vanessa Stalling) and J.T. Rogers’ Oslo at Broadway In Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse; Campaigns, Inc.; Master Class; The Audience; A Disappearing Number; The Last Wife; and Blood and Gifts, among many others. Other Chicago credits include The Sound of Music, Oliver!, and The Bridges of Madison County (Marriott), A Christmas Story (Paramount), Guys and Dolls and Cabaret (Northwestern University), A Catered Affair (Porchlight), Bach at Leipzig (Writers), and Time of the Cuckoo and Frozen Assets (Shattered Globe).
William Finn (Book, Music, and Lyrics, FALSETTOS) received two Tony Awards—Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score—for Falsettos. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award and Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting), Romance in Hard Times, A New Brain (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical) and Elegies: A Song Cycle. Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele's Tango Apasionado (music by the great Astor Piazzolla); with Michael Starobin, the music to Lapine's version of The Winter's Tale; and with Vadim Feichtner, the music to Mark Lamos’ production of As You Like It. For television, Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon Ira Sleeps Over, Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, Pokey Little Puppy's First Christmas and, with Ellen Fitzhugh, two Brave Little Toaster cartoons. Finn has written for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker. A graduate of Williams College, where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition, Finn now teaches a weekly master class at the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theatre Writing. Other projects include Little Miss Sunshine (with James Lapine) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which won two Tony Awards, ran more than 1,000 performances on Broadway, has been produced nationally and internationally, and is currently one of the most performed musicals in the United States according to Theatre Communications Group. Since 2006, he has been the Artistic Head of the Musical Theatre Lab at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass.
James Lapine (Book, FALSETTOS) is a leading American theatrical director, librettist, and playwright. A native of Ohio, he majored in history at Franklin and Marshall College and earned an MFA in Design from the California Institute of the Arts. While working at the Yale School of Drama teaching design, he adapted and staged his first play Photograph, which went on to play off-Broadway and win Lapine an Obie Award. He later staged the work Twelve Dreams and garnered acclaim for his breakthrough stage comedy Table Settings. Among Lapine's most notable works is Sunday in the Park with George, created in collaboration with Stephen Sondheim. It won two Tony Awards, numerous Drama Desk Awards, and the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lapine and Sondheim collaborated again on Into the Woods (Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score), Passion (Tony Award for Best Musical), and Sondheim on Sondheim. He collaborated with William Finn on March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score), which were later presented on Broadway as Falsettos; A New Brain, Muscle, and Little Miss Sunshine. In addition to his work in the musical theatre, Lapine is a noted director of dramatic works, including Shakespeare. On Broadway, he has directed David Henry Hwang’s Golden Child, The Diary of Anne Frank, Michel Legrand’s Amour, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and the 2012 Broadway revival of Annie, as well as several productions off-Broadway. He co-produced and directed the HBO documentary Six By Sondheim. In 2011, he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
Christopher McElroen (Adapter and Director, DEBATE: BALDWIN VS. BUCKLEY) is the Founding Artistic Director of the american vicarious. Previously, he co-founded the Classical Theatre of Harlem, where from 1999 to 2009, he oversaw 41 productions yielding 18 AUDELCO Awards, 6 OBIE Awards, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, and a Drama Desk Award. McElroen’s recent projects Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley (2022) and Static Apnea (2020) were both listed as “Highbrow and Brilliant” in New York magazine’s Approval Matrix, and Broadway World said “the american vicarious is on my list of must-see theatre companies.” In collaboration with six-time Grammy Award nominee Gerald Clayton, McElroen developed and directed Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salvation, which was presented at Harlem Stage in June 2022. McElroen received a 2013 Helen Hayes Award for his direction of the world premiere stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s iconic novel Invisible Man. McElroen had the honor of directing 51st (dream) State, the final work of poet, musician, and activist Sekou Sundiata, which premiered at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Alongside visual artist Paul Chan, actor Wendell Pierce, and Creative Time, he co-produced and directed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a year-long community development through the arts initiative in post-Katrina New Orleans. The archives from the production were acquired into the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).